page_title: Waterloo (blog post)
section_title: After 2010 election
hierarchical_section_title: Waterloo (blog post) / Since 2010 / After 2010 election
caption_attribution_description: Strong message supporting the theme that the USA is heading in an unpopular direction.
context_page_description: "Waterloo" is a post conservative American commentator David Frum made to his blog, FrumForum, on March 21, 2010. Earlier in the day the United States House of Representatives had passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, clearing the way for President Barack Obama to sign the sweeping health care reform into law. Frum took his title from an earlier prediction by South Carolina Senator James DeMint that the ACA would be a "Waterloo" for Obama and his presidency if Republicans could prevent its passage, much as they had done with Bill Clinton's similar efforts, which purportedly led to Republicans taking majorities in both houses of Congress in 1994.
  Frum called the bill's passage a Waterloo for Republicans, none of whom had voted for the bill or contributed to its passage in any way. But while their anger over that, he conceded, might indeed rally their base to retake Congress once again in that fall's elections, he counseled, the circumstances of the defeat did not augur well for the party's long-term prospects.
context_section_description: Later in 2010, after Republicans retook control of the House. Many celebrated; some sent Frum emails taunting him with the apparent repudiation of his prediction that March. At CNN, Frum shared his response "Enjoy the moment, fellas. You are only at the beginning of the pain of discovering how right I was."
  Frum argued that Republicans, tacitly acknowledging that they would never be able to repeal the ACA, now colloquially known as Obamacare, would instead resort to "a series of stunts", such as repeal votes, refusals to fund the gradual implementation of the law, votes to repeal curbs on future growth of Medicare that they would sell as "cuts" to the program, and hearings publicizing problems with the law's implementation with those adversely affected appearing as witnesses. Focusing on those problems, however, would allow the Democrats and the administration to point out that Republicans could have perhaps averted them by participating in the process, Frum wrote.
  "[A]t the end of two years, the law will still be there, more or less intact," Frum predicted. Republican leaders in the Senate understood this, he noted, and were banking their hopes on retaking control of that house as well as the White House in 2012. But Frum doubted they could win enough Senate seats for a repeal vote to overcome a filibuster, and accused Republicans, as he had several months earlier, of caring more about the issue's efficacy in winning votes than actually changing the law.
  "As is, we're getting a bad trade: Republicans may gain political benefit, but Democrats get the policy," Frum concluded. "That was my warning in March 2010. This election does not discredit that warning. It confirms the warning."
caption: The Republican base demanded repeal of the ACA as soon as it passed, as this April 2010 protest sign says
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