-Russ Hepler
As a result of Congress’ failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, by offering a strikingly similar alternative, everyone seemed to have egg on their faces. In typical Washington fashion, no one took responsibility for the failure, they only pointed fingers of blame. This is especially true of President Trump who has gone on a continued Twitter-tantrum against the only principled conservatives left in Washington – the House Freedom Caucus. He has blamed them for keeping Obamacare in place. He accused them of being responsible for Planned Parenthood’s continued taxpayer funding. He’s promised to raise primary opponents against them in 2018. He’s even attempted to shame the Caucus leaders by name.
The reality is that RINOs have never really wanted to repeal Obamacare. They like government control over as much of American society as do their liberal democrat colleagues. Trump went along with RINOcare and attempted to place himself at the head of the parade. How much he really knew about the plan in advance is questionable. While Reince Priebus was quarterbacking for the “moderate” RINOs at the White House, Trump may have just been following a prepared script. However, when conservatives in Congress had the temerity to stand against this dubious plan, Trump became unglued. How dare they take his limelight away from him? Never mind he promised full repeal over and over, while he was on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, people are being reminded that with Trump political ideology doesn’t matter one bit; only loyalty. His “base” is getting more and more wobbly by the day. Trump was elected by a small core group of sycophants who could see no evil when it came to Trump and a whole lot of “at least he’s better than Hillary” voters. By attacking the very people who got him elected – the average conservative voter – he stands to lose a tremendous amount of political capital. Also, signaling that he’d rather work with Democrats than conservatives won’t win Trump any Miss Congeniality prizes at Tea Party events. Many people may be waking up to the fact that Trump really just used them to get elected. He really has little intention of following through on all of the promises he made during the 2016 campaign regarding conservative issues. His foot dragging on things like Planned Parenthood defunding, strong immigration law changes, and the promised securing of religious freedom for those who reject the radical LGBT agenda, will only cause his base to shrink further.
In short: the political “like affair” many Americans had with Trump on Election Day may soon be ending. If “drain the swamp” really meant add new mud for all of his loyal pollywogs, then MAGA will just be a forgotten campaign slogan of the past – just like “It’s the economy, stupid!” As more and more people become disillusioned by Trump’s infantile need to always blame someone else, he will throw more and more of those who supported him under the bus. It’s who he is. For Trump, the cardinal sin is disloyalty. It doesn’t matter the issue or the circumstance. If his ego isn’t affirmed, then people have no value to him. Of course, the last holdouts will be the Trump fanatics who still mostly believe he walks on water. But, just like a middle school girl’s first romantic betrayal, they will come crashing down at some point, unless Trump can rise above his past and his ego-driven needs by truly putting the needs of the country first. He may want to utter Louis XIV’s words, “I am the state”, but as Queen Hillary found out, America really doesn’t like royalty.
So, the question remains – is the crush coming to an end? Or, will Trump figure out that it’s better to be remembered as a great President than it is to be remembered as a great reality show star.