Sarah Kliff and Jeff Stein over at Vox wrote, Senate Republicans Not Ready to Give up on Obamacare Repeal. Although there is shockingly little evidence in the article. It is mostly just a chance for various Republicans to grouse about the law. Here’s my favorite from Seantor Pat Roberts, “Obviously we’re going to have to do something because our health care system is like Thelma and Louise. They drove it off the cliff and we need to stop that car.”

Leave aside the fact that once the car drove off the cliff you can’t stop it. I want to know where the catastrophe is The article is filled with all kinds of claims like this. Senator John Kennedy gets the depth of thought of the Republicans perfectly when he said, “I think the main area of consensus is that Obamacare sucks and we can do better.” I’ll come back to that “we can do better” in a moment.

Ridiculous Obamacare Repeal Rhetoric

I’m getting tired of this ridiculous Obamacare repeal rhetoric that isn’t backed up by anything other than an occasional (and usually apocryphal) anecdote. As most of you know, I work as a freelancer. But there was a recent possibility of getting another job. And I wasn’t keen on it. Still, I would have taken it in a second because it offered medical and dental coverage. This was during the period where it really looked like the Republicans were going to rip healthcare away from 24 million people and make my premiums go sky high. The truth of the matter is that Obamacare has been a godsend to me. And I am sick to death of hearing Republicans go on about how terrible it is?

How exactly is Obamacare terrible? Because over 20 million more people have health insurance? Because it has decreased healthcare inflation? The truth is that we know why they hate it: it taxes the rich a tiny amount. And fine! If they want to come out and admit that, good for them. The Republicans are the party of the wealthy. If they want to embrace that publicly, they will stop winning any elections, but at least they will show some integrity.

Obamacare Has Been Wildly Successful

In my life, there are two kinds of people:

1. People who haven’t been affected by Obamacare at all
2. People who have been helped by Obamacare.

That’s it! So enough with the “Obamacare sucks!” and “Obamacare is going to explode!” Both of those might be true soon thanks to the work of Republicans. But left alone, Obamacare will continue to improve the lives of regular Americans.

Can Republicans Do Better?

But what about Senator Kennedy’s idea that they “can do better” with Obamacare repeal? Really? Because we have been waiting for many years for this super-great healthcare reform bill from the Republicans. The truth is that Republicans haven’t really worked on something to replace Obamacare because Obamacare is already the most conservative approach to reform that is possible. Any ideas that they have that would actually work always run into the same problem: they are forbidden by conservative dogma.

I have to give some plaudits to the House Freedom Caucus, because a number of them were willing to admit the general problem that Republicans have with Obamacare: it helps people who can’t afford it get health insurance. They don’t think we should do that. Now most people hear that and think that these people are one step below Nazis in terms of humanism. But hey, it’s not my fault the Republicans turned into a postmodern fascist party over the last 40 years.

Saving Face

But I’m not concerned at this point. Kliff and Stein put it well, “What you’re seeing now is a lot of talk about reviving the repeal effort without much substance behind it.” And that’s what this is all about. It’s allowing Republicans to save face. They know they are going to do nothing. But neither they nor the White House likes all the press they’re getting about losing and giving up. So they’ll say they aren’t giving up.

It makes perfect sense! Whatever they say is true because they have fully accepted postmodern analysis: there is no reality, just opinions. So they say Obamacare sucks. And they say they haven’t given up on Obamacare repeal. Neither is true.

But to Republicans it’s just, like, you’re opinion, man.

I remember back in 1994, Howard Stern decided to run for governor of New York as a Libertarian. But then everything went wrong. He won the primary overwhelmingly, but he refused to file paperwork with the government regarding the election. Then he didn’t work with the Libertarian Party. I even recall him complaining on air that he was going to take a huge pay cut. In the end, he didn’t run. And I always thought at the time that his real reason was that he knew he wasn’t going to win. And should he win, he wasn’t interested in the job. I think the same thing is true of our very own President Trump.

