GOP Sabotaged Their Own Bill By Trying to Go It Alone: With Their Own Party in Disarray, How Could They Possibly Hope to Pass Anything Until Their Ducks Are in a Row?

I’m trying to comprehend how a political party that is as fractured as the GOP possibly thought they could ramrod their incomplete health care bill through the House with every Democrat prepared to vote “No” on it.  

The attempt to do this was done in extreme haste, and without doing the groundwork first.   Votes should never have been scheduled until the GOP had their entire party on board, which they never did with the health care reform bill.   Moderate Republicans thought the bill went too far, the conservatives didn’t think it went far enough, and everybody else was scattered across the divide.

The GOP couldn’t have more than twenty-one of their members vote against the bill; in between thirty and forty indicated that they wouldn’t support it.  That number, combined with the Democratic numbers was enough to cause the GOP leadership to pull the vote.

If this kind of GOP thinking continues, and they don’t do their homework, I fully expect this kind of thing to happen again on the other agenda items that President Trump has.  I’d prefer he didn’t rule by Presidential fiat in the same way that President Obama did (through Executive Orders). 

I don’t know if Speaker Ryan will be able to hold onto his leadership position, given the kind of defeat he’s just been handed.  If he can’t control his own party in the House, he can’t be expected to control the direction of the whole House either.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.