The Republican majority in Congress is an illusion

[FakeNews]

The recriminations following the GOP’s health-care failure obscure a simple reality: The party doesn’t have as much power as its leaders thought it did.

Legislating is often described as more art than science, but it’s really just grade-school arithmetic: Bills either have the votes needed to pass, or they don’t.

Republicans have a president in the White House and a numerical majority in Congress—237 seats out of the 430 currently occupied in the House, and 52 out of 100 in the Senate. In theory, that’s enough to run the show. “Welcome to the dawn of a new unified Republican government,” an ebullient House Speaker Paul Ryan declared to reporters the week after the November election.

He was using the word “unified” in a general sense. Republicans now had, in the presidency, the capstone to their decade-long crawl back to power in Washington. But as the last week has made abundantly clear, the idea of unification was wishful thinking, and mostly an illusion. As Ryan and Trump surveyed the results of the elections, they each seemed to see a much bigger victory than the GOP had actually won.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...n-majority-in-congress-is-an-illusion/521403/

 

[Conager]

Eight years of Republicans fearful of the fact that Obama being elected was more than what it was, a country weary of Bush and a curiosity. Republicans elected or retained Rhinos in purple states to counter a perceived left shift.

The country was and is right of center.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Eight years of Republicans fearful of the fact that Obama being elected was more than what it was, a country weary of Bush and a curiosity. Republicans elected or retained Rhinos in purple states to counter a perceived left shift.

The country was and is right of center.

Not really.

 

[AnAmericanDarling]

I agree with the original poster. The congress is not "right of center" or "unified" or else Obamacare would've been repealed. This did not happen, as well it should NOT have happened. Democrats opposed the repeal as well as most of Republicans. It looks like Trump is not getting the support he anticipated.