I know that he’s an asshole and all but Paul Ryan is HAWT
Overheard from Obama’s microwave: Bwahahahaha!
Whut?
You’re into skinny necks and clueless facial expressions?
And fecklessness?
What a turkey. That neck would look good on a chopping block.
[quote=“rowland, post:37, topic:159046, full:true”]
Using the Dems as a club to beat the Liberty Caucus with:
It seems to be a pattern with him. Playing groups against each other to get his way or to punish those who don’t give him what he wants.[/quote]
The conservatives are not necessarily against conservative reform of healthcare, open to the free market and choice, which everyone was trying to steer this thing towards. They are just afraid to be caught in the middle of something the end result is still unclear and invite the wrath of their voters.
There is some common ground with Democrats, like Bernie, who deplores the high cost of big Pharma. This is another area where conservative reform could result in Democrat concerns being redressed and assuaged, if they weren’t so political.
Bernie’s not all that mainstream.
People who believe that politics is the art of compromise will be played by those who know better. People who believe that standing on principle is enough will also pay a price. The ones who understand that politics is about getting your way in the end… will win in the end.
In the meantime, what a mess. The idiots of all persuasions have simply got to go.
Too late you are stuck with Failure-in-Chief and the disunited party. Looks like none of you Taiwan NIH card holding socialists with heart problems and dodgy sugar levels will be heading home soon. 
I’m of the opinion that unity is overrated. But that could be sour grapes.
When all you have is unity, loss of unity must seem like the end of the world. For those with integrity, unity is at best a means to an end.
Not everyone can stomach creative destruction. It’s worth noting that Schumpeter was of a Marxian bent. He thought he was prophesying doom, but he was really seeing worlds without end, amen. Cognitive dissonance.
What the left has never understood, and why they never saw this presidency coming, is: unity is not necessarily strength, and disunity is not necessarily weakness. Uniting behind Hillary got you nowhere.
Setting up Ryan as the fall guy:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/26/politics/ryan-trump-relationship-health-care/index.html
A fall guy is like a scapegoat, only less innocent. Someone who deserves part of the blame is set up to take all of it, so that others get off free. I don’t entirely like it, but at least some of the guilty get punished.
If The Donald does better in the future, I’ll forgive him. Not absolve; forgive.
E for Effort, from someone who knows just what that is and isn’t worth. Damning with faint praise.
Ryan and the Freedom Caucus:
[quote]Rather than consult with HFC members, he assumed that he could leverage Trump’s popularity in their districts to beat them into submission. To
be a bit less charitable, you could say Ryan expected the Freedom Caucus to be as craven in the face of Trump as he’s been himself.[/quote]
A certain lack of political skill.
No amount of political skills would have helped. “Republicans” simply want different things.
The traditional, more practical republicans know how insurance works, and the only way to create a more popular health care, it would have to be more socialist than Affordable Healthcare Act, not less.
The radical tea party people who bought into the whole Nixon’s States’ rights bait and switch want to remove federal mandated health care all together. There’s no way health insurance cost would go down if people don’t participate.
If they go the Tea Party’s route, and take away health care all together, the majority of the people are going to be pissed. So Ryan and the practical republicans try to appeal to both sides, which is an impossible task to pull off, especially coming off a major tea party victory.
Ryan was fraked to begin with. No amount of fail seems to affect Trump’s popularity, so Trump can simply throw Ryan under the bus.
In most democracies the party would have already split into at least three parties and then coalitions would offer a way forward. American politics is pretty odd the way it tries to cram almost everybody into two mainstream parties!
Semantics. The two major parties are functionally parallel to coalitions in other systems.
Ryan’s first mistake was he over-promised. His second mistake was he dissed an important faction of his coalition.
There’s nothing Ryan faced that he couldn’t have seen coming. When the freight train is barreling down on you, it takes a special kind of stupid not to get out of the way.
The Donald also should have seen it coming. But he did at least get out of the way at the last minute.
There were many other possible deals to make. He tried to make this one. After it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, he should have tried one of the other options.
Now everything is unsettled again. There are two ways this can end:
-
Ozymandiascare reaches the end of its death spiral, and the recalcitrant factions are thus forced to rethink their positions.
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The midterms change the power balance among the factions, making perhaps even this failed deal possible.
It’s a question of which happens first.
It was a trust issue. They didn’t believe that these other phases would actually happen. Ryan failed to establish a basis of trust. The Donald made some effort in that direction but it was too little, too late.
You can’t lead if they don’t follow. And they won’t follow if you don’t get their trust. Nobody trusts Ryan. He’s a weasel. That’s the problem.
His neck doesn’t bother me. His body is great, especially for his age.
He’s like the typical hot straight asshole. 10/10 would hit it.
Here you are confirming all the worst Red Pill stereotypes about women.
There are different types of assholes. He’s not one of the types I admire.
[quote=“rowland, post:47, topic:159046, full:true”]
I’m of the opinion that unity is overrated. But that could be sour grapes.
When all you have is unity, loss of unity must seem like the end of the world. For those with integrity, unity is at best a means to an end.[/quote]
Republicans have so many factions, there isn’t much unity behind the party, which I particularly like, it seems more democratic, and forces them to listen to the people more instead of just following the party line. The Forefathers wanted infighting and inefficiencies in government, to ensure that a dictator, or plurocracy can’t set themselves up very easily. And keeps government from getting too active in people’s lives, if they’re more busy fighting each other than making controversial laws.
Democrats on the other hand have to follow the party line, often at the expense of their constituents, which is why they keep losing their seats shortly after gaining them. The leader is more likely to punish members who don’t vote “right,” which seems more tyrannical to me. If I were such a constituent, I wouldn’t think such a person would consider it paramount to contemplate my opinion.
I think we had more unity on Republican side with Tom Delay, the Hammer, and Newt Gingrich was pretty good. But I really don’t see this as being a failure or bad thing.
They had a better bill which they sent to Obama to be vetoed. This new bill was worse, it leaves much more of Obamacare intact than the original bill. Don’t know why. Probably needed to fail.
It’s official, the House has voted to repeal Obamacare. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the Senate.