Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Not Taking Politicians Seriously

Sarah Kliff, the healthcare expert at Vox, talked to a bunch of Kentucky voters who buy insurance through Obamacare's exchanges but voted for Trump. A typical conversation:
Kliff: Trump campaigned on repealing Obamacare. Do you think he's going to repeal all these programs that you've been signing people up for?

Oller: The funny thing is, my husband said, “You know, he’s going to eliminate health care.” But he really can’t totally take it out, because everybody has to have health care. You can't go backward....

Kliff: Did you hear him talking about repealing Obamacare in the campaign?

Oller: Yeah, he was going to get rid of it. But I found out with Trump ... he says a lot of stuff. [laughs] I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we'll see.
And this:
“We all need it,” Oller told me when I asked about the fact that Trump and congressional Republicans had promised Obamacare repeal. “You can’t get rid of it.”
There's a weird dynamic in American politics right now, which is that millions of people vote for Republicans on the assumption that they will never keep their promises to gut the safety net. The Democrats who are actually defending Social Security and Medicare get no credit from these small town Kentucky voters.

The one thing that might actually give the Democrats a commanding majority in American politics is if Republicans actually got enough power to do the things many of them have been promising for decades.

1 comment:

G. Verloren said...

I thought Trump was supposed to be the straight talking political outsider, who tells it like it is and earned people's votes by promising them change they can believe in him to deliver, and he's gonna make America great again?

Now he's just another politician, and he wasn't actually being honest, he's not really going to do the things he said he'd do, and people didn't vote for him because of his campaign promises but rather despite them, because they knew he was just blowing smoke?

Which is it?

Trump's support base seems to flip flop almost as fast and frequently as he himself does. If mental gymnastics was a sport, they'd be able to sweep the Olympics.