This one is interesting
Quote:Tierney SneedVerified account
@Tierney_Megan
Tierney Sneed Retweeted Tierney Sneed
FWIW an GOPer at retreat this week corrected me when I said "Obamacare" and told me they want to stick to calling it "Affordable Care Act"
Previously of course, ACA was
not the preferred term. Obamacare was used almost without fail by Republicans. So why this shift?
As with the even earlier use of "Hillarycare", the goal was to
personalize the program, to make it easier to carry forward the notion that it was a sort of totalitarian/authoritarian project (as in the constant "shoved down our throats" by this woman or this guy language). And also it facilitated the trick of shifting bad feelings they had already promoted about the person on to the program itself:
Obama = bad
Therefore, Obama (anything) = bad (anything)
But now they evidently see a need to purposefully change how they are using language, to try and remove "Obama" as a referent. The reason looks to be a mix of related concerns:
First, they've seen the same polls we've seen showing that significant majorities of citizens do not want to lose many recently gained health insurance benefits that came as a consequence of Obamacare/ACA and don't want a repeal of the act (undoubtedly their own polls verify this problem). They know that if they were to repeal it, many of their own base would be unhappy with the personal/family consequences.
So, they understand they are probably going to have to keep the act in place or at least the main body of it with little change or face significant electoral damage. But they will also want to market all this with the over-riding deceit that small changes are huge and constitute a far better Republican plan - this isn't the ACA/Obamacare, it's something totally other.
Why remove Obama's name? To help forward the deceit noted above. Also, they would prefer citizens to
not think about Obama when they enjoy their new health advantages. They wouldn't want to have citizens recognizing who actually authored this act - if that author is a Democrat/liberal. Also, they surely know the polls on Obama's popularity and they don't want that going higher. So they have to shift language now.
Quote:“We’d better be sure that we’re prepared to live with the market we’ve created” through repeal, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) said, according to the Post. “That’s going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.”
TPM
