Goppers continue to win the battle for rhetorical conventional wisdom, evidenced by the fact that talking heads across the spectrum claim that the Nation is divided. While there is a division, the break is solely within the Republican party, and more specifically within the hearts of Republican voters.
CASE IN POINT:
The above map shows states where Republicans won governorships on Tuesday night. Voters in three of those states - Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah voted to expand medicaid. To refresh, the medicaid expansion was part of the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare which was passed in 2010, eight years ago, with vehement party line opposition from Republicans. Reliably Republican states resisted the expansion in the so-called Tea Party era in which GOP party bona fides were measured by how much Obama could be opposed and denigrated, regardless of how sensible his policies were.
Time has proven how in-demand Obama's medicaid expansion has been as Republican states have reluctantly signed up for those benefits, but not in a linear fashion. Some red states dug in and fully resisted. In other red states, Republican governors have been battling Republican state legislatures and vice versa, over the implementation of the expansion. Those battles have highlighted the internal conflict that haunts the Republican party across the board to this day. Republicans have been torn between sticking to their arguments against the efficacy of a pro-government liberal black president, and allowing his policies to improve their quality of life.
On Tuesday night, Republicans in three more states voted to let the policies of the pro-government liberal black president take effect while voting for governors from the party that has been laser-focused on obstructing those very policies. These are clearly people who are suffering from inner conflicts, yet that conflict is being ascribed to the nation as a whole. It is not the nation that is divided. IT IS WHITE REPUBLICANS WHO ARE DIVIDED WITHIN THEMSELVES. Referring to that conflict as a national problem is their way of shirking reality. Accepting their argument that we are nationally divided makes us complicit.
#ItsNotBothSides
For a timeline of Medicaid expansion by state, click here
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