In very general terms, the majority of the American populace does not think about politics in terms of rhetoric. They think in terms of jobs, moral values, and pride. You can see this in every corner of American life, in the highly educated upper classes and the poor, in the suburbs and the inner cities and rural farms.

Things like "Obamacare" don't mean anything to them. It's just some crap the people on the TV talk about. If it can be explained to them in a way that it's anti-job, anti-moral-values and anti-pride, they will vote against it. And vice versa.

But the major problem with the system here is most people find Congress and politics in America in general to be corrupt. That's why they elected Trump. He's not a politician. He's so far not a politician that half of the people who voted for him don't agree with what he says. But he said he would get them jobs. And support their moral values. And re-instill their pride in America. That is all they want, and he says he will give it to them, so they vote for him. In this way, they understand perfectly how the American political system works.

Obamacare was a pet project of a particular group's vote (again, people voted and they got what they wanted, essentially). But Obamacare can be dismantled over the same amount of time it was put into place. It has nothing to do with the American political machine's output; it was more of an accident.

In general, the political landscape here is very opposed to socialist programs like this. Medicare and Medicaid were extremely controversial in their time in the 60's - people went much crazier over the idea of those than Obamacare. But Republicans (who are the primary opposition to these programs) have actually expanded them over time. It's best not to think about how the machine works. Social programs are a red herring. Logically, a large group of people paying into a system that would lower your health care costs and save you money would be a boon, but it isn't seen this way here. It won't grow your wallet as quickly and simply as a tax cut.

Honestly, the details of each party's arguments are immaterial. Each party makes promises and people vote primarily with their wallets in mind. The idea that they would receive less money or pay more tax is inconcievable, partly because of how low wages and savings are and how high student loans are and how the economy has tanked etc etc. Every year, the rich (and corporations) get richer while the people do not. That's the big pink elephant everyone is aware of, and they know voting won't change anything, but they have no other choices.

The machine produces money in different forms, and the form made for the consumption of the general public is regulated to be very small. Most of it goes to corporations and the rich. I don't think people have really grasped this concept, and so they can't really attempt to change it. So their votes continue to not count for much, which they recognize, so they don't vote.

In the past, the machine worked differently. Instead of votes and labor, it was "empire" and labor that produced money, and because "empire" involved looting other lands that the people didn't live in, they kind of reaped the benefits. There was more money to go around, so people didn't notice how small a part of the pie they really got, or they were just socially conditioned to it with things like class rule.

In an American Democracy, we removed the old class rule and replaced it with a system of voting for a group of individuals who would maintain the illusion of a lack of class rule, as a sort of proxy for the upper class. It works really well because nobody seriously talks about reform or rebellion here. Theoretically, it is completely possible for the people to self-determine huge shifts in how the country works. That somehow frees us up to not care that we don't actually control how the country works. (We technically do, but in practice the rich and corporations who use the political puppet proxies to administrate the nation are actually in control)

I apologize for rambling. I don't get to talk politics much.