I. Overblown and Empty
This week’s 60 Minutes interview contained some drama. Trump kept changing his story about health care. First he said he already had a health care plan worked out to replace the Affordable Health Care Act. Then he said he would have one after he learned what the Court would do. Lesley Stahl kept pressing him for clarity. Then Trump, evidently irritated, cut the interview short and walked out.
Shortly afterward, Kayleigh McEnany returned with a heavy bound book. She said, “The president wanted me to deliver his health care plan, it’s a little heavy.”
“It was heavy,” Lesley Stahl explained. “It was filled with executive orders, congressional initiatives, but no comprehensive health plan.”
I agree. The perfect metaphor.
I liked the part when Trump insisted that if the Supreme Court overturns the ACA, people with preexisting conditions will still be covered because “a new plan will happen” and “we won’t do anything unless we have preexisting conditions covered.” The snake oil salesman says “trust me.”
This is exactly what I thought. It’s the Field of Dreams Health Care Plan: Trump will wish it, and it will come. (I’m visualizing Trump with his fingers on his forehead and his eyes closed as he wishes really hard for the health care plan to happen.) It will be beautiful. The most perfect health care plan. Much better than Obama’s health care plan.
Good question. The GOP philosophy is that government should stay out and leave it all up to private industry. As far as what Trump means: My best guess is he says whatever pops into his head. He improvises. He’s not capable of formulating a health plan.
I remember a moment in the 2016 GOP debates. They were talking about repealing the ACA. In a righteous tone, Trump said something like: “I would never leave people without health insurance.” It sounded good, but he was just making up whatever he thought would sound good.
It’s all a performance. If you consider how successfully he entertains the audiences at his rallies, and how good he is at cultivating a cult following, you have to admit he’s usually good at improvising—as long as someone like Lesley Stahl isn’t there to call him on his lies. He much prefers performing at rallies and speaking in the Fox bubble.
II. The Perfect Visual
Check out this video. On one side, you see the Biden supporters. On the other, Trump supporters. Democrats have lots of advantages. One is that we’re way cooler 😎.
It’s the perfect visual. Youth and energy and exuberance on one side. Dour anger on the other. The young are turning out for this election in record numbers, which is good. They have the most at stake.
III. Waiting in Line
I’m including this so you all know how to wait in line:
IV. Some Questions from the “Ask Teri” tab
Q: How do I try to get my campus’ basketball arena to be used as a polling place in the next election(s)? I am intrigued by the various professional leagues attempts to do this and am thinking that doing this locally would be a good post-2020 election thing to do locally. I just have no idea where to start.
Elections are monitors by local governments. Contact your local elections board, elections supervisor, or elections office. (This is different in every state).
Q: I was just wondering what happens to all the money people give to campaigns after the candidate drops out. Beto comes to mind – he raised millions of dollars and then suddenly dropped out of the race. Where does the money go?
All campaign finance transactions are regulated by the rules of the Federal Election Commission (fFEC). This includes the things campaigns are permitted to do with the leftover funds. They can donate their money to charity, they can transfer excess cash to the national party. Google searches will probably turn up what individual campaigns choose to do with their leftover cash.
We already know that Trump ignores laws, so I would not be surprised if he finds ways to transfer excess money to himself after the election. He’s going to need it to cover his legal fees.
Q: The extrajudicial killing in Portland appears to have been an assassination. Trump lauded it. Is it possible for the state of Oregon to investigate the actions of the killers? Obviously the FBI won’t investigate while Barr is running DOJ. Do you think Trump approved the killing? How can we find out, and what should be done?
Generally, the crime of murder is investigated and prosecuted in state courts as a state crime. In rare instances, murder becomes a federal crime, for example, when it occurs in the violation of federal law or on federal land or territory. The DOJ deals only with federal matters. Most likely this will be up to Oregon. Unless the murders offer Trump’s encouragement as a defense, Trump isn’t likely to be part of the trial.
Q: If the worst-case scenario happens, i.e. Trump wins a second term, but Democrats take Congress and the Senate, would that be enough to curtail trump’s destruction?
It’s very unlikely for Democrats to win the Senate but not the White House. The Democrats have too much of a disadvantage right now in Senate races. But if it were to happen that Trump wins but the Democrats win both houses of Congress, the Democrats would be able to curb some of Trump’s impulses, but we’d have a 6-3 Supreme Court. It’s not a possibility I want to think about.
Here are 538’s odds right now:
More likely is a Biden win and a Republican Senate. In this case, we’d basically be treading water for the next two years. We would stop the slide into autocracy (oligarchy) but would not make much progress.
