Not surprising. They rushed to get rid of the ACA without a real plan.
And they underestimated how hard it would be to please the entire GOP.
The moment they'd make a concession to the House Freedom Caucus, they'd piss off the more moderate conservatives, and when they made a concession to them, they lost the other side.
I read an article that suggested they should toss orthodoxy out the window and vote with Democrats on parts of the effort that they both agree on, but the bigger problem, and both sides are guilty of this, is partisan politics. Neither side wants the other side to be successful, and that has completely taken over the political landscape. The GOP started this under Obama, and now the Democrats are unironically doing the exact same things step for step.
I miss the Greatest Generation. This kind of shit didn't happen under them. But I really wonder if Gen X, or God help us, Millennials- will be any better the day they dominate Washington
Partisan politics has pretty much been with us from day 1, and while it comes and goes in terms of severity, most people I've spoken to (and myself) seem to really identify the end of George HW Bush's presidency in the early 1990's as when it really started coming to a head. When Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich worked together (despite being from opposing parties) during Clinton's second term, AMAZING STUFF GOT DONE. Same went for Reagan's presidency -- much as he's touted as the Republican Superman, all of his greatest successes involved reaching across the aisle and working with his opponents, and his failures tended to result from him not doing that.
What a concept to the folks in Washington!
George W. Bush was able to transform the September 11th attacks into something that he was able to use to largely bridge the gap in Congress, but that was a tactic of diminishing returns, and eventually by his final year the Blind Partisan gridlock was so bad nobody could really accomplish anything -- this is something that Barack Obama did very little to fix, only offering a token effort here and there when the cameras were rolling.
Trump isn't even offering
that level of "lipservice bipartisanship".
The problem ultimately comes with that sort of gridlock stemming from the fact that both sides scream "we need a bipartisan effort!" but being unwilling to compromise on anything. Democrats want Republicans to sign onto Democrat plans 100% with no meaningful GOP input, and the GOP expects vice versa.
Because Politics in DC is no longer about doing a job, or serving the people, or building the nation to new and better heights:
it's about winning.Winning at any and all costs, no matter how bloody or steep the figurative body count.
We're not far removed from Cassius arranging to plant 23 knives in Caesar anymore, and if that happens, we're back to the bad old days. (Even though a lot of people in DC probably deserve it.)
Where the hell is Henry Clay when you need him?!
Oh right. He's been dead for ages.