Incredibly, Donald Trump’s Justice Department tried once again last week to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to destroy the Affordable Care Act providing health care to 23 million Americans even as infections from the deadly coronavirus pandemic were surging to new daily highs nationally.
No, incredible isn’t the right word. It’s not even surprising. It’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from Trump’s presidency as it lurches through simultaneous crises in public health, economic devastation and racial violence in policing without doing much of anything to protect most Americans.
Trump is fundamentally incapable of organizing a national effort to unite the country in any crisis. His political success has always been based on dividing Americans against each other instead of bringing them together. Perhaps the best demonstration of how tone-deaf Trump is to the needs of the American people is his continuing attempt to destroy health care in the midst of a raging pandemic.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed papers with the Supreme Court shortly before midnight Thursday challenging the law’s constitutionality as if he were hoping no one would notice. The court has upheld the law twice before in 2012 and 2015 with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the four liberal justices. All five remain on the court.
Protecting Health Care
Growing national support for protecting health care was pivotal in Democrats winning the House of Representatives and governorships including Wisconsin’s in 2018. Democrats are privately ecstatic over Trump’s gift-wrapped political contribution to help them win the presidency and Senate majority in November.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the campaign by Trump and Republicans to rip away health care protections during a pandemic “an act of unfathomable cruelty.” Former Vice President Joe Biden immediately pointed out if Trump succeeded the first victims would be anyone lucky enough to survive COVID-19, which under Trump is deadlier in the U.S than in any other nation. Survivors would lose government subsidies lowering the cost of insurance and the ACA’s prohibition on insurance companies canceling policies or charging exorbitant premiums for those with pre-existing conditions.
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“Those survivors, having struggled and won the fight of their lives, would have their peace of mind stolen away at the moment they need it most,” Biden said. “They would live their lives caught in the vise between Donald Trump’s twin legacies: His failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus and his heartless crusade to take health-care protections away from American families.”
Trump’s public health failures led directly to the cratering U.S. economy. The record U.S. economy Trump claims as his own was actually a gift from President Obama and Biden who handed him seven straight years of economic growth. Trump destroyed that economy in three years with his trade war and health crisis devastating American commerce.
Trump’s colliding crises feed off each other. Last week federal officials said 487,000 applied for subsidized health care through May as a result of losing employer-based health insurance.
Trump’s Hostility
Trump’s public hostility toward racial minorities underlies the health and economic crises as well as his demonization of those demanding racial justice in policing. Black and brown Americans are over-represented among those losing their jobs in Trump’s Depression-level economy and those losing their lives from the coronavirus.
It’s beyond obvious Trump’s biggest objection to the ACA is that it’s still widely known as Obamacare. On almost a daily basis, Trump proclaims something he’s done as the greatest accomplishment of any president in American history. It’s an absurd claim from a president whose only legislative achievement was convincing a Republican congress to pass yet another enormous tax cut for the wealthy.
It clearly galls Trump, one of the least admired presidents in history, that his African American predecessor remains one of the most admired. Trump’s original candidacy was rooted in the white racist backlash against the election of a black president. Now Trump’s invented some imaginary scandal called “Obamagate!” he still can’t define, but claims is treasonous.
Racist Strategy
Republicans have used racist appeals ever since Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” successfully converted racist southern Democrats into racist southern Republicans. Trump’s innovation was using openly racist rhetoric instead of polite Republican code words. Sinking in the polls, Trump recently retweeted a video of “great people” in Florida including an elderly supporter shouting “White Power!”
It worked like a charm in 2016, but in 2020 all the American carnage has been created by Trump. Trump, not one of our brighter presidents, denigrates Biden’s intelligence, but Biden sums up Trump perfectly. Biden says Trump’s like a child who can’t believe a deadly pandemic has spoiled his presidency.
“Well, this pandemic didn’t happen to him,” Biden said. “It happened to all of us and his job isn’t to whine about it. His job is to do something about it ... “If Donald Trump refuses to end his senseless crusade against health coverage, I look forward to ending it for him.”
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