The central goal of a second Donald Trump presidential term would be to use governmental power to punish his enemies in politics and media. But the goonish work will mostly be conducted within the executive branch, leaving room for the legislative branch to advance more traditional conservative policy goals.
What would compose that policy agenda? A Trump post on social media suggests it may be centered on another attempt to repeal Obamacare. “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, a quasi social-media platform that serves primarily as a staging ground for his personal messages. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”
It might seem hard to believe that Republicans would reprise the most politically calamitous episode of the Trump presidency. But there are several reasons why they might try again and why it could even work.
In 2016, Trump campaigned on a promise to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a better alternative that would cost less and give everybody better insurance. This was obviously impossible. There was never any Republican alternative that would replace Obamacare with better, cheaper insurance. The actual Republican alternatives were to cut Obamacare by stripping away subsidies and regulatory protections that enabled sick and low-income people to afford insurance. But the effects of these cuts were so ghastly that a tiny, decisive number of moderate Republican legislators refused to support it.
Did Trump learn the lesson that his promise of creating health care that was both better and cheaper was irreconcilable? Almost certainly not — Trump lacks the analytical capacity to understand even policy issues that are much simpler than health care. What he believes in his heart is almost certainly the same thing as what he has been saying out loud for the last five years: He was going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something fantastic but was betrayed by John McCain.
The other question is whether Trump could assemble a legislative majority that is willing to repeal Obamacare. The answer is “Yes, he might.”
Republicans have a strong chance to win control of both chambers of Congress in 2024, given the makeup of the Senate map in which Democrats have to defend several deep-red seats. McCain is long gone, and while two other Republican senators (Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) voted against repeal, it’s possible that they will change their minds or that Republicans will pick up two additional votes, rendering their support unnecessary.
It is important to understand that a second Trump term would take place in a very different kind of economic atmosphere than the last. Trump’s first term occurred at the tail end of a long period of low interest rates. Republicans could cut taxes and increase spending, and doing so boosted the economy because the labor market had still not fully recovered from the Great Recession.
Under current conditions, if Republicans want to cut taxes, they would likely cause interest rates to spike, bringing immediate economic pain. They will have to cut spending if they want to cut taxes. Social spending, especially the kind that benefits the poor and the sick, is their least favorite kind of spending. The Republican Party’s traditional Reaganite wing has never accepted Obamacare specifically or the principle that people have a right to medical care generally.
So while Republican elites are deeply divided over Donald Trump’s personal behavior, they are largely united in their antipathy to the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is popular, and cutting it would risk another white-hot political backlash. But politicians run for office so they can do things. And cutting or eliminating Obamacare is a thing nearly every Republican would desperately like to do.
