Now, before you start screaming at me because of the title, we need to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth about politics:
The primary goal of political parties is to gain control of the government.
Democrats want it and Republicans want it.
They want control of the House of Representatives, they want control of the Senate, they want control of the Presidency, and they want control of the Supreme Court.
Republicans want to be the majority in the legislative branch (Congress), the executive branch (the Presidency), and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court).
Democrats want to be the majority in the legislative branch (Congress), the executive branch (the Presidency), and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court).
99% of the actions they take are actions that they believe will help them win the next election.
You know it and I know it.
Okay. Now that that’s out of the way…
There’s only one reasonable explanation for why the Republicans pushed the government shutdown (you can read my thoughts on that here):
They think Americans will eventually embrace Obamacare.
That’s the most probable explanation.
Keeping in mind that their primary goal is to win the next election, their actions in this shutdown show that they will do anything to stop Obamacare from being implemented. They’ll even stand by a shutdown that is causing millions of people hardship.
Why?
Let’s think about this.
If Obamacare is truly going to be the horror they’re claiming it’s going to be, this is how it will play out:
Obamacare will be fully implemented.
Obamacare will be horrible.
Americans will hate it.
In the next election, Americans will vote in the people they know are going to repeal Obamacare.
That’s right. If the Republicans truly believe Obamacare is as awful as they claim, letting it go into effect would guarantee them control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
If Obamacare is truly as bad as the Republicans claim, the absolute best way to stop it would be to let it get implemented. That would then guarantee that enough Republicans could get elected to repeal it.
But the Republicans aren’t doing that. They are fighting tooth and nail to make sure it doesn’t get implemented because they’re afraid that once it is, it will benefit enough people to allow the Democrats to gain control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
And they’ll do anything they can to stop that from happening, even if that means shutting down the government and hurting millions of people across the country. It’s not just the federal employees that are suffering. It’s every employee of every small business that relies on government contracts. Just as one example, every souvenir shop at every national monument is being hurt by this, but you don’t see them creating bills to take care of those people.
So this shutdown is hurting millions.
Doesn’t that mean the Republicans are hurting millions to protect millions?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Unless you realize they’re not protecting millions.
They’re protecting themselves.
This shutdown is their last-ditch effort to prevent Americans from learning – on their own – whether or not they support Obamacare. They don’t want Americans to experience the ACA, so they’re doing anything and everything they can to stop it from being implemented.
That’s why they’ve put forth 42 votes to repeal it. Now that their backs are against a political wall, they’re throwing around words like “compromise”, but they weren’t throwing those words around for the past 3 years. For the past 3 years, all they’ve screamed is “repeal it!” Over and over again. That’s because they don’t want to fix it. They don’t want to make it better. I’m the first to say that Obamacare needs work. It needs to be improved. But the Republicans don’t want to improve it. They don’t want it to work because that would make you like it.
And you liking it would be very bad for them.
The Republicans do not want you – whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat – to experience Obamacare and decide for yourselves.
If the Republicans truly believed Obamacare was as bad as they’re claiming, they would let the law go into effect because that would let Americans see just how bad it is, which would then get the Republicans elected in the next election. Then they could finally repeal it, once and for all.
But they aren’t doing that.
Because they’re afraid if they let it get implemented fully… it might just work.
–Jerry
Your Face Is Politics 
I was under the impression he ACA was already passed and signed into law. No?
Absolutely it is, but it isn’t fully implemented yet and they’re doing whatever they can to stop the implementation. The most integral parts are on the verge of implementation.
The ACA was signed into law years ago, but the efforts to delay/prevent its implementation have been going strong since the day it was passed.
Oh, I see what you were referencing. In my last two sentences, I incorrectly used the word “pass” instead of “get implemented” or “go into effect.”
My bad. That was just bad wording on my part. Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed the wording on those sentences.
I “hear” information that reaffirms my political leanings, and tend to tune out the other side. Human nature?
