1. I think that generally, Obama & that group still think their experience w the GOP in 2009/10 unfolded organically. They had the gang of 8 or whatever & the GOP was really working on health reform, earnestly willing to help put together a reform policy. After all, Ds https://twitter.com/rightsandmight/status/1339595587428130820

2. showed them the respect of opening the process w a policy that was squarely "reform" (not replace!) and one which the GOP has demonstrated support of bc it was their own version of reform (coming from RomneyCare and all). I assume Obama and many of the Ds

3. involved in the Obamacare process expected Rs to cooperate and were taken aback & congressional Rs total rejection of the ACA BUT that it was only bc of the pressure from right-wing media & the emergence of the Tea Party that Rs bailed- that they felt electorally pressured.

5. Rem- ACA passes literally on a party-line vote and ONLY bc poor Ted Kennedy, sick as a dog, forces himself in the middle of dying from a brain cancer tumor (exactly as John McCain would do, dying from the SAME cancer, 7 years later, to save it by 1 vote- god that's CRAZY

6. but its exactly what happened, what a story!) Then the Rs spend a decade telling everyone how Obamacare was/is partisan legislation that passed on a party line vote- that it was rammed through w/o the help of any Republicans even though, as we just discussed, really, the whole

7. damn law IS THE GOP'S HEALTH REFORM PLAN!! Just bc Rs bailed on it doesn't change the fact that the ACA is based on RomneyCare, so its a market-based, private insurance-based, status-quo maintaining reform plan that is pretty damn far from what a Dem would have proposed

7. for their healthcare reform plan if it was a liberal policy! I mean, Rs will argue till their blue in the face about it now, even Never Trump Rs will, they'll point to come caveat here, or change their to push back that ACA is REALLY like RomneyCare, but it is!

8. I mean, it IS the GOP plan! This is why, when the time came for the Rep Party to come up w a Rep healthcare reform plan, they couldn't bc their grand plan (its actually a pretty good plan!) is Obamacare! Dems stole it and then Reps adopted hating it so now they have no plan.

9. Its a market-based, private insurance-based, status-quo maintaining reform plan that is pretty damn far from what a Dem would have proposed in 2007 during the Dem primary debates as their ideal proposal for health care reform. At least the liberal ones! And the one aspect that

8. could allow someone w a straight face to call it a Dem/progressive version was the public option, which Dems stripped from Obamacare to get Rs to vote for it and still got 0 votes!! And the individual mandate which the GOP turns against- that little puppy was the brainchild of

9. the the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation bc it (rightly) pointed out that if health insurers had to cover sick people they would go broke unless healthy people were forced into the market. That w/o a mandate to force young/healthy people into the market, it would

10. quickly get top heavy and costs would get out of control. Plus, Heritage argued, it was responsible for people to carry insurance when they were young and healthy bc they could get a surprise cancer diagnosis and bc they shouldn't free-ride (collective action problem) so

11. a little coercion towards personal responsibility could be tolerated. At least when the individual mandate is being contemplated by one Millard Romney of Massachusetts's. They come to diff conclusions in 2010 when a Dem wants to mandate a little personal responsibility & have

12. a litany of "whys" to defend it.

All of this is to say, none of the GOP's song & dance on Obamacare was genuine. They never had an iota of intention to pass a bipartisan health insurance reform bill, and that was back when they will still healthy! Today's GOP, a party that

13. just tried to pull a coup over an election they lost by 5pts! & only failed at that effort by the size of the margins in the Blue Wall. Had they been narrow, we'd be living in post-democratic America & that scares the crap out of me. Biden, his team, congressional leadership,

14. and reg rank and file congressional members- everyone needs to be eyes wide open about the modern GOP: a party overtaken by extremists, a party of extremism, largely incapable of governing. We forget it, even for ONE SECOND at not only our peril, but at the entire country's

15. peril. And now, as reported by @jheil thanks to the GOP's election of a college football coach who knows literally NOTHING about government to try one more stab at the coup in the senate on Jan. 6 and as Heileman points out, now the GOP is just looking for a more passable

16. tyrant. We must keep them from power as if the country's survival depends upon it because it absolutely does.