By Bill Mefford
Late last Thursday night, the trump Administration and 18 Republican state attorneys general filed suit asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional. This would effectively throw up to 23 million people off of their healthcare.
Although it has long been known and it is well documented that Republicans want, literally more than anything, to get rid of Obamacare, I was still shocked to hear late Thursday night that trump’s servile Department of Justice has filed suit asking the Supreme Court to cancel the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. This will wipe out healthcare for as many as 23 million people. Oh, and not only are we in the midst of a pandemic, this has been the worst week by far of this deadly disease. Perfect timing.
In what has seemed like living in a pinball machine, the nation under trump’s “leadership” has bounced back and forth between cruelty and incompetence so jarringly as to give us whiplash. In separate statements both Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden called this move inexplicably cruel.
I am not surprised they are being cruel for the sake of being cruel – this is what they do. It’s just that this move is an incredibly stupid political move. Again, stupidity is nothing new either considering they almost held trump’s sparsely attended rally on Juneteenth and 99 years after the worst race massacre in US history. No one does stupid like this administration. But even this move was a head-scratcher.
You only need to look back a year and a half ago when the Democrats took the House and many state houses in a massive blue wave that was engineered by one issue: healthcare. The ACA is now very popular and the failure of the Republicans to provide even the slightest of leadership in addressing healthcare gave the election to the Democrats easily.
So, why, in the midst of a pandemic and a crushed economy, are they giving Democrats an enormous advantage of once again running on health care just 4 ½ months ahead of an election? Well, do you want to hear the scariest possibility? The scariest possibility is that trump has completely given up and now will give in to all of his basest instincts of rage, fear, and hatred.
Reflecting on this brought to mind a commonly used passage in Ephesians. The passage from Ephesians says, “They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to vice, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:19) The larger context of this passage is that this is in a letter from Paul to the church in Ephesus when Paul is talking about the need for unity and humble service within the Body of Christ. In verse 4, which is quoted, Paul is describing those not in the Body of Christ who have so rejected the gospel of Jesus they have given themselves over to every vice. Now, evangelical fundamentalists have wrongly interpreted this passage to be solely about sex, particularly homosexuality. There is a sexual nature to the actual meaning of the word “vice”, but it in no way refers to homosexuality. It actually refers to moral sin in all of its forms: greed, lust, impurity, rage, fear, pride, etc. And “giving in” simply means ignoring any sense of shame that normally is associated with the open commission of these sins.
One thing we know about donald trump: there is no shame. There is no base. And now, we might start seeing an already low standard of behavior get lowered. It is indeed hard to imagine, but it is a real possibility.
Twice this past week trump seemed resigned to losing to Biden even telling Hannity that Biden “is going to be president because some people don’t love me.” Well, I hate to break it to him, it is way more than “some.” But throwing people off of healthcare is just the start if the realization of sagging poll numbers, a complete disinterest in governing, and the feeling that he is hated and mocked by people all over the world begins to take hold in donald trump’s mind. We have seen how bad it is when he actually tries. Can you imagine how bad this can get if gives into his basest instincts?