Last night Senate Republicans took a step toward taking access to healthcare away from 20-30 million children and adults. Their Obamacare repeal process has a long ways to go; Congresscritters are beginning to understand that constituents might not be so happy about losing doctors and bankruptcy protection; and the great orange conman doesn't want trashing his phony pretense of sticking up for the little (white) guy to be the first accomplishment of his regime. So it ain't over til it is over and, just maybe, some of these kids or their younger siblings might still be able to go to a doctor if the dice role just right. But nobody should count on it.
And so, after the trauma of an unanticipated narrow election defeat, we get back to the ordinary stuff of politics: Republicans working hard to guarantee their medical, fossil fuel, and corporate sugar daddies get all the goodies; the rest of us trying to keep the enfeebled Democratic Party caucus from making any compromises that would give legitimacy to the rightwing wrecking crew.
- Ordinary GOPer viciousness. They will repeal or sabotage anything that requires taxes on their sponsors. Period. They will work to erode the rights of all who aren't straight, white men. That's what they do. And they'll make sure they have judges who defend the same perverted values.
- Kleptocracy. Trump intends to use his position to enrich himself and probably throw a few bones around to control his sycophants. Republicans could stop him, but they are too scared or on the take themselves.
- Trump's bullying authoritarianism. Sure, he'd like to emulate Putin's unconstrained power. He makes that quite clear. This is where we should expect our own Reichstag fire -- an unanticipated happening that the autocrat uses to overthrow previous constraints on his power. Can he scare us into letting him? We've been a bit of a fraidy cat nation since 9/11. Are we still? Time will tell. Courage and love are the best remedies.
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