re: #292 Joe Bacon

And here I am reading about how it looks like we’re going to have another shutdown on Friday.

This is bringing back memories of Tooty Frooty Newty’s 5 week shutdown in 1995-96…

Josh Marshall has a pretty good take on it - To Scare Dems, Trump Threatens to Light Himself on Fire

The President’s Wall is not popular. For much of the country it is a divisive, bad idea. Even those who do not oppose it per se, do not view it as a high priority. One illustrative data point: a late March AP/NORC poll found that 58 percent opposed new funding for a wall while only 28 percent support it. It’s very unpopular. Notably this is about spending. Remember, “who’s gonna pay for the wall?” Mexico!

So what happened to Mexico paying? Trump continues to pretend that he is somehow compelling Mexico to pay for the wall on some sort of inter-state layaway plan. But clearly this is nonsense. That central premise of the campaign, impose a national humiliation on Mexico by forcing them to pay for a wall on the border is out the door, forgotten. Americans are going to pay for it and it is not popular.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, Obamacare is more popular than it has ever been. Indeed, the failed repeal attempt has made it more popular. The repeal debacle also solidified key elements of how the public sees the law. Popularity of the law called Obamacare has become unfastened from the fate of those who receive care under it.

Let’s discuss what this means.

Obamacare provides coverage for more than 20 million people. Any replacement or change to the law will be and was this spring evaluated in terms of the numbers of people who lost or gained coverage. House Republican arguments about gaining the freedom to lose or abandon your coverage went nowhere. Moderate Republicans and many non-moderates (Tom Cotton, for example) were stung by the public backlash against changes that would lose people coverage. What the White House is threatening is a cut off of subsidies which would destabilize and possibly collapse Obamacare exchanges leading to loss of coverage or higher premiums.

In other words, President Trump is now threatening the Democrats with doing the thing that terrified many Republicans out of repealing Obamacare only a month ago.