The Affordable Care Act Is Barack Obama and the Democrats' Xanatos Gambit

And it has so far succeeded beyond any of their wildest dreams.

As we've seen since January 20th, while the House of Representatives -- being a highly polarized and deeply partisan shitshow thanks to the gerrymandering apocalypse back in 2010 -- was able to pass a bill that could actually become law, the far more moderate Senate has tried to pass their own version three times, and each time they've crashed and burned spectacularly. And unlike the Senate from 2008-2011, there hasn't been a single filibuster involved (as a budget maneuver, it can't be filibustered, and this was completely intentional). Despite having a majority in both chambers and one of their own in the White House, Republicans can't do this one thing they've been chomping at the bit and salivating to do for the last 8 years. Because rather than being a symbolic gesture they know will never happen, this time it has actual consequences because they have a stooge willing to sign it.

First, in case you don't speak fluent TVTropes terminology, a Xanatos Gambit is a plan that cannot fail, because it fulfills multiple goals simultaneously. Such that no matter how its opponents try to thwart it, one or more of the plan's goals will get furthered. They simply can't all be foiled. It's named for the character of David Xanatos, an antagonist from the Gargoyles TV show from the mid-1990s, because he had a penchant for these types of plans.

The Affordable Care Act has been implemented so far and become such an integral part of the American healthcare system that no matter what the Republicans do, Obama comes out ahead. Because there are only 3 possible outcomes. In 2 of them, Republicans are summarily fucked. In the third, they'll have to concede that the guy they've been trying to fuck over won in the end:

Scenario 1: Republicans Fail to Repeal or Replace the ACA (Status Quo)

This would, of course, mean that they've broken a promise they've been campaigning on for nearly a decade. The hardcore Republican voting base isn't going to accept this quietly. While they won't vote for a Democrat, they're more likely to just stay home and not vote at all out of disillusionment. As we inch closer to the 2018 midterms, this does not bode well for Republicans in vulnerable seats (which, as the special elections this year have proven, may be far more vulnerable than they think).

Scenario 2: Republicans Succeed in Repealing and/or Replacing the ACA

This is frankly the worst of the 3. Because for any bill to get the 51 votes it would need to pass the Senate, it would have to be cruel enough to appease sociopaths like Lee and Cruz, but restrained enough to get the votes of moderates like Murkowski and Capito. If by some miracle that happened -- and if by an even greater miracle, the House managed to pass it -- it would be a bill that would still kick anywhere from 22 million to 32 million people off their insurance. Many of these people live in Republican strongholds: the rural South, the Rust Belt, and the deep red center (Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, etc.).

These folks are going to see their situation on the ground rapidly deteriorate. As rural hospitals shutter without Medicaid. As areas hit hard by the opioid crisis -- areas that overwhelmingly voted for Trump -- suffer even more devastating loss of life due to overdose. As people who didn't even know that they have insurance because of the ACA suddenly find themselves unable to get even the simplest healthcare.

And they're going to blame the people in charge. Republicans. Because there will be nobody else responsible for their hardships. Again, as we inch closer to the 2018 midterms, this is going to become even more of a prominent issue.

Scenario 3: Republicans Amend and Improve the ACA

The most likely scenario, and frankly the only one that won't mean Republicans getting walked to the electoral guillotine next year. If, after failing like a snake trying to play Dance Dance Revolution, they finally decide that maybe it's time to work with Democrats and actually legislate to fix the ACA's flaws instead of pitching out baby, bathwater, bathtub, bathroom, and entire neighborhood, Obama will come out the furthest. Because he'll have forced their hand to build on his signature accomplishment. And history will forever remember that the Affordable Care Act was the work of the nation's first black President, whom a bunch of old racist white guys tried to blow up and found out they couldn't without taking themselves with it.

And the part that would really burn their biscuits?

Not only does Obama win, we all do.

Because even more than black folk in positions of power, that's what Republicans fear most.

