Trump stated that he won’t own the Affordable Care Act and its success.
What would have happened if Nixon had said he didn’t own the Vietnam War he inherited?
What if Obama had said he didn’t own the economy that was in free fall when he took office? What if he had said that Bush had caused the massive unemployment rate and the unprecedented collapse of real estate values that was underway in 2007 and early 2008?
What if Obama had said he didn’t own the Iraq and Afghanistan wars he inherited?
As compared to Trump and his national inheritance, Obama really did inherit a mess when he took office. Not once did we hear him blame Bush for it. He just did what he had to – and it caused massive deficits and debt, but we’re all here, and our real estate values are almost back to 2007 level (yippee!), the unemployment rate is down and the stock market is booming. Trump didn’t make those things happen. We Americans did, under Obama’s steady leadership, calm demeanor, and stubborn responsibility-taking.
Trump apparently thinks the United States, its economy, and the health insurance for millions of Americans is another Trump Taj Mahal. When it doesn’t work anymore, the doesn’t own it anymore, and he files Chapter 11.
Please make note, while Trump says filing Chapter 11 is “using the laws of the country brilliantly – smart”- I don’t agree with him. Filing Chapter 11 is walking away from the responsibilities you took on when you signed up for deal, it’s stiffing your creditors who have spent their own money and labor into making your projects happen and then not paying them, it’s walking away from the commitment you made to the employees you hired, and it’s walking away from the banks (and apparently Russian oligarchs) who funded your projects.
When things don’t go well for Don Donald, he walks away.
He is treating our country like he treats his own businesses. While he can suck money out of them, he will. When they wear out, he “doesn’t own them anymore.”
I have been a business leader all my life. I have learned early that to have a chance at success, I have to take personal responsibility for everything that happens. If a deal goes sour, it’s my responsibility because I didn’t negotiate proper terms, didn’t research it sufficiently in advance, didn’t seek good counsel from my staff, or didn’t estimate the job properly. It’s my problem, and I own it. If an employee makes a mistake, I will show the employee the mistake so he or she can learn from it, and then I proceed to fix the mistake as best I can. I will own it.
Trump took over a trite soundbite of the GOP: “Repeal and Replace.” Obviously, Repeal is easy. You just undo the work somebody else (Obama, the Congress, and their experts) did many years ago. When you repeal something, you make it so it is back to what it was before it was done. Obviously, going back to the state of healthcare in 2007 is not solving any problem. It’s just going back to that time. We had a problem we were trying to fix with the Affordable Care Act.
Since Repeal by itself does not work, it has to come with Replace. And there lies the rub. While the GOP was trumpeting Replace for seven years, they apparently never spent any time working on a real plan that might be successful. They are now not getting votes because they can’t show what they are going to do. If you have no plans, eventually people will figure it out. The lack of the emperor’s clothes is obvious now.
That’s why Repeal and Replace didn’t work. The president, in his laziness and quest of dumbing down the country took up the trite phrase and “promised” the American people they were going to have such great healthcare and massively lower cost. There was no substance to this statement, just like there appears to be no substance to anything Trump says.
It was easy to stand there at the podium, rally after rally, and shout “Repeal and Replace.” But it turned out to be work, very hard, complicated work, to actually come up with a plan. Rather than rolling up his sleeves and getting to work with Republicans and Democrats together, Trump took the lazy way out:
“I won’t own it.”
Now he blames the lack of votes from the Democrats for the failure. The Democrats would have been totally willing work on improvements to the healthcare system, had they been ask to help work on the plan. But there was no plan.
Trump is misleading the American people, he is too lazy to do the hard work of governing, and he does not have the backbone to stand up and get to work for the country when things get tough. He is not willing to do the job of President of the United States.
He won’t own it.
And how about the MILLIONS (!) of voters who made him president; or the Electoral College members from states who did not obligate them to vote for him; or his current enablers…will they own it?
People vote for those who resemble themselves, validate their values, prejudices. So, no.
Supporters who know they have been conned will usually not admit it: makes them look dumb and gullible. So, no.
Maturity is accepting responsibility and blame; willingness to work for a fair solution. So, no.
Frankly, I don’t see any good outcome when the infantilization of America has been in effect for a very long time. A young country and even younger, poorly educated, religion-brainwashed citizenship who doesn’t know, understand or value history, other cultures or races, loves violence, punitive wars and guns, doesn’t read, values arrogantly ignorant opinion over facts, dismisses learning and science, has a great fear of the “Other”, eats and drinks itself into morbid obesity and ill health, worships money and power…
This mess runs deep, is not new, is the dark side of basic human nature. Civilization is a very thin shell, and Trump is merely the fungus sprouted stinky and fleshy from a very sick society underneath.
Getting rid of him basically only speaks to our tribal, hot anger at his brilliant ability to manipulate the essential meanness of a fear-driven electorate.
And that 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary means nothing…this makes us feel impotent. That facts are impotent makes us frustrated. Dark days. Find joy in something or go under. Detach (without giving up the resistance) — we are watching history unfold… attend but detach. I’m giving that a try.