a garbage boy

This Trump voter didn't think Trump was serious about repealing her health insurance

Debbie Mills appreciates the insurance she gets through Obamacare. But she voted for the candidate who wants to dismantle the program.

www.vox.com|Sarah Kliff

I don’t know, I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this. That they would not do this, would not take the insurance away. Knowing that it’s affecting so many peoples lives. I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot… purchase, cannot pay for the insurance?

It reminds me of a story long-time readers may recall. In October 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Republican policymakers pushed for what they called an “economic stimulus” bill. The GOP plan was absurd: the “stimulus” was a massive corporate giveaway, tilted towards the richest of the rich. The Wall Street Journal conceded at the time that the plan “mainly padded corporate bottom lines.” Democrats, eager to expose the ridiculous GOP agenda, convened focus groups to sharpen their message, but quickly ran into trouble: voters thought it was impossible that the GOP would actually do this. Paul Krugman explained at the time that the Republican stimulus “was so extreme that when political consultants tried to get reactions from voter focus groups, the voters refused to believe that they were describing the bill accurately.” More than a decade later, a pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, put together a focus group to test messages against Mitt Romney ahead of the 2012 campaign. When voters were told that Romney supported a budget plan that would privatize Medicare and slash tax rates on the wealthy, the voters “simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing.” As Jon Chait put it, focus group participants were hearing accurate descriptions, but the truth “struck those voters as so cartoonishly evil that they found the charge implausible.”