Written by Frances Wilkinson
President Joe Biden's chronically low poll numbers. The brutal war in Gaza drove a wedge into the Democratic coalition. The immigration crisis at the southern border and the overwhelmed immigration court system. A shocking election victory for anti-immigrant agitators in the Netherlands, a staunch ally of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
With less than a year until Election Day 2024, supporters of the rule of law and democratic institutions have much cause for concern. Still, the Christmas lights shined a little brighter when Donald Trump reminded everyone that his incompetence is still an advantage for democracy.
In a Nov. 25 post on his weak social networks, Trump said Democrats were having a tough week and he wanted to get them out of trouble. Or at least that's what he might say. “Obamacare's costs are out of control, and what's more, it's not good health care,” President Trump wrote. “We are seriously considering alternatives.”
In response, Democrats in Washington attempted to shift the agenda from war (and its funding) to health care. The party is relatively united on this issue, typically holding a double-digit lead in the polls over Republicans. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in June found that respondents agreed with Democrats on health care, by a 12-point margin over Republicans, and that the gap was offset by Democrats' advantage on abortion. It was similar. There are few topics that Democrats would rather discuss.
Few topics expose Trump's fraud so effectively. The former president first promised “great things” on health care in 2015. In fact, the argument was that because Mr. Trump is the world's most successful and leading businessman, he would be able to design a health care plan that would yield far better results. Significantly reduce costs. If you are a very stable genius, everything was very easy.
Of course, anyone who knew anything about health care or Trump knew he was lying. Not just a little, but completely. Eight years later, no such plan exists, and there never will be. But President Trump decided it would be a good idea to remind everyone of his empty rant, along with his previous efforts to kill Obamacare, the health care system that tens of millions of Americans depend on. In 2017, Republicans were one vote away from repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a bucket of liberal tears. President Trump was furious that President Barack Obama's signature effort survived. Apparently he's still around.
Biden recently said his “predecessor once again called for cuts that could strip health insurance for tens of millions of Americans.” “They just don't give up.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continued to remind Democrats of their biggest talking point in the Obamacare battle, combining the lack of “pre-existing conditions” with new talking points about prescription drugs and abortion. . Pelosi said at a news conference that Trump “is here to take care of your health.” “The Affordable Care Act is scheduled to be voted on.”
For decades, message discipline was the special sauce of American political movements, until the rise of President Trump. Polls and focus groups guided the formulation of their messages, and candidates who stuck to the script generally fared much better than those who didn't.
Trump turned everything on its head with stream-of-consciousness, demagoguery, insults, random nonsense and lies layered on the campaign trail. The press agrees, with President Trump reneging on promises to create everything from his health care plan to his wife Melania Trump's mysterious (and never released) immigration records. I forgave him.
Trump's lies are still working overtime. Entire political parties are now dedicated to maintaining it. But his lies, especially about health care, coupled with the cruelty of his efforts to take health insurance away from millions of people, never made headlines. For most Americans, words like “open borders” conjure up images of opaque and faraway places, but “health care” is familiar. After eight years of lies and debunking, only the most bewildered cultists could believe that President Trump even tried to learn anything about health insurance, much less devised policies to improve it.
That's why you'll hear Democrats talk about health care every chance they get. It's also a reason to be brave if you want to keep authoritarians out of the White House. This won't be the last of Trump's sloppy gaffes.
Frances Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. politics and policy. He previously served as editor-in-chief of The Week and writer for Rolling Stone magazine.
