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After campaigning for several years on repealing and replacing Obamacare, the Republican mainstream and its leadership finally offered up a minor revision to the healthcare law which was so unpopular it wasn’t even brought up for a vote in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Republicans have 237 House seats but couldn’t get 218 of their members to agree on replacing Obamacare. Apparently, it just wasn’t much of a priority for mainstream conservatives. The media was quick to pronounce the debacle a failure for the Trump Administration, though President Trump let the legislators in the Republican Congress lead on the issue and they proved themselves to be not very serious about reforming healthcare.
What is the mainstream conservative media’s take on things so far? The National Review is writing about how the GOP Congress can check a GOP president’s influence. The neocohens at the Review seem far more concerned with signalling hard against Trump than actually getting anything productive done.
REAL PRIORITIES
The mainstream conservatives demonstrated this week though that they do have some real priorities. ABC News reports on their bipartisan work with liberal Democrats:
Aiming to prove their commitment to Israel, senior U.S. lawmakers are backing bipartisan legislation that would slap Iran with new sanctions while maintaining rigorous enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal.
The measures, unveiled at the opening of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, seek to build consensus among Republicans and Democrats who are so often bitterly at odds on domestic issues. The AIPAC meeting continues Tuesday with appearances by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Some priorities are just more important than others.
During Monday’s session, House Speaker Paul Ryan declared the U.S. commitment to Israel “sacrosanct.” But Ryan also derided the nuclear deal an “unmitigated disaster” that gives Iran “a patient pathway to a nuclear weapons capability.”
The mainstream conservatives’ commitment to a foreign country is “sacrosanct.” What about their commitment to the interests of their White Christian working-class voter base here at home? Apparently that commitment is just less important.