The people winning.

Bernie Sanders Is Not Our Fucking Ally

I apologize in advance for the ridiculous amount of cursing in this post. Those who read this blog know I'm not adverse to dropping an F-bomb here and there, but when it comes to the shenanigans of the Bernie camp, I cope with my rage using good ol' fashioned sailor's talk.

Bernie needs to fucking resign as a Senator and take his shriveled old grandpa ass out to a desert fucking island with no wi-fi where he can't hurt anyone else.

The Democratic Party as we know it today has never been the party of the powerful. Black folk, Latinx, women, the disabled, LGBT folk, etc. have been the backbone of the party since the Dixiecrat revolt over the Civil Rights Movement (with the Dixiecrats becoming today's GOP). It has never been about throwing those people under the bus to win over the white working class.

But that's exactly what Bernie Fucking Sanders wants to turn it into.

Bernie Fucking Sanders has galvanized a "revolution" of freeloading angry white dudes to demonize the Democratic Party for demanding they actually do a fair share of the fucking work. Much like your stoned loser friend from college who couch-surfs through everyone he knows while eating their chips and puking on their carpets after a kegger, and then has the audacity to tell them their video game collection sucks. And just like that friend, they pitch a fit when you inform them they've grossly overstayed their welcome.

I put "revolution" in scarequotes up there because freeloading angry white dudes taking a giant steaming smelly dump on the already oppressed for their own benefit isn't a fucking revolution at fucking all; it's the status fucking quo. And Bernie Fucking Sanders is leading the charge.

That's right, kids. He's not a goddamned progressive and he never fucking has been. He doesn't want to go forward. He wants to go back. The only difference between him and Trump is how far back. Sanders wants to turn back the calendar to roughly 1960. Taxes were fairer, but life sucked enough for everyone but cishet able-bodied white males that it was still comfortable to look down on the rest of us. Trump wants to go back to 1860 so he can make slaves carry him around on a tacky golden sedan chair.

And because he's too goddamned lazy to start his own party and do the fucking work required to build it into something viable, he's decided to start a revolt within the Democratic Party.

This is a guy who literally takes a huge stinky shit on every principle he says he stands for. How many working-class people do you know who own three goddamn motherfucking houses? How is it standing up for the little guy to sponsor a bill that dumps nuclear waste from your rich white state on a dirt-poor Latinx community in Texas? How is he "new blood" in politics when he's been serving in Congress ten years longer than Hillary? Unless it's totally fine when he does it, in which case he's a fucking hypocritical bag of dicks who doesn't deserve your vote or your $27.

To make matters worse? This is a guy who, ten days after the election, says he can totally find common ground with Trump. On -- get this! -- "standing up to corporate America."

Let me repeat that: "standing up to corporate America."

Donald. Fucking. Trump.

Bernie Fucking Sanders is not our fucking ally. He's a goddamned motherfucking shit-eating collaborator. And has also probably been a Russian agent this whole time.

And I'll admit, I voted for him in my state's primary. I regret doing so. Because his antics prove every day that he does not give a single paltry constipated shit about anyone but himself. He's been on nobody's side but his own, gaming the system to get what he can out of it before moving on. He's as bad as Trump, if not worse; Trump at least makes no pretenses that he's a demented, narcissistic, self-serving son of a bitch. Sanders sells his followers his false self before he robs them fucking blind when they're not looking.

Therefore, if he wants to take all the freeloading angry white dudes with their heads so far up their own asses they could lick their own prostates out of the Democratic Party? Fucking let him. Let him lead them all into the river like the Pied Piper of Goddamn Hamelin for all I care, because these motherfuckers were never on our side, either.

If you're a "progressive" solely to improve your own station, to the detriment of other people, go join the fucking GOP, because that's where you belong. Get the fuck out of our way and the fuck out of our party, because we ain't got time for whiny, petulant, selfish children. We have fucking work to do.