Activist left goes all out to save Obamacare
The fury that followed the House repeal vote suggests the Democratic base isn’t going anywhere.
By ELANA SCHOR 05/07/17 07:02 AM EDT
The House vote to repeal Obamacare is the biggest policy win yet for Donald Trump’s young presidency — and also the biggest challenge for the movement working to defeat him.
Anti-Trump activists had cheered when they helped blunt House Republicans’ initial effort to pass a bill. Now opposition groups face an exhausting juggling act, keeping their members engaged during a long and uncertain health care push in the Senate while also not losing sight of the vulnerable House Republicans who voted to shred Obamacare.
Activists insist that the nation’s sprawling liberal grass roots is ready for both battles and is far from discouraged by last week’s loss. And by continuing to vent anger at House Republicans who voted for the bill, they say, they’ll show centrist GOP senators the price of going down a similar path.
"The progressive movement definitely has to work hard" to make sure "nobody loses sight of the consequences of this bill, and to impress those consequences upon every senator,” Organizing for Action spokesman Jesse Lehrich said in an interview. “But at the end of the day, I think this whole repeal effort will prove to be a self-inflicted wound of epic proportions.”
The immediate fury that followed the House vote suggests that the Democratic base isn’t going anywhere. The liberal fundraising website ActBlue helped affiliates raise more than $2 million in less than a day, cash that will be stored for the eventual challengers to more than 24 House Republicans who supported the American Health Care Act. The progressive group CREDO Action said its members made more than 10,000 phone calls to the Hill on Thursday alone.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/07/obamacare-activists-resistance-health-care-238042
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