Flipping the script on the GOP's shutdown lies

Once again, the Republican Party and Donald Trump have shut down the federal government and are spinning a preposterous narrative of easily debunked lies to justify it. While Democrats are pushing back, there’s a huge opportunity here to articulate a vision of solidarity and human empathy that breaks through the political barrier and speaks to deep-seated fears of Republican voters in a way that normal Beltway politispeak can’t.

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The ostensible sticking point in this shutdown is the GOP’s refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits keeping MILLIONS of Americans from eating gargantuan healthcare premium increases or losing their healthcare entirely. Or, put another way, Democrats are exerting the only leverage they have to ensure that — this is important — Trump’s own voters are not thrown off their insurance and possibly condemned to an early death from preventable causes. 56% of ACA marketplace enrollees live in congressional districts represented by Republicans, and 76% of enrollees are in states won by President Trump in the 2024 election.

Yesterday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson went on George Stephanopoulos’ show to defend the shutdown that is 100% the fault of the Republican Party. His excuse was that “the Democrats said instead that they wanted to give health care to illegal aliens instead of keeping critical services provided for the American citizens. That’s what happened, plain and simple.”

This, of course, is a complete lie, and he knows it. Undocumented immigrants cannot access the social safety net, it’s right there in the law if you read it, and Democrats were quick to point this out. “This is a lie. Not a single federal dollar goes to providing health insurance for undocumented immigrants. NOT. ONE. PENNY. Republicans would rather lie and shut down the government than protect your health care!” wrote Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Twitter.

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Ok, Chuck, that’s good, but let’s take it one step further. Whose healthcare are we protecting? Mostly, it’s Republicans who hate us because they’ve had the most hysterical and outrageous lies pumped into their brains by propaganda networks owned by billionaires who profit off their suffering. But we’re doing it anyway, and we need to SAY that.

Rep. Katherine Clark made a good start when she reminded the nation that “Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise are both from Louisiana. Most children in Louisiana are on Medicaid. 64% of all births in Louisiana are paid for by Medicaid. 74% of nursing home residents in Louisiana are on Medicaid. Yet Republicans are willing to shut down government, refusing to even show up for work this week because they want to cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars, because they want to defund health care for children and seniors and pregnant women, because they want to pay for billionaire tax cuts.”

All this is missing is “…and Democrats are working to make sure that those kids still have healthcare.”

We do it because we work to protect and help and uplift ALL Americans, not just the ones in our party, because it’s the right thing to do, because we believe everyone deserves to have healthcare no matter who they voted for, because we believe in a vision of America that isn’t solely catering to the whims of oligarchs.

If we’re ever going to reach voters on the other side, healthcare is one of the ways to do it. Everyone gets sick. Everyone has seen a loved one suffer from disease or injury. If you ask any random person on the street whether or not you should help a sick person, nine times out of ten, they’d probably say yes. Our collective pain, our anguish, our fear can be just as powerful a bonding tool as it can be a divider.

We need to go full-throttle in a nationwide campaign to remind everyone that while Donald Trump is busy smearing Democrats as radicals, Democrats are going to bat to make sure Republicans can keep their healthcare. One of these things is not like the other.

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