The Dead Raccoon That Is Trumpcare

What The Failure Of Trumpcare Can Tell Us About What’s To Come

I believe President Trump made the best of a bad situation in withdrawing his healthcare proposal. Admitting that he lost is not something that comes easily for Trump, but distancing himself from a sure-fire disaster is second nature.

We’re finally getting a sense of what the Trump Presidency is like. Make bold promises, offer the moon, and then rely on others to carry out the hard work once the deal is agreed to. The promise on the campaign trail was to immediately repeal Obamacare, and replace it with something much better. Clearly, Donald Trump had no idea what that something better was, but he figured somebody in the senate was smart enough that they had been busily preparing for the moment when they might have a chance to repeal the ACA and replace it.

He was wrong. He left things in the hands of Paul Ryan, who was confident, articulate, and absolutely out of touch with reality. Trumpcare was in fact Ryancare, and Ryancare might just as well have been called Randcare (Rand as in Ayn, not Paul). Ryan’s idea was that if you were poor or you were sick that people like you should not burden people like Ryan’s opportunity to get Lasik eye surgery.

Now I don’t consider our government to be much of a democracy, but there are limits to what any government can get away with. Even brutal dictators have to show some semblance of concern for the poor and unfortunate. Even Adolf Hitler had to disguise what he had planned for the untermenschen.

So Trump/Ryan/Rand care was dead in the water. Rule number one that astute politicians learn is not to stand next to a dead raccoon or people might associate you with the stink. Given that the dead raccoon is sitting on top of his head, Trump was unable to distance himself from it. Fortunately Obama had a stinky raccoon of his own, and Trump was savvy enough to put that in front of the public’s nose and point to it as the cause of the stench.

Now Obama’s raccoon wasn’t quite dead, but it never was a very healthy animal. It was the spawn of a most unlikely coupling. In fact, there is good reason to believe that it was Mitt Romney and not Barak Obama who was the biological father. It doesn’t matter, it bore the Obama name, and therefore President Trump could never let it live. You see, Donald Trump can never tolerate anything that has the name of another man. He’s like the sultan in 1,001 Nights, who takes a virgin bride each night and has them beheaded in the morning before they can cheat on him. The thought of other males in his domain is unacceptable. Trump is the alpha-male and any other who challenges him must be eliminated.

So with Trumpcare dead, it was best to shift attention to Obamacare. Let’s put aside for a moment all these health care plans mean something to sick people and even well people who are afraid of needing healthcare someday, because Donald Trump never cared about that end of things. Trump cared about scoring points with the voters and Obamacare was a vulnerable program. Still is, especially since the Republicans have done nothing to nurture it and everything to wound it. Again, let’s not worry about those people who are actually in need, let’s worry about scoring political points.

Donald Trump will let Obama’s lame child live, all the while tripping it whenever it walks by, depriving it of food and scaring off those who would try to help it out. Let it shamble weakly towards its grave, the whole while taunting it and by extension any other male who would attempt to put their name to something that is rightfully Trump’s. That’s what alpha-males do.

But here we have exposed Donald Trump’s weakness: his unending need to feed his ego. Here should be the game plan of Democrats going forward, to rename every proposal the Republicans put forth from here on out. Donald Trump comes up with a tax proposal that would reduce taxes for the wealthiest Americans? Call it The Ryan Code. Instantly Trump will lose all desire to support it. A new war in the Middle East? Call it McCain’s war if you want peace. This must be done for every plan President Trump comes up with, every single one. Except Trumpcare. Leave that stinky thing firmly perched atop the president’s head.

P.S. The raccoon in the picture is not dead, it is only sleeping. I would never post a picture of a dead raccoon.