Being overly reductionist makes one easier to reject as partisan.
What is new is the MAGA/2025 hijacking of the Republican party to enact its goals. To the extent that the current Republican leadership is essentially a different party than it was 6 years ago.
For most of its history, the Republican party was fairly anti-populist (defined by whatever populism was at the time).
The Republican southern strategy from 1980+ was predicated on attracting southern white votes by attacking civil rights (explicitly or implicitly), but ultimately focusing on business priorities (with some headline-catching red meat).
However, in the decades since, the explosion of hardline conservative talk radio then dragged the party to answer to its more egregious populist demands.
Hence Trump.
It mightve been a hijack at one point, but MAGA owns the whole airline now.
It should be handled in the way all >4 year payback US problems are: by empowering a commission to do the neccessary unpopular things and give members longer-than-4-year terms.
The entire platform of the GOP is that the government is the problem.
The ACA would have been much better had the GOP not tried to stop it any way possible. Suing to remove critical aspects of it, voting at every turn against it, arguing that there would be death panels for grandparents.
Even once it was law, no attempt to improve, or replace.
A good faith effort would include an alternative health care plan. Where is it?
Two options: either incapable of producing a plan or are at best indifferent to the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.
The GOP has only tirelessly worked to ensure that the ACA would be less effective than it could have been.
Note: not repeal it. It’s entirely too popular and effective for that.
The most recent thing I can think of was getting Clinton to balance the budget, and he was a democrat.
Had they not, PEPFAR or something similar would have existed a decade or more earlier.
Lotsa people died because of that.
By 2003, it was no longer tenable to refuse to fight AIDS, plus, notable GOP family members got AIDS.
Just like Nancy Reagan’s 180 on gay people once her daughter came out.
What happened next is that various chancers marched into state institutions, usually with private security details made of low-grade armed thugs promoted from street crime, and said "This is ours now."
The US aristocracy saw this and apparently thought "Perfect - let's make that happen here too."
The fact there's been no significant state or media push back against Musk's takeovers is all anyone needs to know. The aim is a kleptocratic imperium drowning in gold, drugs, delusion, and corruption - which is exactly what Russia turned into.
And if report on this, the president orders you to be behaded
I included a link just below to at the exact timestamp he talks about this:
How Brooks sees Trumpism: not conservative, they don't have a conservative or positive vision for society, they just want to destroy the institutions "dominated" by left. In his words, this means, they are astoundingly incompetent. "Elite Narcissicm" leads to the destruction of every thought system it encounters.
I worry that the solution is a race to the bottom. As long as this shit helps only one party it won't get fixed.