NP: Tool, Undertow

Back when the newly-minted, Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a lot of people wondered why they went through with such a purely symbolic gesture, as there was no chance it would get through the Senate or overcome the obvious veto from the President. At the time, I thought to myself that elements of the media would scream this from the rooftops as a victory cry, and their audience would likely believe that the matter had been settled. The chart at the bottom of this Ezra Klein post explains exactly that: Just over 1 in 5 American polled actually think the law has been repealed, and is no longer the law.

That's 1 in 5 who believe the Republicans followed through on their campaign promise to the point where "Obamacare" is no more, except of course, that it is. Anyway, there's that number again. I believe it's the percentage of Americans who think Obama is a Muslim, who still have a favorable view of George W. Bush, and a host of other findings that reflect right-wing and Fox News-promoted memes.

This is not a political statement. This is part of a larger effort to size the tea party and the hard right, and every indication is that it's about 20% of the population, which isn't going to win many elections.

Now, to view this from the politics of the health care law, it's almost a win-win for the right and the left. The right get to pretend they "won," while Obama still has the ACA in effect. Long-term, this probably benefits Obama more, as voters will forget about it in a year anyway and vote based on how they're doing economically, which may be better because the benefits of the unrepealed law may be helping more people.