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Passing a health care bill out of the House was the first step, but now the challenge of guiding a bill through the Senate -- where Republicans have an even slimmer majority -- begins. Republican senators have already said they will craft their own legislation and will use a process known as budget reconciliation to move it out of the upper chamber with 51 votes instead of 60, but that approach gives Majority Leader Mitch McConnell little room for error. Republicans can only afford two defections in their ranks.

Here are the five flash points you can expect as the Senate Republicans debate their way forward on health care:

Medicaid has long been in conservatives' crosshairs, but the benefit for states has been undeniable. Medicaid expansion has been a lifeline for constituents who suffer from mental illness or addiction and have been able to access treatment through the expansion.

Of the 52 Republicans in the Senate, 20 hail from states that expanded Medicaid in recent years.

Ohio's Rob Portman, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito and Colorado's Cory Gardner sent a letter to McConnell in March, when the House's bill was first released, expressing their concerns with the way the House bill handled Medicaid expansion.

The House's plan would end enhanced federal funding for Medicaid expansion in 2020. After that year, individuals on the program weren't kicked off, but once they cycled off the program, they weren't allowed to re-enroll. Essentially, the House's bill phased out Medicaid expansion over time.

The bill would also curtail federal support for the overall Medicaid program, giving states either a set amount of money per enrollee or a fixed block grant -- shifting the financial burden to the states.

Expect in the Senate that many of the lawmakers whose constituents have benefited from the Medicaid expansion will fight to keep the program intact longer. They will want to give individuals more time to transition off Medicaid and provide additional safety nets to ensure that people who may become ineligible for the program have another means to buy insurance. Meanwhile, expect Republicans who came from states that didn't expand Medicaid to argue that the program be phased out as soon as possible to save money.

One of the earliest controversies in the House's health care bill was the issue of tax credits. Conservatives argued the House's refundable tax credits were little more than a new entitlement program, a new name for the Obamacare subsidies Republicans had railed against for years. The similarities between the two -- Obamacare subsidies are also refundable tax credits -- prompted some lawmakers to dub the House plan "Obamacare Lite."

But more moderate Republicans argued that refundable tax credits in the House bill were inadequate -- largely because the tax credits were based on age, not income.

As CNN reported at the time when the Congressional Budget Office released its initial score of the House's bill, a 64-year-old making $26,500 would pay $1,700 for coverage in 2026 with Obamacare subsidies. But under House Speaker Paul Ryan's plan, that same person would pay $14,600 in premiums with the GOP tax credits.

In an attempt to lower the burden for low-income and older Americans, expect some GOP senators to push for some sort of means testing, which would take into consideration someone's income when calculating the size of their tax credit. In March, South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, a member of leadership and a member of the health care working group, introduced a proposal along those lines targeted to boost the size of tax credits for lower income people.

The House health care bill would defund Planned Parenthood for one year, a provision that could face increased scrutiny in the Senate where some moderate lawmakers like Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have already said they'd prefer to keep funding the women's health care provider.

Taking the provision out could alienate the Senate's conservatives who viewed the House's funding repeal as a major victory and are now feeling pressure from outside religious groups to keep the defund in the Senate's version of the bill.

One key Obamacare-era regulation that would be changed dramatically under the House's health care bill protects people with pre-existing conditions.

The promise of protecting people with pre-existing conditions was at the epicenter of Trump's own campaign stump speeches. But under the House's health care bill, states would be able to opt out of the community rating protection, which would allow insurers to base premiums based on a person's medical history. This would only apply to those who are not continuously insured.

Experts have argued that it could have major ramifications for people with pre-existing conditions.

Expect moderate Republicans to take a serious look at how to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions have additional safeguards as they craft their own bill. The messaging for Republicans has already been brutal as Democrats have very publicly argued that Republicans are gutting an overwhelmingly popular protection from the Affordable Care Act.

Under Obamacare, insurers are required to cover 10 key benefits for consumers. Those range from hospitalization to maternity care, but the House health care bill changes that. In an attempt to drive down premiums, the House's conservative Freedom Caucus insisted that states be able to opt out of the essential health benefits requirements.

Conservatives in the Senate are expected to push for even more robust insurance deregulation in an attempt to lower premiums. One idea being considered would give states an "opt in" rather than an "opt out" on key Obamacare-era regulations like requiring insurers cover the 10 essential health benefits.

But that could stir concerns from moderate senators who already fear that the GOP has gone too far to scale down insurance protections for consumers back home. Waiving the essential health benefits could hurt people with pre-existing conditions because insurers could opt not to cover their treatment. Also, it could make it harder for those dealing with substance abuse or mental health issues to get help.

