It's not just Repeal and Replace that's dead. Repeal and Wait is also dead; just hours after it was introduced it was killed by 3 GOP Senatrices.
But the way the Repeal and Replace bill died is pretty amazing. Only 13 senators had committed to vote for the BCRA, and 13% approval seems in line with the national polls, but it's unusual for a signature bill. And then two senators with safe seats and distant elections decided to come out against the bill, so that neither would be "that one guy" who killed it. But they're also mainstream Republicans who did not inform the Majority Leader before defecting. So it's easy to read into this that it was deeply unpopular with the Republican senators, and a group of them carefully chose people to be the public face of the defection. They announced this way on purpose, on an day when there was no news to drive the defection, probably in an effort to surprise and embarrass Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The dude that's supposed to be a legislative savant just got screwed by his own caucus and he didn't even see it coming.
And so, six months into the Trump administration, they have zero legislative accomplishments, +1 right-wing Supreme Court justice, a bunch of congressmen with a vote on record to take health care away from 20+ million Americans to finance a tax cut for the rich, a scandal brewing in the White House that somehow manages to get worse every day, and a President who likes "winning" but can't be trusted to sell even the basics of a policy to legislators. Like are they even trying? They could have done an infrastructure bill, got the win, and looked like competent leaders. But now, my Republican friends: Winter is coming.
-- ∇×V
But the way the Repeal and Replace bill died is pretty amazing. Only 13 senators had committed to vote for the BCRA, and 13% approval seems in line with the national polls, but it's unusual for a signature bill. And then two senators with safe seats and distant elections decided to come out against the bill, so that neither would be "that one guy" who killed it. But they're also mainstream Republicans who did not inform the Majority Leader before defecting. So it's easy to read into this that it was deeply unpopular with the Republican senators, and a group of them carefully chose people to be the public face of the defection. They announced this way on purpose, on an day when there was no news to drive the defection, probably in an effort to surprise and embarrass Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The dude that's supposed to be a legislative savant just got screwed by his own caucus and he didn't even see it coming.
And so, six months into the Trump administration, they have zero legislative accomplishments, +1 right-wing Supreme Court justice, a bunch of congressmen with a vote on record to take health care away from 20+ million Americans to finance a tax cut for the rich, a scandal brewing in the White House that somehow manages to get worse every day, and a President who likes "winning" but can't be trusted to sell even the basics of a policy to legislators. Like are they even trying? They could have done an infrastructure bill, got the win, and looked like competent leaders. But now, my Republican friends: Winter is coming.
-- ∇×V