Quote Originally Posted by Glorious Leader View Post
I suspect a very similar dynamic was happening under obama as well. They voted to repeal the aca alot but they knew obama would veto it. In fact iirc one of the things theyre voting on now was something they tried beford. The skinny repeal.
Sort of. Back then they knew their votes would never matter and were purely symbolic, since there wasn't a chance in hell they could get a repeal signed. They got to crow about their votes and cry about Democrats not entertaining their political theater and win big with constituents. It's pure showmanship, and they were all in on it knowing full well that they'd never have to do anything at any time. Yes, it's that cynical of a move on their part.

For this specific vote the issue remains that what they've done in the brief 7 months hasn't been enough, in part due to the fact that they have almost no way of appeasing both their hardcore conservative members and their more progressive wing simultaneously, so the "skinny repeal" was basically, "Enough to advance it to the point where we could hopefully figure shit out." because it was something that many who voted for it wouldn't have wanted anyways. It was kicking the can down the road, but doing so with a can that might explode in their faces. For them politically, the gamble was worth it when the other option would have been largely to admit defeat on nearly 8 full years of campaigning on repeal and replace. It's cynical as hell because it belies any actual plan or strategy for meaningfully better legislation that achieves the stated goals of expanded access to affordable, quality care, that wasn't the goal of any of these bills. The goal was to score a legislative win now that they found themselves in the unenviable position of needing to deliver on a nearly decades-long promise that I don't believe any of them ever imagined they'd have to do during their terms.