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The five fights Republican senators will have on health care - CNN

Donald Trump is president because he won about 78,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Hes also president because he beat her more soundly in Florida and Texas and so on, sure, but its those 78,000 votes that have captured the publics imagination. Why? For one thing, those states collectively had backed the Republican precisely zero times in presidential contests from 1992 to 2012. Moreover, those states reinforced the argument that Trump had made from Day One: Disaffected working class-white voters in the Rust Belt would put him over the top. Polling missed this surge and so, too, did media observers like yours truly leading to a barrage of

whats going on with working-class whites? analysis.

The Atlantic has entered the fray on the strength of a poll conducted in partnership with PRRI. Their analysis suggests that cultural anxiety, not economic stress, pushed those voters to endorse Trump. This agrees with exit polling, which showed that those most worried about the economy preferred Clinton in all of those states and in most other states, too.

But this graph from PRRIs analysis is worth breaking out separately. It suggests that younger working-class white voters defined by PRRI as those without a college degree who dont have salaried employment are more strongly Republican than older members of that group.

Because party identity is generally fairly static over time, that graph suggests a potential long-term problem for a Democratic Party that received the strong support of younger voters for Barack Obamas victories in 2008 and 2012 and that seemed likely to be able to count on support from those voters over time. As I wrote in March, millennials defined broadly and inconsistently as those born from 1980 to 2000 tend to lean left, while older voters tend to lean more heavily conservative. This PRRI poll seems to add an asterisk, perhaps along the lines of this 2014 analysis: the economic struggles felt by these young people under a Democratic president might turn them off over the long term.

But Republicans shouldnt celebrate just yet. First of all, this is a very small group of voters. And, second, PRRIs numbers dont match other polls.

Lets address the second part first. PRRIs poll used a very particular definition of white working class thats a bit tricky to replicate. Often, pollsters use college degrees as a marker: Those without a four-year degree are determined to be in the working class, given how those degrees correlate to income.

When The Post and ABC News polled shortly before the election, whites younger than 40 and without a college degree were more likely to say they were Republican than Democrat but by a much smaller margin than other age groups. (They were also far more likely to offer some other response besides Democrat, Republican or independent.)

The General Social Survey, a biannual national survey funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, gives us a bit more detail. Although the 2016 survey doesnt break down income by type (hourly vs. salary) as was done in years past, we can get a more fine-tuned look at the group under consideration.

The survey offers a seven-part scale for partisanship: Strong Democrat, Democrat, independent who leans Democrat, independent, independent who leans Republican, Republican and strong Republican. (Its important to remember that, broadly, there are more independents in the United States than Democrats or Republicans but that most independents still tend to vote on partisan lines.) If we clump those results together into Democrat, independent or Republican, the result is as follows.

Younger whites without a college degree are much more likely to say theyre independent than older working-class whites but are not any more likely to say that they are Republican.

The GSS also asks people to self-identify their economic class. Among young whites who identify as working class, the split isnt much different from those with no degree or from young white voters overall.

If, however, we include those independents who lean Democratic or Republican with those who identify specifically with a party, the results change a bit. Here, 19- to 29-year-old whites without college degrees are more likely to be strong Republican, Republican or independent-leaning-Republican than those ages 30 to 44. But most still identify with the Democrats, far more so than older whites without degrees.

Thats not the case with whites who self-identify as working class. In that group, those younger than 30 are more likely to identify as leaning Republican than Democratic (although still less so than older whites). Since this is a self-identification, theres likely some overlap here with partisan identity. (For example, 15 percent of those making $100,000 or more view themselves as working class or lower class.)

Back to the broader point: The PRRI assessment seems to be something of an anomaly. That doesnt mean its incorrect; it just means that we should be cautious about making detailed assumptions based on these figures.

Among the assumptions that we should be hesitant to make is that this bodes poorly for the Democrats long-term. Not only because the poll numbers arent replicated in other surveys, but because whites without college degrees are a smaller part of the young population than the older population.

The Census Bureau has tracked educational attainment for decades. Over time, the number of Americans with college degrees has increased sharply; more Americans today have degrees than at any point in the past.

Whats more, younger Americans are more likely to have a degree than older Americans meaning that a smaller percentage of that age group likely fits into PRRIs definition of white working class.

College degrees and economic success dont necessarily go hand-in-hand, as anyone with outstanding college debt can tell you. Nor is it the case that having a college degree will continue to be a strong predictor of economic class. That so many more Americans will have college degrees in the future will shift the significance of this metric.

For now? The broad pattern still holds. Young people are more supportive of the Democrats than the Republicans. But the results of 2016 should be reminder enough for the left: Thats not necessarily going to be good enough.

