Before we begin, a big hat tip to Frank DiPrima’s recent diary advocating the use of “TrumpCare” to label the GOP healthcare plan(s).
The above diary got me thinking about why it is so important to establish and make stick the term “TrumpCare” rather than “RyanCare.” First and most obviously, it’s too damned nuanced to call it “RyanCare.” I’d be willing to bet that 60% of the people who voted for Trump (especially new voters) have no idea who Paul Ryan is.
Calling it “RyanCare” also allows Trump to put the blame for the disastrous rollout on someone else. No, repeat after me:
“TRUMPCARE IS A COMPLETE DISASTER -— EVEN REPUBLICANS HATE IT!”
The GOP plan has no natural constituency outside Ryan and his close allies. Those who will be obliged to use it can already see that it’s much worse than ObamaCare, and those who bankrolled the repeal of ObamaCare hate it because it doesn’t go far enough. Trump’s brand is “NO COMPROMISE.” This is nothing but compromise. Trump promised it would “cover everyone” and be first class, totally different and infinitely better than the “disaster” that (supposedly) is ObamaCare. But TrumpCare is nothing but ObamaCare with the good stuff red-penciled out and the cost shifted back to the most vulnerable. It’s the formerly-servicable Camry with three tires flattened, the radio removed, and a drive train about to go, but with twice as many payments left. In the Trump universe it is a TOTAL LOSER PRODUCT. Thus it must be tied to the TOTAL LOSER who promised to solve all our problems instantly if we only gave him near-dictatorial powers.
But there are deeper reasons that should make everyone here stop using the term “RyanCare” immediately. Because the term “TrumpCare” is a golden opportunity to make the kind of “deep frame” attack on Trump that will hurt him where it counts --— among those who voted for him.
Recall George Lakoff’s work on metaphor in politics an the concept of deep framing and the “strict father” model in conservative politics:
In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses accept this worldview, uphold the father’s authority, and are strict in those realms of family life that they are in charge of. When his children disobey, it is his moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world.
Of course all conservatives, even females, activate the “strict father” frame in presenting themselves and their policies. But I would argue that Trump took it further than it’s ever been taken in American politics. I have argued elsewhere that he stood out in the GOP primaries because he was the first Republican in over 30 years to present himself not as an “heir to Reagan” but as “his own man” -— a father so strict and strong that he didn’t even need to bow down to Reagan’s legacy.
This fascistic promise of pure strength is the core of his appeal and its the reason that so-called Republicans, so-called conservatives, so-called Christians, etc. have fallen over themselves to sacrifice every so-called “value” at the altar of strength: Trump is clearly not a Christian, or a “family man” or good husband or a fiscal conservative or a committed Republican. The reason none of the attacks on his language, behavior, past, beliefs, shady dealings, etc. worked was because he based his promise of ultimate strength (“stamina” he said in one debate) on the idea that it was the one virtue that “Trumped” and overrode all others. They even sacrificed the most sacred thing of all -— the Reagan myth----for his promise of raw power, vengeance, and a licensed cruelty.
Tying the disaster of the GOP healthcare non-plan to him forever attacks his deep frame. He is not a strong, strict father: he is a weak, absentee father who cannot control his own children (the GOP Congress). [Note the complete disrespect House Republicans are showing to this embarassing, incompetent administration. House Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions even publicly admonished Trump’s White House spokesman for making clueless comments about process that actually ended up helping Democrats: “I will just point blank say that I would encourage Mr. Spicer if he’s going to start talking about my business to give me a darn call.” ] In short, he ran on being not-Reagan. And that’s already coming back to haunt him.
If there is anything to take away from the GOP success at framing politics for the current media age, it’s that nuance loses. In the minds of crucial voters, it is all simply a war between media personalities. That’s why the GOP has been careful to always select a specific member of the Democratic party to demonize----be it Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. They drag that one person into the mud and then associate every Democrat with the name and image that they’ve spent millions to ruin.
But Trump is doing that very thing to himself. From now on Trump is the GOP and the GOP is Trump. Their dysfunction is HIM and He is their dysfuction. Every Democrat who runs for the foreseeable future will be running against Trump. And every Republican in a non-safe district will be obliged, to some degree, to distinguish him/herself from Trump.
