Trump didn't go on Fox News and promise to stack the Supreme Court with conservative justices specifically to overturn the ruling that allowed straight people to get married, because, like long golf putters, he doesn't think they are natural.
> For many people, Tuesday's election was a literal life-and-death struggle!
As it was for all the people who are only alive due to the Affordable Care Act allowing them to get medical treatments for their pre-existing conditions. And possibly for the 20 million Americans that stand to lose their coverage. Whether or not he actually repeals it, that's what he claimed he would do in his first week.
conservative justices specifically to overturn the ruling that allowed straight people to get married
Typical bluster from Trump. As a public figure, he acts in a very unprofessional way. This is part of his appeal to the working class, who have been chastised by professionals for years and then forced to pay for it out of their own pocket. I honestly believe that working class folks do not care if gay marriage is here to stay forever, as long as they get their jobs and their dignity back.
Whether or not he actually repeals it, that's what he claimed he would do in his first week.
Trump's already walked back his promise on that. I think he realizes he hadn't really thought that one through. His heart was in the right place when he promised it though. The people within his base saw their health insurance premiums continue to go up under the ACA. They were rightfully angry that the rich created a program to help the poor and then pushed all of the costs onto the working class. This is exactly what the article talked about.
A YUGE part of the whole debate over Trump can really be summed up by the pithy statement: "Take him seriously, not literally."
The problem is, it won't be up to him. He's not going to nominate socially liberal justices. Especially not with Pence by his side and congress stacked with social conservatives.
Once he replaces Ginsberg, or Breyer, or Kennedy (it'll only take one), it's game over for social rights for the next 30-60 years. All of the replacements from both Bush and Obama have been much younger. Once those guys are out, it's going to be a generation before the court is refreshed again.
And once social issues are no longer rights, I guarantee the social conservatives will continue to use them as wedge issues to turn out the vote. And we'll see that every 8-16 years, rights keep getting restored and then taken away at the start of new (president+congress) or (super-majority congress) flip terms.
They've never given up on Roe v Wade. That one's gonna be gone for sure. We might have had a chance if we could uphold marriage equality for another 30 years. Just as there's no way they're overturning Loving v Virginia at this point. But it's too soon. Conservatives are still too riled up on this issue. If it gets overturned within the next 10 years, that'll doom us to a lifetime of fighting for marriage as a "privilege" instead of as a right.
> Trump's already walked back his promise on that.
It's not really going to be up to him, though. He says he wants to keep the pre-existing condition provision. But that only works if you keep the insurance mandate. It's like saying people should be able to get car insurance after a wreck.
Congress has tried, what, 170 times now to repeal the ACA? They're going to try it again, and what's Trump going to do? Veto his own party? What if they try and attach it to something important that he can't veto?
I'm not convinced they will repeal it, but I'm also not convinced they won't.
> The people within his base saw their health insurance premiums continue to go up under the ACA.
Oh yeah, the ACA is bad law. It's only very slightly better than what we had before. Rates are indeed sky rocketing still, since it's still a purely for-profit system; and the USSC helped undermine it by allowing states to opt-out of parts of it, leaving half of the people it was supposed to insure, well, uninsured. And the ones who aren't signing up now tend to be the ones we needed in the system to make it work. So now we have too many old people and people with pre-existing conditions, and not enough young and healthy people in the system to make it work.
But the alternative is that people with pre-existing conditions are told to just go die if they can't afford care. So, yeah.
Health Savings Accounts are going to be much less effective than the ACA.
This means: everybody, take all the things Donald Trump actually said, and replace them with the specific things you personally wish he said instead. Then you can all feel better!
>> conservative justices specifically to overturn the ruling that allowed straight people to get married
> Typical bluster from Trump.
As has been pointed out elsewhere on this page, it may be bluster from Trump himself, but his VP is one of the most virulently anti-queer politicians on the national scene. Pence is going to have a large role in picking out the cabinet, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's also extremely influential in picking Scalia's successor as well as any other judicial appointments that come up.
His walk back of Obamacare is incoherent. He claims he will keep the pre-existing condition stuff while ditching all the bits that make that economically viable. Which would lead to mass defection from insurance for healthy people and skyrocketing premiums for the ill, causing a vicious cycle that would destroy the whole market.
Or was I not supposed to take that literally either?
If he actually wants to make it better he should talk to his buddies in the GOP and get the states who have refused to play ball onside.
> For many people, Tuesday's election was a literal life-and-death struggle!
As it was for all the people who are only alive due to the Affordable Care Act allowing them to get medical treatments for their pre-existing conditions. And possibly for the 20 million Americans that stand to lose their coverage. Whether or not he actually repeals it, that's what he claimed he would do in his first week.