The question is what happens next. The New York Times reports Wednesday that senators on both sides are worried that this could ultimately lead to the elimination of the filibuster on legislation. The scenario that each side fears is that the other will have unchecked power in the majority to pass its full agenda:

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Without the current filibuster rule on legislation, Democrats, should they dominate Washington again one day, could seek a large increase in the minimum wage, increased Social Security benefits, paid family leave or Medicare for all. And they would need only a simple majority to do it. Similarly, Republicans could pass large permanent tax cuts, oil drilling in the Arctic or a national concealed-carry gun law. Such power is something that President Trump might see as quite delicious, and something that he may well push for if Republicans confirm Judge Neil M. Gorsuch for the Supreme Court without meaningful support from Democrats.

One might think that, because Republicans are currently in the majority, Democrats have more to fear from such an outcome. In fact, there are reasons to suspect Republicans may have more to fear from it than Democrats do.

The story of the moment is that Republicans are struggling to create consensus among themselves to pass their agenda. After spending seven years vowing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have failed to agree on a measure for doing that even in the House, which of course requires only a simple majority for passing things.

Importantly, this revealed an ideological split among Republicans that appears to be meaningful. House conservatives oppose the repeal-and-replace bill because it would continue to spend and regulate excessively to cover poor and sick people, albeit far less generously. By contrast, House GOP moderates oppose the measure because it would scrap regulations that require coverage to be comprehensive and would roll back coverage for millions of poor people — in other words, in part because it is profoundly regressive. On Tuesday night, talks between the White House and conservatives about reviving the bill didn’t produce results, and many of these same divisions are still present.

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What’s more, it is highly unlikely any such bill could pass the Senate, where GOP moderates have already objected to millions losing Medicaid. A nontrivial number of GOP lawmakers are reconciling themselves to important features of the ACA’s spending and regulations but can’t say so out loud, while many others can never reconcile themselves to anything even close to those provisions. These differences were papered over, as long as Republicans could agitate for repeal-and-replace in the abstract without it happening. Now they’ve been exposed.

Meanwhile, such ideological divisions could also imperil tax reform, which Trump wants to turn to next. And some congressional Republicans don’t want to appropriate money to pay for Trump’s border wall, which is the most prominent symbol of Trumpism’s overarching goal of slamming the brakes on global trade and immigration flows — more matters on which there are serious GOP differences.

It’s true that Republicans could likely pass some things by simple majorities, such as large tax cuts by themselves, a national concealed carry standard, increased border security, or various deregulatory measures. But, while Democrats will also struggle with divisions in their ranks if they take back total control, it is somewhat easier to see them uniting behind things like Medicare for all, or at least an expansion of the ACA and a shoring up of the exchanges; immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship; a large infrastructure package that constitutes a genuine public expenditure (unlike what Trump is mulling); and a minimum wage hike.

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Yes, Republicans would theoretically be able to undo such things by simple majorities once they took back control. But as the health-care debate is showing us, it’s a lot harder for Republicans to roll back progressive advances once it becomes clear to the public that so doing will extract a major human toll — in other words, once it becomes clear what Republicans are actually proposing to do in concrete human terms. A new Gallup poll finds that support for the ACA is up to 55 percent, now that Americans got a look at a specific, massively regressive GOP alternative, and a new Kaiser poll finds that 75 percent of Americans now want Republicans to make the law work.

To be clear, I am not advocating for an end to the filibuster for legislation. I think it should probably be preserved, at least in some form. But it seems clear that over the long haul, Republicans have more to fear from such an outcome than Democrats do. And if GOP divisions continue to frustrate Trump’s agenda, and Democratic opposition continues to slow its advance, it is not hard to imagine an increasingly frustrated Trump demanding an end to it.

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* EFFORT TO REVIVE HEALTH BILL SPUTTERS: The Wall Street Journal reports that the effort to revive the GOP repeal-and-replace bill is not producing results. Conservatives want provisions that would allow states to opt out of requiring comprehensive coverage. But:

Even if members of the Freedom Caucus were to reach an agreement with the administration, GOP leaders would still need to shore up support among more centrist House Republicans who have objected to some of the changes sought by conservatives. “That would not move me to the ‘yes’ column,” said Rep. Leonard Lance (R., N.J.), who said he favored retaining the requirement that most insurers offer specific health benefits such as maternity care or hospitalization.

It’s another sign that the divisions among Republicans are real and meaningful.

* REPUBLICANS WHO BUCK TRUMP MAY FACE PRIMARIES: The Washington Examiner reports that outside GOP groups who back Trump may support primaries against any GOP lawmakers who don’t vote with him. A spokeswoman for one group says that “lawmakers will be held accountable at the appropriate time” if they don’t “keep their promises to their voters and support the president’s agenda.”

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Hmm. So House Republicans who oppose Trump’s health bill because it isn’t conservative enough will be primaried … from the right? This has nothing whatsoever to do with policy or principle and is only about enforcing loyalty to Trump, no matter what he proposes.

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* ANOTHER MEETING WITH FOREIGN LEADER AT MAR-A-LAGO: Trump is set to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago this week, and Eric Trump says that’s a great idea:

“That’s how you get a deal done,” he said. “Mar-a-Lago is an impressive place; it makes sense to be there. He’s working. This is how he works.”

Yes, using the White House to enhance the attractiveness of Mar-a-Lago memberships and enrich the Trump family is just fine, because Mar-a-Lago is so impressive to foreign leaders.

* DEM TURNOUT IS ENCOURAGING: Nate Cohn finds that Democratic turnout has been robust in a handful of recent special elections, and also in the early voting that is happening now in the April 18 special election for a House seat in the Atlanta suburbs:

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Early voting has recently gotten underway. So far, the party’s turnout is running about twice as high as it did at this point in 2014, while Republican turnout is about half what it was. … The recent special elections, the protests, the donations and the early vote all seem consistent with the same story: The Democrats might be fixing their midterm turnout problem.

One key variable will be if Trump’s approval numbers remain stuck in the mid-to-high 30s as we head into 2018.

* A CLIMATE DENIER TO HEAD OFFICE OF SCIENCE? The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy currently has many positions unfilled, and the New Republic reports Wednesday that one candidate to head it in the Trump era may be Yale computer scientist David Gelernter. It turns out Gelernter questions whether human activity is the cause of climate change.

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This would be wholly appropriate, of course, for an administration that is awash in contempt for science, facts and reality-based governing.

* AND THE TRUMP LIE OF THE DAY, INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING EDITION: Trump has now claimed that “nobody ever saw anything being built” as part of Obama’s stimulus. The Associated Press notes that infrastructure spending was actually its third largest component:

In New York City alone, $30 million went toward repairs and repainting of the Brooklyn Bridge; the Staten Island ferry also got a boost. More than $80 million was earmarked for Moynihan Station, an annex to Penn Station that is meant to return the rail hub to the grandeur of the original Penn Station. Road, bridge and transit projects across the country got a lift.