GOP Healthcare Defeat: “Three-Dimensional Chess,” Or Just Incompetence?

Asked to comment on the ignominious collapse of the GOP healthcare bill, Trump said the following in the Oval Office: “Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today.” He added that he “didn’t particularly love” the bill, and was now content to move on to other matters. Does that sound like the words of someone who was ever stridently committed to the immediate extirpation of Obamacare? Or is this an example of exactly what Trump’s conservative critics feared during last year’s GOP primary campaign: that he had no firm ideological moorings, and therefore would be willing to jettison conservative priorities the moment that doing so appeared politically advantageous?

There’s often a temptation in political analysis to latch on to “three-dimensional chess”-oriented explanations for chaotic, messy events. This kind of punditry frequently attributes some kind of underhanded intentionality to what would otherwise be seen as sheer incompetence: “Politician A is such a master tactician that he purposely failed in this instance, because failing will actually advance his longer-term vision.” So yes, “three-dimensional chess” analysis is usually over-interpretative and bogus. That said, consider…

• Well before the final stages of negotiations, Trump aides were whispering to reporters that they planned to blame Paul Ryan for any forthcoming legislative debacle.
• Steve Bannon griped that the bill was a giveaway to insurance companies.
• Trump aides further whispered to reporters that the failure of the bill would be preferable to the passage of the bill. That’s right: Trump aides relayed that they wanted it to fail.

• Trump made a point to insist that he is eager to work with Democrats on crafting a bill superior to the one just shot down, which was disliked by virtually everyone involved (other than Paul Ryan himself).

• Even knowing that the demise of the bill was increasingly certain, Trump representatives declared as late as Thursday night that this would be Republicans’ one chance to finally repeal Obamacare, after seven years of consternation.

• Trump is a master manipulator who famously prizes loyalty. Paul Ryan abandoned Trump at a critical moment during the 2016 campaign, after a long and torturous series of slights and snafus between the two.

So was this a “purposeful fail” by Trump? Did he ever really want to get this thing passed? It’s near-impossible to discern somebody’s true motive, but put it this way: Can you imagine a President Ted Cruz shrugging his shoulders and conceding that Obamacare will remain in effect for perpetuity — just because of one legislative defeat?

Though we can never know for sure, it’s reasonable to infer that Trump saw this affair as an opportunity to “throw a bone” to Paul Ryan for the sake of intra-party cohesion, and then, once it (inevitably) blew up, pin him with the blame. Consequently, Ryan’s station is weakened, and Trump can argue that following the “Ryan agenda” rather than the “Trump agenda” is a recipe for disaster — legislatively, but also politically, as the “Ryan agenda” is exceedingly unpopular and favored disproportionately by GOP elites, on whom Trump did not rely for victory last fall. In fact, Trump won partially as a rebuke to those very elites. He, as well as Steve Bannon, presumably recognize this.

If Trump were passionately devoted to ensuring the passage of Ryan’s bill, he would’ve been out there on the stump day in and day out, making the case for it as vociferously as possible. He would’ve been tweeting up a storm. True, he did send a couple tweets and hold two (yes, two) rallies: but that’s far from kicking it into Trumpian overdrive. In reality, Trump signaled only the most tepid, obligatory support, and minutes after the bill was withdrawn announced that he never particularly cared for it in the first place.

Democrats have attempted to frame the Trump agenda and the Ryan agenda as one and the same. It’s a defensible political calculation on their part, given that Ryan’s policy portfolio — deficit hawkishness, “entitlement reform,” etc.— is an electoral loser. But there’s a longstanding ideological gulf between the two that is not easily bridgeable, as conservative writers have routinely complained. Yesterday was a stark example of just that: when a non-conservative is the head of an ostensibly conservative party, there are going to be internal contradictions, and governing is going to get dicey. As much as Democrats might want to tie Trump to Ryan, these are people with plainly incongruous worldviews; they might be able to put on a good face for the sake of PR and projecting “unity,” but when push comes to shove, forging ahead with actual governance becomes untenable.

Opposition to Obamacare has long served as a “unifying agent” within the GOP: it has bound members of the caucus together, and allowed them to paper over divisions that would otherwise make intra-party cooperation very difficult. Now that “unifying agent” is gone. Obamacare repeal, according to both Ryan and Trump, is off the table. What binds the GOP together any more? It remains to be seen. The party is burdened by internal contradictions, with the most obvious being the unworkable Trump/Ryan relationship. That gulf between them will only grow wider. Was “widening the gulf” purposeful on Trump’s part? Perhaps; Trump is likely aware that Ryan’s agenda is unpalatable to most of the public, and therefore would like the gulf to be as wide as possible. So he deferred to Ryan on healthcare knowing that the gambit was doomed and that Ryan would emerge looking feckless and defeated. In the wake of Ryan’s folly, Trump consolidates power within a divided GOP and accrues leverage to work with Democrats to push for policy options that are far more popular than the conservative boilerplate Ryan advocates. (Recall that Trump has in the past expressed support for government-provisioned universal healthcare…)

So, that’s the “three-dimensional chess” explanation. Could also just be good old-fashioned incompetence, though.