The Best thing about “TrumpCare” is that the Republicans themselves are showing how to attack it: As a cheap, inferior imitation of ObamaCare which makes it much worse. TrumpCare was supposed to be a bold, original, powerful, new solution. Instead:
- TrumpCare is ObamaCare with higher premiums and much worse coverage
- TrumpCare is crippled ObamaCare — now with actual death panels!
- TrumpCare ObamaCare without the “Care”
- TrumpCare is ObamaCare with the heart ripped out
- Trumpcare is like all Trump-branded products — a shoddy knockoff designed to fall apart
- TrumpCare vs. ObamaCare -— like the Trump Inauguration turnout vs. the Obama inauguration turnout
- TrumpCare is to ObamaCare what Melania’s plagiarized speech was to Michelle Obama’s — a crude cut and paste job leaving out the most important parts to sell a corrupt agenda
Karl Rove understood that you go right at your opponent’s supposed strength. Trump has to be attacked at his core “brand” identity -— as a strong, strict father, a brilliant manager/businessman who invented “the art of the deal,” who “knows the score” and never gets beat on a deal. The disastrous TrumpCare rollout fiasco is the perfect way to attack that “brand.”
And without that, he is nothing. A man who masquerades as a strict, strong father but shows himself to be weak is seen as a pretender, a fake. His entire promise of potency and authority is exposed as a fraud. He becomes in the words of the French Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan a figure of “Pere-version” -— a “perverted father” --— the observe and dark shadow of all strong, strict father figures.
The photo at the top is from the David Lynch film “Blue Velvet” -— a film based around such a “pere-verse” figure. Dennis Hopper gave one of the most chilling performances in history as Frank Booth --— a belligerent, bullying maniac who plays out sick sado-masochistic sex fantasies for gaze of a young man (played by Kyle McLaughlin). The philosopher Slavoj Zizek has observed about this film that Frank’s threatening bluster and sado-masochistic power rituals are, in the end, all about one thing---hiding from the young man the fact that he is impotent. The film’s dream-like logic implies that his spell is broken and his power is lost when the young couple are finally able to see this---that there is no “there” there---the “strong, strict father” is a fake.
Trump is the “pere-vert” par excellence of our times, perhaps of all American history. Everyone knows his is a sleeze-bag, con-man, self-dealer, liar, corrupt businessman, fake Christian, etc. But calling him these things, and especially pointing out his authoritarian tendencies, racism, cruelty, abuse of power only strengthens his brand and the “pure power” frame that appealed to his voters. He claimed the mantle of the strong father who could not be restrained by any rule, convention, precedent, norm. He was a “free man” — unshackled to the existing GOP power structure, un-policed by “political correctness,” unbound by social norms----even up to the very edge of the incest taboo itself (recall that Freud’s “primal father” myth includes the claim of that “strong father” to possess all women, even one’s own daughters). When the brand is “pure power” the frame is only strengthened by complaints of abuse of power.
The only way to attack the “pure power” brand is to point out failure and weakness. He claims imperial scope -— the power to awe and command with a mere gesture, a mere wish? Show it’s a sham. Show how he is actually an ineffectual weakling. Point out every day in every way the enormous and widening gap between the “fantasy” of Trump’s power and the reality. And nothing is more effective here than to show that he cannot even control his own “children” -— the GOP congress.
Show him to be weak and you invite all that “repressed content” about him (liar, pervert, con-man, traitor) to emerge and do its work---even if only subconsciously---in the mind of those who voted for him. This is, I might add, especially true in the places where he did well (the south, the “heartland”, etc.) They are ready to view him as the “east coast city slicker con-man” that he is. It’s part of the midwest mythology immortalized in “The Music Man.”
But he must be exposed as weak, ineffectual, non-authoritative. And pinning the GOP healthcare fiasco on him by calling the entire “total disaster” “TrumpCare” is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to do it.
P.S. Another more pragmatic reason to go with “TrumpCare” -— so-called conservatives have spent more than two decades and tens of millions of dollars to make the suffix “---care” into dirty word when it comes to American political discourse. It has become a suffix like “---gate” that is used now as a journalistic shorthand for “political disaster.” What that says about our political culture, that the word “care” means “failure,” I’ll leave for another day. Suffice to say that after all that money and effort spent to make “---care” a dirty suffix that spells doom when attached to a proper name (“HillaryCare,” “ObamaCare,” etc.), from a purely rhetorical point, no one wants their name attached to the suffix “----care.” It now invites nothing but ridicule and attacks. Thus “TrumpCare.”