Healthcare in America is a very tedious topic, politically it couldn’t be more farther divided between whatever Republicans think and whatever Democrats think. In reality, public opinion is pretty close if you just take away political identities. Gallup polling has been recording certain questions for over a decade to cover public opinion on healthcare, and they are revealing. From 2000 all the way to 2007, the majority of Americans thought government should be responsible for healthcare, in 2008 that number became basically even, and then since than, it has been pretty closely aligned. But on the key statistics shows that majority of Americans are starting to have a negative view on the healthcare industry, which would only benefit going after them for their unfair practices. Since 2001 they have been asking how much affordable healthcare has mattered in your life, over 59% on average for 16 years, said it matters a “Great Deal”, just shows how much Americans have always cared about Healthcare. Through 2002 to 2016, Gallup has asked what the most urgent health problem facing the country, and for 14 years in a row, “Cost” has always been the highest answered question. From 2001 to 2016, Gallup asked “How was coverage in America healthcare” and the majority by a lot answered mostly “Only fair or poor”. The most prominent question Gallup asked from 2001 to 2016 is “Are you generally satisfied or dissatisfied with the total cost of healthcare in this country”, on average for the 15 years, 75% of people are dissatisfied. These numbers show that the Affordable Healthcare Act didn’t change much in popular opinion, this unhappy sentiment for healthcare has always been there, not that it came from what politicians actually done about the real issue, or the conglomerates who control the industry.
We are 6 months into a craziness that is a billionaire administration, and a kleptocracy in the White House. We see the national liberal media doing everything they can to discredit Trump, unfortunately them and the DNC has gone full tilt on the fact that there was collusion. This will fail, but because of Trump’s suspicious business practices and possible money laundering, the Democrats might get a saving grace. But so far the debate about policy is basically dead, it's basically the reality show President if you are watching national news nightly. Right now, the fever to get policies that help Americans is overwhelming, single payer Health Care actually has a positive polling rating, even though it gets minimal discussion in our media. Before Bernie Sanders ran for President, it barely was discussed. If any political party, or person could implement a system of healthcare that isn't controlled by the Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies than we would see a surge to whatever party has done this. In the very beginning of Obamacare people were supporting it thinking it would change the system for the better, because of the reality of the corporate written law, people are somewhat aware of the raw deal they are getting. Of course Obamacare has some good parts, but it still did nothing to help with cost, the rising cost each year isn't a product of a policy, but the system.
After the recession and the bailout, we were told things would change, that this wouldn’t happen again, but now with Trump, they are deregulating the banks again, and there has never been a moment in American Market history that a deregulated market system didn't just bubble up and crash. For majority of the years it had FDR’s post depression laws regulating them, which at the time was the golden period of American History, now we are watching regulations go down, and speculation trading go up. The big banks grew after the recession and control more of the GDP now than before the crash, “Too big to Fail” is now reality. Debt is on the rebound, after the recession it dropped off from the all time high, but now it is rebounding back up, led by student loan debt, auto loan debt, and credit card debt. The average American household has $16,000 in credit card debt, $27,000 average for car loan owners, $48,000 average for people with student loans, and $169,000 average for people with mortgages. Now the difference between 25 years ago and now, is that student debt was non existent compared to today. The average American household is struggling, point blank, the recession helped recover the rich, not the bottom 90%. Now Hillary can make any excuse she wants, Russia, Wikileaks, BernieBros, whatever, but the point is that she ran an awful campaign, her policy was meh and didn’t speak to the needs of the majority. She won the popular vote, but that is easily shown that she won the most populated major cities, but in reality that electoral college exist to make it so all states have equal representation, if anything this election was a prime example of it. Trump spoke to the needs of the people, especially the Midwest (Which Bernie won also) and PA which carried the election. Whether or not Trump is keeping his promises matters very little right now, it is what his policies will do for the people who are on edge about him and his administration. Not everybody is listening to politics everyday, so how does his/her average day change under Trump, lower taxes, more money to spend, market is doing well, good paying jobs, can afford living without 2 jobs. This will be the key about what Trump does, and what we have seen in the past over and over again since the industrial revolution is whenever have a society is depressed, the person who comes in and fixes things sometimes turns into an absolute leader. Trump if he plays his cards right, could be on this path, he has the personality type of dictator.
Right now, there is one man in the White House that has built a legit movement in this country and understands the thirst for what people want and that is Steve Bannon. Sure the TV depicts this man as an awful person who is a racist, bigot, and white supremacist. But if you actually listen to Bannon talk, he might be a whole lot of conservative, but he understands what's going on this country when it comes to the corrosive effects of the corruption. He is against the super rich who are the oligarchs in America. As we hear all this Russia talk about how the Oligarchs control society and are friends with Putin, America isn’t much different, our wealth inequality is some of the worst in the modern world. Bannon has just supposedly called for a 44% tax on the super rich, which is an extreme contradiction to the rest of the Republican party, if this would happen, it instantly becomes the highest tax on the top bracket in decades. If Trump and the Republicans created a single payer system for Health care, they would instantly save people thousands of dollars which would boost the economy also. If they played the long game, and did things that actually stuck to the campaign message of “Drain the Swamp”, Trump could become one of the greatest Presidents ever, if they actually started going after the elites, in a non-partisan way, and ignored their donors and just created and pushed policy that would transform this country, the amount of people who would actually start to listen to Trump and his administration would be scary. Trump’s approval was actually pretty good after the election, but by the end of February the brutal attacks about the Russia collusion have taken hold, the Democrats are going all in on this strategy to delegitimize and cover for Hillary’s awful loss. If Trump took the actual train towards greatness, he would start to break away from the establishment and neoliberal ways of the past 36 years, but so far his administration looks like Reagan on steroids, which if that is the case, America is heading towards a destructive 2020’s.
Just like times before us, we are the people who are watching history now, so what will we do to the history books as they are written, fight for change in our government, understand we don’t have equal representation now, or let donors and corporations take over totally and passively take what they give us. During the rise of the Nazi’s historians almost always leave a very important point, racism and antisemitism did not lead to the rise of the Nazi’s, it was delierveing on their campaign promises of rebuilding Germany that gave Hitler the power of the german people. Just like now, Trump’s racist or bigot policies won't lead to him becoming an absolute leader, but if he actually did the policies he talked about during his campaign, imagine if the Republicans in Congress gathered up and actually said “Fuck our Donors” it could transform our society. Instead, people passively hope that these Congressmen, or President will do it for them. Our civic duty of fighting for what is right in this country shouldn’t be about which party is in control, who is President, and if it’s a cool thing to do. It should be all the time, because no matter who has been in power the past 36 years, nothing has changed. Now Trump on the other hand, is a narcissistic monster which he wears on his sleeve. He actually is a person and has feelings, which is key, they might not be the type of feelings you like, but this means that we could control him. Imagine if Republicans, Democrats, and Independents united together and started protesting in the masses for certain bills, someone like Trump would of course do it, because he only wants to be loved. This is how change happens when you have a complete unstable person in power, otherwise you let him get impeached, and you have Mike Pence, which is by far WAY WORSE.