Sometimes it takes a bit of history to wake people up. Numbers are good. If you read the numbers below with care you will see what the GOP Senate is reading this morning. It is called the writing on the wall. For them, it is called avoiding the worst evil.

Bad news for the GOP

The best evil would be repealing and replacing Obamacare, something deemed seriously unpopular. But the GOP swallowed that hubristic meme a long time ago. The worst evil according to the numbers below would be to actually pass Trumpcare. It is the most unpopular bill in the last thirty years -- and by a wide margin.

Voila.

The commentary that is bound to ensue when folk wake to this is whether Mitch McConnell was putting on an act when he virtually volunteered to soldier the disastrous GOP House Trumpcare bill through the Senate. There he was saying it could be done. More than once. Big Mitch. Zap. The numbers do not lie. At 28 percent, a record low, Trumpcare is ten points less popular than Trump. Not good.

Looming losses

The numbers mean that electoral losses loom large for those who pass the least popular bills. It is, after all, a democracy.

The Mitch version of Trumpcare is just as bad as the House version because it substitutes hidden dangers for outright mayhem.

Both bills strip insurance from tens of millions -- 2,2 according to the CBO. Both bills savage Medicare, limiting its coverage. The GOP Senate planned losses that would hit worst well past the next elections.

Two versions

The Senate bill, however, is torn between two versions. It puts the spotlight on the one thing that is guaranteed to make it a loser -- pre-existing conditions.

In one version, that proposed by Ted Cruz, people with pre-existing conditions will be tempted to gamble instead of paying more for good insurance. The Mitch version just makes it more expensive. The consensus is that messing with this issue is the heart of doom for the GOP.

Better days

The numbers that are the news this morning remind us of better days.

There have been no bills remotely as unpopular. Only W's tax cuts and Dodd-Frank broke into positive territory. All the health bills have less than majority support.

If a candidate wanted to run on what was popular we would have some better laws than the excrescences that seem to be emerging doggedly from the stubborn precincts of Donald Trump. We would start by diminishing the ease with which slaughter by gunfire can warm the heart of the wicked Wayne La Pierre and his NRA cronies.

Wickedness is a synonym for promoting harm. The American people find that unpopular. But few candidates have woken up.
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