Being honest, Steve, I’m not sure what you’re saying there. Are you suggesting that I’m tuning out the other side?
No, Jerry. Not you, me. I just cannot listen very long to the conservative argument. It drives me crazy, and is not good for my blood pressure. It’s part of one of those pre-existing conditions that can not be denied anymore.
I appreciate what this site brings to the table. As you say at the top, “Intelligent discussion of politics without all the PC nonsense.”
Thank you. Sorry if I confused you.
Oh. I’m sorry, Steve. I guess I was being a little overly defensive. My apologies. 🙂
First off, I completely agree that shutting the government down to prevent the ACA was wrong. Now that we have settled that, I have a few thoughts.
I think most people see things about the law that are potential pitfalls and need to be fixed. The problem I see is that it will be very difficult to change Obamacare in any major way once it is implemented and people are thoroughly involved. Look at Social Security. There are major problems with the whole system but can we fix them now? Not likely. Our entire society is completely entrenched in SS and any attempt at a major overhaul is not only met with extreme resistance but would probably be the final blow to the whole system.
What if some of those dire predictions about the ACA come true? Just one example has to do with so-called death panels. There is only a finite amount of money to pay for healthcare. Doesn’t it make logical sense that at some point, some people in suits will look at a 65 year old with colon cancer and make a determination that it would cost too much to treat him/her and because of their age, deny said treatment? We don’t like to think about that possibility and when the subject is breached, the person spouting that thought is said to be using fear tactics. Well yeah, I think all of us can understand that fear.
Sure, we have to “wait and see” since it is all a guess right now. I am just afraid we aren’t going to like what we see in the long run. I hope I am wrong.
I definitely appreciate the point of view on this, Sue. And to be honest, I’m sure there are republicans in the House that are genuinely trying to do good. My post was a little extreme, I admit. It was the emotion of the moment.
And the democrats are not heroes in this. Sure, I agree with their stance to refuse to “negotiate” on the shutdown, but for most of them, their reasons are far from noble. They’re refusing to budge because they know they have a political advantage in this situation. That’s it. So while they’re doing the right thing (in my opinion), I’ve no doubt many of them are doing it for the wrong reasons. They’re all politicians.
Also, you make a good point about Social Security. Once fully implemented, it will be harder to modify significantly. It won’t be impossible, though. Social Security has gone through many changes since it was first implemented.
Now, in answer to your death panel concern, one thing we need to remember with the ACA is that it’s not government provided healthcare. The government is opening up healthcare to people by connecting them to private insurance companies. So in regards to “Death Panels” it’s no more dangerous in the future than it has been for the past 50 years.
The people providing insurance under the ACA are the exact same people that were providing insurance before the ACA. And before the ACA, insurance companies already had death panels. They denied coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. So basically, they decided who lived and who died. And they did it because they said they couldn’t afford coverage on those people because they didn’t have enough healthy people paying into insurance. So they refused to cover people because they didn’t have money. That’s a death panel (as you described them above).
The ACA removed that death panel by requiring them to cover people with pre-existing conditions. And the ACA helped them make the money to cover it by requiring more young healthy people to get insurance.
So the absolute worst case scenario is that – if what you said turns out to be true – we would just be going back to exactly where we were before the ACA came into law.
So I don’t see the downside to trying it.
At the end of the day, I’m not a big fan of the government being so involved in our healthcare. I’m really not.
But if I’m being honest, I don’t think the government is any worse than the insurance companies that have been controlling our lives for decades. My wife is a Type 1 Diabetic. She was diagnosed with diabetes when she was four years old. So we’ve got a lot of experience dealing with insurance companies and doctors, and I can tell you from that experience, the insurance companies were not looking out for our better interests.
By the way, thanks for posting. I love good discussion when it’s respectful, so I definitely appreciate your points and your respectful tone. And for the record, these are purely my opinions… I’m not claiming I’m right. I’m just saying this is the world as I see it. 🙂