The best way for the White House to mark the unlucky 13th anniversary of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act — colloquially known as Obamacare — might be to try and ensure everyone forgot it existed.
Instead, what it did is — by all appearances — assign an intern with minimal video editing skills to make a clip honoring the occasion, giving the person a minimal budget and a tight deadline.
Then the results were posted on Instagram. And if you thought “Pajama Boy” was bad PR for Obamacare, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The video posted Thursday marked 13 years since the ACA was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama.
Despite the fact that the bill was rendered effectively toothless under President Donald Trump’s administration — the tax penalty for the individual mandate to purchase insurance, which was the bill’s most onerous clause, was reduced to zero, effectively nullifying it — the ACA is still around.
And here’s how the White House’s official Instagram account decided to celebrate:
View this post on Instagram
The text of the post noted that “13 years later, the Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land – despite Congressional Republicans’ attempts to repeal it.”
That’s not what most people noted, though. Instead, they were more focused on the epilepsy-inducing video clip that showed a spinning picture of Obama and now-President Joe Biden side-by-side, along with a cheesy fireworks effect and a grating techno loop.
This got people’s attention, and not in a good way. Suffice it to say, the administration got destroyed in the comments section.
“[N]o way the white house just posted an edit,” one user replied.
“Did a 10 yr old create this post?” another said.
“I thought this was a parody account,” another added.
And perhaps the truest words spoken in the comments: “an intern is getting fired.”
Many users also noted that the Affordable Care Act did anything but provide affordable care — and that seems to be a theme underscoring Democratic administrations.
“Just letting you know, nothing is actually affordable anymore. Especially not health care,” one person responded.
Apparently, the same can be said for video editing software.
Then again, the Democrats have always had trouble selling Obamacare on social media. Remember this infamous tweet, nicknamed “Pajama Boy?”
How do you plan to spend the cold days of December? http://t.co/Rwf5AYc3bG #GetTalking pic.twitter.com/PBQ397yLf4
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 17, 2013
The headline of an Op-Ed by National Review editor Rich Lowry said it best: “Pajama Boy, An Insufferable Man-Child.”
“Pajama Boy is about as threatening as Michael Cera and so nerdy he could guest-host on an unwatched MSNBC show,” Lowry wrote in the Politico piece.
“He is probably reading ‘The Bell Jar’ and looking forward to a hearty Christmas meal of stuffed tofurkey. If he has anything to say about it, Obamacare enrollments will spike in the next few weeks in Williamsburg and Ann Arbor.”
So no, that didn’t work. But “Pajama Boy” didn’t give anyone epilepsy, either, nor did the ad look like it was put together in an iPhone app that costs $0.99 but is free with ads.
So, yes, the toothless ACA is still around. It hasn’t made medical care any cheaper, it’s still not exactly all that popular, and the Democrats have gotten no better at selling it on social media in the intervening 13 years. Nice work.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.