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Are young working-class whites skewing more Republican than older ones? - Washington Post

I will always remember where I was when I heard Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. This is a historic moment.

What were living through, as David Rothkopf recognized, is nothing less than a moment of crisis in the history of American democracy. A number of observers have rightly compared the Comey firing to Richard Nixons infamous Saturday Night Massacre, when he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox in a bid to block efforts to gain access to secret tapes Nixon had made in the Oval Office.

As with Nixon, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Trump is seeking to cover up something and to place himself beyond the reach of the law.

Its well worth noting that Trumps decision to fire Comey is only the most recent attack on our constitutional democracy. This is a president and administration that have tried to undermine the independence of the federal courts, falsely accused political opponents of criminal acts, threatened the free press and turned the White House into a marketing opportunity for the Trump brand.

National crisis

The essential question right now is whether Republicans in Congress will recognize this is a national crisis that demands bipartisan action to make clear the president is not above the law. Americans should call for an independent investigation into the Trump campaign and administrations ties to Russia.

So far, only a few congressional Republicans seem to be considering this. But, as Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon observed: In America, the truth always comes out. I am inclined to agree with Wyden. Nixons decision to fire special prosecutor Cox ultimately led to Nixons resignation. We must similarly confront the possibility that Trump will not complete his first term in office.

If this happens, there will be no cause for celebration. The problem well all face, and indeed the problem we already face, is how we come through this crisis and emerge with a functional constitutional democracy meaning an executive branch accountable to the rule of law, free from corruption and scrubbed clean of authoritarian impulses.

There are no guarantees about any of this. Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden openly worries that American institutions may be melting down and its beginning to feel a little bit like Nicaragua around here. We must recognize that none of this will fix itself. A lot of hard work will be required.

Two big problems

There are two overarching problems. First, how will Americans who are concerned about Trumps authoritarian actions feel confident that constitutional democracy is intact? Second, how will Trumps supporters feel that their vote has not been taken away from them, in the event that Trump does leave office?

These are big challenges, to say the least. How can we take them on?

One first step would be having prominent Republicans and Democrats stand together to declare that what were dealing with is not a partisan dispute but a direct threat to our constitutional system. George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and other prominent Republicans like Hayden should join with Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and other nationally known Democrats to call for an independent investigation.

If an investigation does lead to either Trumps resignation or removal from office, Republicans and Democrats should form a kind of unity government. Assuming that Vice President Mike Pence is not himself tarnished by the many scandals swirling around this administration, he could succeed Trump as president and nominate a Democrat to serve as vice president. Democrats could also be named to cabinet and other important positions.

Even if Trump does not leave office before his first term is up, we cannot avoid our day of reckoning with the harm he has done. At some point, we must assess and seek to repair the damage our constitutional system has sustained.

Donald Trumps time in office has been more like a professional wrestling match than a legitimate presidency. It wont be easy to start setting things right, but its better to get started sooner rather than later.

Chris Edelson is an assistant professor of government in American Universitys School of Public Affairs. His latest book, Power Without Constraint: The Post 9/11 Presidency and National Security, was published in 2016 by the University of Wisconsin Press.

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Opinion: After Comey's firing, how can we save our constitutional democracy? - MarketWatch

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South Korea's new president, Moon Jae-in, is wary of America's role in his country and has signaled he is open to warmer ties with North Korea. This has raised concerns in Washington. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

At a time when there's so much hand-wringing over the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of corrosive nationalismin the West, South Korea just offered a welcome reminder that people power is still alive.

In a snap election Tuesday, South Korean voters elected Moon Jae-in as the country's next president. Moon, aliberal politician, tookoffice Wednesday,marking the first time in a decade that Seoul's Blue Househas been occupied by a progressivepresident. His views on engagement with North Korea may put his government swiftly at odds with the Trump administration.

But that's not what is so striking about Moon's victory. His rise to power came amid seven months of political turbulence. First, South Korean media began reporting and investigatingallegations of corruption and bribery surrounding then-President Park Geun-hye. Mass protestsand legal proceedings followed, eventually leading to Park's impeachment and removal from power in March. The election cycle swung into gear, and Moon, a former human rights lawyercampaigning on an anti-corruption platform, was boosted by an electorate hungry for change.

South Korean's elected candidate of the Democratic Party, Moon Jae-in, as their new president on May 10, ending months of political turmoil in the country. (Reuters)

The protests against Park tapped into widespreadfrustration in the country over the pervasive reach of major South Korean conglomerates and their alleged collusion with political elites. Park's misdeeds reminded some South Koreans "how we havent cared enough about politics and have not been keeping close enough watch on how the government is run," said Kim Wan-kyu, a 34-year-old office worker who spoke to my colleague Anna Fifield when demonstrations first began in November.

