THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The Republican opposition to The Affordable Care Act was most definitely not long enough for that collection of nuts, yahoos and whackdoodles to come up with a replacement plan, not even one that looked plausible. But as the reincarnation of Heinrich Himmler, Lyin'Paul Ryan, tries to force his "plan" through Congress it is becoming clear that it was too long for the party to remain united in how it wanted to "repeal and replace".

Republicans are rarely as exercised as when they are fighting with themselves.

And as the House debates how to best dismantle the Affordable Care Act, a familiar array of interest groups with deep pockets, incensed talk radio hosts and online agitators is again assuming its posture of aggression toward the House Republican leadership.

“Swampcare,” the writer and radio personality Erick Erickson scoffed at the new American Health Care Act, the culmination of seven years of promises to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. “Obamacare 2.0,” declared Breitbart.com. “RINOCARE,” Mark Levin wrote on Twitter, using the acronym for Republican in Name Only.

Political groups backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and other powerful players on the right, such as Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, have come out quickly and strongly against the bill. Some have threatened to punish lawmakers by docking their conservative ratings on the influential “scorecards” they distribute to voters. Activists are already swarming Capitol Hill and demanding that Congress take a harder line and pass a repeal measure that would leave no trace of the Affordable Care Act.

“I feel lied to,” said Anna Beavon Gravely, the deputy state director of the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed group that is funding a grass-roots push against Republicans in Congress who want to stop short of an outright repeal.

The displeasure is forcing an uncomfortable reckoning in the Republican Party much earlier and in a much more disruptive way than many think is constructive. And it has many conservatives asking why — now that they control both houses of Congress and the White House and have remained largely united so far — they are picking a fight with each other.

The criticism from the right has grown so harsh that President Trump asked leaders of several conservative groups in an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday to tone it down. He was especially troubled, one participant said, by the comparisons of the plan to “Obamacare lite,” which he said was inaccurate and harmful to their shared cause of gutting the current law.

It is so much fun watching the orcs fight among themselves. They spent so much time dreaming about this time and now they find out they had different dreams. Long may they feud.