Murdoch TURNS on Trump… UNEARTHS PARTY SECRETS
📉 The GOP’s Grand Illusion: Eight Years, No Plan, and the Healthcare Crisis
The Republican Party is currently staging a magnificent spectacle of political failure, broadcast not by their adversaries, but by the very media outlets that have historically served as their echo chamber. The most recent and damning reports from Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal—a publication once treated as a near-biblical text by conservative policymakers—reveal a party in paralyzing disarray, unable to forge a cohesive policy stance on the most consequential domestic issue: healthcare. The headlines are not triumphal but tragic, documenting an internal GOP civil war with the exact headline, “Republicans can’t agree on healthcare.”
This dysfunction is not new; it is merely an amplified continuation of a political abandonment that dates back to the infamous “thumbs down” moment from the late Senator John McCain eight years ago, which killed the last serious attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For nearly a decade since that moment, the Republican Party has had the unchallenged opportunity—and the explicit, repeated promise—to formulate a genuine, market-based alternative to the ACA. Yet, the current reality, as confirmed by their own internal dissent, is that there is no plan.
Speaker Mike Johnson, a month ago, confidently asserted that a healthcare proposal was ready to go, a proposal that could be implemented “immediately.” That claim has been exposed as a hollow fabrication. Now, with the critical expiration of the enhanced ACA subsidies looming—subsidies that Democrats and even President Trump himself are currently being forced to support extending—the GOP is scattered into warring factions. Some Republicans are cautiously open to a temporary subsidy extension, others cling to vague notions of “market-based alternatives,” and still others demand wholesale, divergent reforms. This lack of consensus is not just a failure of policy; it is a profound dereliction of duty.
The crisis of unity is exacerbated by the erratic posturing from the highest levels. After years of demanding that lawmakers let Obamacare “implode” to force a new plan, the centerpiece of President Trump’s recent healthcare proposal turned out to be the very thing Democrats demanded during the last shutdown: extending the ACA subsidies. This spectacular reversal of strategy and principle—extending the very program they have sworn to dismantle—demonstrates a party prioritizing political expediency over core conservative philosophy. As one commentator noted, there are many ideas, but “there’s no consensus. And I think that’s a failure. I do.”
This internal fracturing is having a real-world political impact, undermining the party’s central narrative of unified power and competence. The Wall Street Journal’s continuous, prominent coverage is essentially a daily audit of GOP incompetence, a spectacle that President Trump, whose entire brand is built on being a “winner,” reportedly despises. The deep policy divisions are now spilling into open feuding, with members of Congress admitting to yelling at leadership and having to search in secret briefings for a plan that simply does not exist. The public display of panic—with some Republicans openly admitting the party is in chaos—is not just embarrassing; it’s electorally corrosive.
The political stakes could not be higher. Multiple recent polls have demonstrated that Democratic voters are far more enthused and “fired up” about the upcoming midterm elections than their Republican counterparts. Polling suggests that only 26% of Republicans are “very enthusiastic,” compared to 44% of Democrats. This enthusiasm gap—which often translates directly into higher turnout—is a siren call of trouble for a party that controls the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.
The question for Republican voters is simple: Why be enthused? Despite holding complete control, the party’s legislative output has been virtually non-existent, marred by infighting over policies, military strategy, and even bizarre conspiracy theories like the Epstein files. When the party’s own figures, including the RNC chair, are quietly conceding a grim electoral outlook, and when traditionally friendly outlets like the Wall Street Journal are documenting the internal collapse, the narrative of unity and strength completely falls apart. The Republican failure on healthcare is not an isolated incident; it is a powerful symbol of a party that cannot govern, cannot unify, and cannot deliver on its most fundamental promises, proving that rhetoric cannot sustain a political movement when concrete results are nonexistent.
