Maybe You Need Some Better Magic

Congressman Mike Coffman, whose magic trick didn't turn out so well.

So, they re-drew the lines of my representatives' district sometime back, and he now has a more diverse community to represent. Now, he's supportive of DACA & he shows up at Chinese New Year events. 

I don't begrudge him that. His constituency changed, and he changed (a bit) along with it.

Still, it seems a little like pandering to me. Does he really care about immigrants? will he stand up for them when it counts?

He had a campaign commercial in which he said,

“People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump?’ Honestly, I don’t care for him much,” Coffman says in the ad. “I’m a Marine. My duty is always to you. So if Donald Trump is the president, I’ll stand up to him. Plain and simple."

Well, maybe not too much standing up to him. He was all in on the scuttled American Health Care Act, even though it would hurt many of his constituents who were able to get health insurance under the ACA.

And, as far as I can tell, he hasn't really spoken up on the more egregious things Trump has done: his budget which makes deep cuts in vital programs so that he can give even more to the military, decimating the EPA, the travel bans, appointing alt-right leaders and corporate billionaires to positions of power, etc.

And, it took hi 4 months to have a face-to-face meeting with his constituents.

But, on the afternoon this photo was taken, he was perfectly happy to get some attention from a friendly crowd.

The magician called him up to be a part of her show. They cut the middle out of a handkerchief, and of course hers "healed" during the course of the act, and his was left with a gaping hole.

The symbolism of the thing struck me, though. Is he just a void at the center? Will he sell out his principles to get ahead with the new administration?

Here was my letter:

February 19, 2017

Dear Person Who Opens Mr. Coffman’s Mail,

In case you didn’t hear about it, your boss tried to perform a little magic at the Chinese New Year celebration last month.

It didn’t go so well.

Please tell him I sent him this magic wand so that he can fix health care so that it can do all they’ve promised with the tax credits and HAS contributions they’ve proposed.

Without an individual mandate, they’re going to need some magic to keep premiums affordable.

And—they haven’t said a thing about trying to keep costs down. Letting the government negotiate with pharmaceutical companies would be a good start. They shouldn’t get to profit 20% while so many middle-income people go without medicine. Shameful.

Most sincerely,

Ellen Mackey

Mr. Coffman needed a better magic wand. So I sent him this one.