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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described what Republicans fear most. On recent trip to South Carolina and North Carolina, Sanders found red state residents who believe that healthcare is a right.

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Sanders said, “I’ll tell you a funny story, Al. Just this weekend, this weekend, I was in South Carolina, and I was in North Carolina. Supposedly conservative states, and you know what the people there are saying? They say, as I think most Americans say, that healthcare must be a right of all people. I think the Affordable Care Act is an important step forward, but frankly between you and me, I think we should go further with a Medicare for all single payer program that does what the rest of the industrialized world does, but right now, Republicans are in a real quandary. Millions of people are getting affordable healthcare. Do you really think politically they are going to yank that healthcare and insurance away from people? I don’t.”

Sen. Sanders also told Democrats and the left to stop being defensive, “You know what I think though, we gotta stop being defensive. We gotta get on the offensive, and we’ve gotta tell every governor out there who is denying people the right to have healthcare that they’re doing a terrible, terrible thing, and we’ve got to turn the tables on them.”

The idea that healthcare should be a right is a nightmare for Republicans, but what is even worse for them is this idea spreading to their own red state backyard. The Republican problem is that they are fighting a battle against human nature. They may have conditioned their supporters to froth at the mouth when Obamacare is mentioned, but even people who vote Republican want access to affordable healthcare. They will never admit it, but it is true.

Because of the regional polarization of our politics, a lot of Democrats, liberals, and progressives who live in red states get lumped in with the Republicans. The reality is that there are a lot of Democrats in South Carolina and in other places who are working hard for change.

The reason why Republicans were so desperate to stop the ACA before it got started was because they knew that it would present an unwinnable situation for them. They can’t take away access to healthcare for the roughly 14 million people who are benefitting from the ACA. They also can’t tell hundreds of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions, and children on their insurance plans that they are on their own.

As the law continues to be effective the call for access to healthcare will grow, even in Republican controlled states. When red state voters start believing that healthcare is a right, it will be a serious blow the current conservative movement and the Republican Party.