After hearing—say it with me—seven long years' worth of frantic promises to scuttle the abomination that is the Affordable Care Act, it's understandable for Republican voters to be upset and frustrated, and to wonder why their congressional leaders weren't prepared for the possibility that they might one day catch the car they've been chasing so determinedly. That said, their job would probably be a lot easier on the watch of a president who knew anything about health care or the bill's details, or who was capable of contributing something other than "threatening retaliation against a recalcitrant senator's state like a fringe Grand Theft Auto villain" during the effort to whip votes. For Trump, distancing himself from the party establishment was a smart move on the campaign trail. Now that he's just as much a component of the flailing Republican leadership cohort as McConnell or Ryan or anyone else, though, the stunt rings increasingly hollow.

Trump's strategy of tut-tuttingly tousling the senate majority leader's hair and offering a lazy, trite "just get it done"-style directive is a tacit admission that he is exactly what he indignantly swears he's not: an empty vessel for the Republican agenda who will dutifully rubber-stamp whatever is placed before him, as long as you place the pen directly into his disembodied hand and then guide him through the process of signing his name on the correct dotted line. It's not clear whether there's a limit to the number of people he can plausibly scapegoat before voters catch on to the fact that the president possesses neither ideas of his own nor the skills to execute those of others, but if one exists, he's sure to find it soon enough.

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