How Will the #AHCA Vote Affect 2018 Prospects for the GOP?

Well they finally got it done and got it passed, and to say that the reactions on the right are “mixed” would be lazy as well as an understatement. On social media, reactions range from smugly triumphant to sputtering and enraged. Whether this is an embrace of big government or an actual repeal and replace is a topic for another article. Whether it will hang around GOP necks or carry them to victory in the midterms is the question I have.

We know what Democrats would like us to THINK will happen in 2018. They put on a childish and stupid display about it after the bill passed.

Democrats just sang “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey-ey Goodbye” on the House floor to Republicans who voted to repeal Obamacare pic.twitter.com/PxCgbr7ILu

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) May 4, 2017

But are they right? Obviously, we have to wait and see whether and what the Senate passes. We have to see if this becomes law. And we have to see if it immediately helps or hurts. That’s the reality of how people deal with things, no matter what prognosticators and bitter Democrat temper tantrums would have you believe.

Will premiums come down? Will the website crash? (Oh wait, that was the other guy.) Will Trumpcare be seen as a positive? You see, it’s not actually all about the emotion of the moment the way activists want you to think it is. It’s about how people are directly affected, about whether they lose coverage or gain it, whether they pay more or pay less, whether they get a tax gut punch or don’t. That’s what affects your reelection prospects.

With that being said, let me prognosticate some like the rest of my fellow jerks.

I think about active politically-minded voters as they go to the polls, and I think about whether people will see this as a betrayal of the libertarian, free-market ideals. It’s not actually a repeal (as promised), and it’s not even a full replace. It’s like a major revision and a new name. A makeover. So that can count against, if a person is merely looking at the principle.

But people aren’t doing that. Not even activists. What has hurt the GOP more than anything in recent years? What allowed the Trump takeover and the rise of populism? What has dimmed the warm light of the word “conservative values” and replaced it with the stark light of “America first”?

Inaction. Failure. That’s what. The biggest thing Republican voters have held against the GOP is that they lose fights and they fail to deliver. And even though you can go through and say, and I do say this, that they are currently failing to deliver with this very bill … that’s just not how it looks right now to voters. It looks like something was finally accomplished. It looks like the GOP is finally, FINALLY, doing something about Obamacare. That will count in their favor.

If this gets derailed in the Senate, if it turns into a disaster for American working voters, then things will change. Given. But in the political game of “how will this affect votes” I think it can only help a GOP that has, since the day Trump came down that escalator, been in a state of revolt against the perceived inaction and failure of the members of Congress. Getting something done is a changing of the radio station.

That’s how I see it. At the moment. Subject to change. Patent pending.

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