Trump voters didn’t take him literally on Obamacare. Oops?
By Dana Milbank Opinion writer December 20 at 4:48 PM
Donald Trump’s supporters, in conservative writer Salena Zito’s memorable formulation, take him seriously but not literally.
They will be forgiving if, say, he doesn’t literally get Mexico to pay for a border wall, or if he doesn’t literally ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
But in other areas, Trump’s supporters perhaps should have taken him literally — because they now may have a serious problem.
Vox senior editor Sarah Kliff wrote a poignant account last week of her visit to Whitley County, Ky., where the uninsured rate declined 60 percent under Obamacare but 82 percent of voters supported Trump. There, Kliff, a former Post colleague, found Trump voters who were downright frightened that the president-elect would do exactly — literally — what he and Republicans promised: repeal Obamacare.
Among those she found was Trump voter Debbie Mills, a store owner whose husband awaits a lifesaving liver transplant; they got insurance through Obamacare, and Mills is hoping the law won’t be repealed.
“I don’t know what we’ll do if it does go away,” Mills said. “I guess I thought that, you know, would not do this. That they would not do this, would not take the insurance away. Knowing that it’s affecting so many people’s lives. I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot . . . purchase, cannot pay for the insurance?”
Mills, who supported Trump for other reasons, figured Obamacare repeal was just talk. “I guess we really didn’t think about that, that he was going to cancel that or change that or take it away,” she said. “I guess I always just thought that it would be there. I was thinking that once it was made into a law that it could not be changed.”
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I guess those of us on the outside aren't the only ones who couldn't figure out when to take Trump seriously and/or literally. Who could listen to a candidate pitch about shaking up Washington and undoing most of what has happened there since Ozzie and Harriet days and think that laws cannot be changed?
Love to know what her "other reasons" were.
Edit: here's the answer to the "other reasons":
vox.com
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