Why is it considered bad for the President if an unpopular bill doesn't pass?

[Don Vito Corleone]

Take Trumpcare as an example. It was very unpopular, yet everyone I've ever heard talk about this topic (on and off of Atlas) says that Trumpcare failing was a terrible thing for the Republicans, but surely it's better for the Republican Party that they don't have to defend the bills terrible effects in 2018? And it's not just Trumpcare, when Bush's social security reform failed, that was also regarded as a Republican Party Faliure, even though Social Security was very popular. Why is it bad for a party to not have to defend an unpopular bill?

[TheSaint250]

It's not even Trump's, so that just makes it weirder.

[Matty]

A better question is why is it considered bad when a president and congress bicker with each other, when congress tends to have horrendous approval ratings?

carter and trump both have had negative backlash because of their feuds with congress.

[YE]

Because the GOP ran for years on passing an unpopular bill.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Assuming that they don't pass some version of ObamaCare repeal eventually, they've failed on their #1 Promise to the American People over the last 7 years, despite having complete control of the federal government.

[GGover]

They've essentially been the repeal and replace party for the last 7 years. It may have been a terrible idea, but it's what their voters wanted. Whether the bill passed or not, the the Republican party would be significantly hurt by it.

Despite controlling both chambers of congress and the WH, Republicans failed to deliver on the campaign promise that united them as a party and gave them huge victories throughout this decade. They've lost a lot of momentum, and excitement on the Republican side will probably die out as a result. Will voters trust republicans in 2018 and 2020? Will the republican base turnout? I don't think so.

Who's going to vote for the repeal and replace party now that they've failed to repeal and replace the ACA? It's like voting for the prohibition party after the 18th amendment was ratified. The party's mission is over. Unless they can find a new message, they will die.

[Beet]

The Republicans could have passed almost any bill they wanted, yet they stuck with the status quo. The question is, if the Obamacare status quo isn't so bad, why were they against it to begin with? Are they really against it on the merits, or did they oppose it just because president Obama supported it? And if the latter, what does it say about a party that opposes good policy just because it also happens to be supported by the president of the opposite party? What does it say about whether people who put the interests of good policy so low on the scale of concern can be trusted by the American people to do what's right for them? These are legitimate questions.

[HisGrace]

Some people have suggested that it would have been even worse for him had it passed. I don't know if that's true or not.

The reason it's bad is that it generally makes him look weak. Same situation with ClintonCare in the 90's. More so for Trump since he campaigned as being a "dealmaker" and a "negotiator" who "got things done" and all that jazz.

[Mr. Morden]

I don't think it is bad, at least not politically.  Republican voters "wanted" Obamacare repealed, but only because they were whipped up into doing so by outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, because Obamacare was attached to Barack Obama, who they hated, but who's now irrelevant.  Now that we're moving on to other things, they won't care that it wasn't repealed.

And it's not just Obamacare, and not just Republicans.  I'm not convinced that voters at large care that much about legislative achievements, or are paying close enough attention to even be aware of whether legislative achievements are happening or not.  Passing legislation is overrated.  (At least from a cynical political perspective.  If you care about enacting a policy agenda, then of course it's not overrated.  But in terms of helping your poll numbers, it is overrated.)  Voters care about things like their own financial situation, whether they or their neighbors are dying in hurricanes or wars, etc.  Not what passes Congress.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Congressional approval is always low and means next to nothing. The Republican congress in 2016 was less popular than cancer, yet almost all of them got reelected.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The Republicans could have passed almost any bill they wanted, yet they stuck with the status quo. The question is, if the Obamacare status quo isn't so bad, why were they against it to begin with? Are they really against it on the merits, or did they oppose it just because president Obama supported it? And if the latter, what does it say about a party that opposes good policy just because it also happens to be supported by the president of the opposite party? What does it say about whether people who put the interests of good policy so low on the scale of concern can be trusted by the American people to do what's right for them? These are legitimate questions.

100% of Republicans are opposed to the Individual Mandate, Employer Mandate, 30 hour work week, Medical Device Tax, and Cadillac Tax. But on the rest of the law - Preexisting conditions protection, stay on your parents plan until you're 26, essential coverage mandates, bans on lifetime limits, limits on the administrative costs of health insurance companies, medicaid expansion - the party is split between conservatives who want to gut the law completely (probably partially over "Obama Law = Bad Law") and moderates who want to leave those parts of the law alone. If at any point, Moderates had agreed to full repeal, or conservatives to partial repeal, they could have passed a bill. The house moderates eventually 'blinked', but in the senate, both sides held firm until McConnell promised that the bill he was proposing (Skinny Repeal) would never actually become law, and even then it failed by one vote. TLDR: The senate republicans persistent division is what kept the repeal from passing.

[BlueSwan]

I am of the belief that it was MUCH better for the GOP to fail to repeal Obamacare than to actually pass their terrible bill.

Sure, not repealing Obamacare looks terrible and can and should be used against them in upcoming elections as a sign of incompetence and as a sign that you cannot trust the GOP. BUT voters ultimately don't care that much about things like that. If they voted based on competence, Hillary Clinton would have won in a landslide. What they do care about is their access to healthcare. The utterly terrible GOP bill could easily have doomed the GOP and ironically paved the way for single payer healthcare, which is why I am kind of sad that they didn't pass their awful bill.

Now, the GOP and Trump have the option of just gradually undermining Obamacare while blaming the democrats for the failings of the system. I fear that this strategy might work.

[Sir Mohamed]

Well, because here you have a president who claimed to be a great dealmaker, who would shake up Washington and get much better healthcare with much less costs within a very short time after taking office. As it turns out now, he is not just clueless about the subject, but also a total fraud who got nothing through congress despite having full control of the WH and both legislative chambers. Doesn't matter whether the actual bill is popular or not. It proved that all of his claims were empty talk and that he's quite ineffective as president. A president who can't pass a bill he's pushing for within the first months despite full control, what can he actually pass? And if the measure is unpopular, why hasn't he made it popular? Because he is clueless and not interested in political details.

[Badger]

It pisses off anyone remotely opposed to the bill that they even tried, plus failure makes them look weak and incompetent to undecideds and the base.

[Alabama_Indy10]

Because everything Trump does is terrible in the eyes of the media and this forum

[Badger]

Because everything Trump does is terrible in the eyes of the media and this forum Non-hacks

Was tempted to correct it to say "God", but that's kind of obvious from our Mammon Disciple in Chief.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

It's not really bad; it's just that the anti-Trump media will color a legislative failure in the most Trump-unfriendly light.

The Trumpcare vote (Trump never called it that; this was a media tag.) was another example of Trump exposing hypocrisy.  A number of GOP Senators were not in favor of Obamacare repeal; they wanted (and still want) to fix Obamacare to make it more viable.  Folks like at least SOME of the AHCA, and Republicans know this when they are honest with themselves.  And none of them really want the fallout of voting for something that causes a sick constituent to lose his healthcare right when he needs it.  Trump's exposed this, perhaps without intending to, but perhaps to lay the groundwork for a meaningful fix, now that the GOP has shown that they can't repeal what they swore to repeal.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's bad for the President because it exposes him as weak and incompetent and unable to arm-twist congressmen into supporting legislation he wants passed. Why vote to re-elect a President who doesn't have the political skill to enact any of his promises?