Can a party that defines itself almost entirely by what it's against transform itself into a party that can govern? From the evidence of the Republicans' futile efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the answer seems to be: no.
Mitch McConnell's talent, it turns out, has always been for obstructing the Democrats. No to considering President Obama's Supreme Court nominee; no to shoring up the infrastructure; no to a higher minimum wage; no—if not a thousand times no, then close to a hundred times no—to Obamacare, which both House and Senate, under GOP control, voted repeatedly, regularly, like clockwork, to repeal—in the assurance that Obama would veto those measures.
When given the power, once Donald Trump entered the White House, to actually enact legislation, however, none of McConnell's wiles sufficed. The failure to construct even a remotely plausible market-driven health-care system that would cover as many Americans as the ACA did, though, isn't simply McConnell's or Trump's or Paul Ryan's fault. The failure belongs to the Republican Party, to the right-wing media's success at insulating the right from reality, and to the brain death of American conservatism.
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