In the wake of the collapse yesterday of the Republicans’ effort to repeal Obamacare — let’s hope this really is the endgame of that effort — it’s time to re-up, first, this piece I did for the Times, just after the House Republicans’ effort to repeal Obamacare collapsed; and, second, this piece I did for n+1, arguing that Trump’s would be a spectacularly weak and ineffective presidency, along the lines of Jimmy Carter’s.

It goes without saying that it’s too early to celebrate, and now that McConnell has declared his intention to pass a simple repeal (rather than repeal and replace), we need to stay on the phones. But there is some reason to think, as Brian Beutler argued yesterday, that even though the House GOP came back after their defeat to pass a different repeal and replace measure (one far worse than the one that was defeated), the only reason they could do that is that they knew it would not be passed by the Senate. Which turned out to be true.

Likewise, it may turn out to be true that the only reason the congressional GOP could pass those Obamacare repeal measures all those years was simply that they knew Obama would veto them. Which he did. When brought face to face with the reality of their dreams, they continue to balk.