The thing about President Trump is that it is clear that he’s very upset with how this whole presidency is getting in the way of his life. And it’s understandable. Could his life have been any better than it was before he became President Trump? Think about it. The Apprentice had two seasons left — max. And you know that just about every newspaper editor in America was looking forward to a headline like this, “NBC to Trump: ‘You’re Fired!’” Really, it would have been crushing to his ego.

Almost President Trump Would Have Been Better

The best thing that could have happened to him is if he lost the general election. Because he got everything he was going to from the race itself: performance after performance in front of screaming fans. If he had lost, he would have shouted, “Voter fraud!” And his supporters would have bought it. In fact, it would have become a whole new spoke of the conspiracy theory wheel. But instead, Donald J Trump because President Trump, and it all went really badly. And don’t forget: if he doesn’t manage to win re-election, he’s just a loser. It’ll be hard to claim that it was voter fraud when the same system gave him four years in the White House.

Golfing

I ran across an interesting little article over at New York, Fox News Tweets That Trump Was at the White House When He Was Actually at His Golf Course. Out of context, the fact that President Trump plays so much golf is no big deal. I’ve always had a problem with these complaints — even when leveled against presidents I didn’t like. People have a right to a little R&R — even presidents. The problem is that Trump was one of the loudest voices complaining that Obama was always golfing.

Obama’s Golfing

A really stupid website called “The Obama Golf Counter” claims that Obama golfed on 306 days of his presidency. To put this into perspective, Dwight Eisenhower played about 800 rounds in his 8 years. But that still comes to 10 percent of his days including some golfing.

Trump’s Golfing

But Trump? According to Slate, in his first 9 weeks, President Trump has played golf at least 12 times. That’s almost 20 percent of his days. And this is part of his first 100 days — you know: the action packed period when the president supposedly gets so much done.

He Likes to Watch

On Sunday, the president spent an hour at Trump National. He didn’t play golf, obviously. The White House claimed he had three meetings during that time. But based upon pictures, it looks like he spent the whole time with a couple of buds watching golf on television.

President was at Trump National for 55 minutes today. WH tells pool that he had three meetings. Instagram posts suggest he was watching golf pic.twitter.com/5R7k8yUF1Q

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) March 26, 2017

And that takes us back to the New York article, which was based on a tweet announcing the following, “News Alert: @POTUS spending weekend working at the White House.” That was on a day he spent almost six hours golfing, if you consider the travel time. But I don’t care how much he golfs. The world is doubtless safer when he is golfing. I bring it up only to point out that President Trump is not interested in his job.

Why Become President?

I’ve often said that anyone would have to be crazy to want to be president. But I understand why Hillary Clinton wanted to be president: she’s spent almost her whole life in politics. She cares about policy and wants to accomplish things. Now I think that Trump cares about things too. I think his instincts on a lot of things are liberal. But he doesn’t care about them enough to have a vision. So he’s there to just push whatever the Republican establishment offers him.

Remember when Trump was all against the Republican establishment? Remember what screw-ups they were? He made a lot of sense. But the grand total of the energy he was willing to expend fighting them was to call them names while in front of an audience.

That’s what Trumpcare was all about. It wasn’t anything close to what Trump promised. He didn’t even get to the point of realizing that Obamacare was the most conservative healthcare reform that works. Why should he have to do unpleasant things now when he didn’t before? He wants his old job, but with the addition of being called President Trump.

President Trump Doesn’t Want the Job

There are a lot of kinds of non-politicians who run for a major office. There’s Al Franken who might not have held elected office, but was very involved in Democratic politics and who lived and breathed politics. He has gone on to be a great Senator. There’s Arnold Schwarzenegger who was at least somewhat interested in politics and did try to do a good job as Governor of California. I think most people fall into the broad category of people who at least try to do the job.

Trump is not such a man. People talk about impeachment. People talk about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. But I think it is much more likely that President Trump will just step down. He’ll come up with an excuse, “The system itself is broken and the president just doesn’t have the power to make America great again.” Regardless, he wanted the title: President Trump. He never wanted the job.