It's a powerful story, especially in a country where democracy only replaced a decades-long, U.S.-backed dictatorship inthe late 1980s.

"South Korea still has many problems. But its people, buoyed up by an extraordinary wave of civic activism, are showing that they arent prepared to accept the established way of doing things," wrote my colleague Christian Caryl in March, when Park was forced out of office. "They have mounted a remarkable campaign for change, and today that campaign has borne fruit of the most dramatic sort. Their cousins to the north can only dream of similar acts of defiance which is why their country remains frozen in time, beholden to a leader whose only plan for the future is tied to the machinery of violence."

The focus now shifts to what Moon's presidency may look like. Domestically, he has "promised to improve transparency in government appointments and strengthen regulations on the conglomerates that dominate corporate South Korea," wrote Fifield on Tuesday. "Voters were also concerned about the anemic economy and the widening disparity between rich and poor. Moon promised to put together a huge stimulus package, to create 810,000 public-sector positions and to reduce long working hours." His party does not hold a majority.

But the more pressing question for observers in Washington ishow South Korea's attitude toward North Korea and the Trump administration's moves against Pyongyang may shift.Moonbelongs to aSouth Korean political tradition that is eager for rapprochement, or at least positive engagement, with North Korea. That is at odds with the White House's aggressive ratcheting up of tensions in the wake of North Korea's latest round of missile tests.

"Moon has stated he is not opposed to sanctions," explained academic Andrew Yeo in The Post's Monkey Cage blog. "But by seeking inter-Korea talks, promoting an 'economic community' and persuading regional partners to pursue engagement with rather than coercion against North Korea, the new South Korean government may find it difficult to coordinate its North Korea policy with Washington."

Moon has also bristled at the deployment of the U.S.'s sophisticated THAADmissile defense system in South Korea, which Moonclaims was authorized by the previousgovernment without a proper review and then fast-tracked before the election. Liberal discontent with THAAD in South Korea was deepened by Trump's own contention that South Korea should foot the bill for its deployment. "The perception is that Washington has bullied Seoul into accepting THAAD and then shoved the bill at its close ally," wrote Duyeon Kim in Foreign Affairs.

But thereare reasons for optimism on U.S.-South Korea ties, too.

Yeo suggests that, "like Koreas previous progressive presidents, Moon will seek to take greater initiative on issues pertaining to the Korean Peninsula rather than rely on just the United States or China." This may actually be welcome to the Trump administration and its insistence on an America First doctrinethat prioritizes extracting the United States from geopolitical quagmires elsewhere.

"I believe President Trump is more reasonable than he is generally perceived," said Moon to Fifield before the election. "President Trump uses strong rhetoric toward North Korea, but, during the election campaign, he also said he could talk over a burger with Kim Jong Un. I am for that kind of pragmatic approach to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue."

If Moon can develop a solid rapport with Trump, it may improve the chances of calming tensions with Pyongyang and send another signal to South Koreans that their demandsfor change have produced real results.

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South Korea just showed the world how to do democracy - Washington Post

Mainstream media in the Trump era have fashioned themselves as tribunes of the people and arbiters of truth. Democracy dies in darkness, warns the Washington Post; the New York Times intones, Truth. Its more important than ever. With the election of a Republican president, the media have rediscovered constitutional government. Suddenly, executive power must be constrained again. Checks and balances are all the rage. Federalism and states rights are no longer racist dog whistles, but essential antidotes to a domineering central government.

And yet, while the media clang their alarms about how Donald Trump is supposedly turning America into a fascist dictatorship, they largely neglect the fact that democracy really is dying in other parts of the world.

In Turkey, for instance, Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoans recent referendum victory allowed him to consolidate power over all three branches of the national government. Erdoans triumph followed on the heels of a failed coup, which he may have staged, and which enabled him to jail and thereby sideline thousands of political opponents. The media miss the broader context of these events: Turkey has now all but completed its transformation from a secular, Kemalist nation to an Islamist dictatorship. Ankara has undergone its equivalent of the Arab Spring, with the same disastrous result as in other countries. A modern, majority-Muslim nation of 80 million people has repudiated a 90-year experiment in relative Western liberalism for dictatorial rule under a man who describes himself as a servant of Sharia and who views democracy as merely a means to an end: You ride it until you arrive at your destination, and then you step off. As Andrew C. McCarthy aptly put it: Erdoan is an anti-Western, anti-Semitic, sharia-supremacist, jihadist-empowering anti-Democrat. . . . His referendum victory is the death knell for democracy in Turkey. Is the triumph of Islamism within a NATO-allied country no big deal, or is the commentariat unable or unwilling to report on it because of its past romance with Erdoan?

Another story that the media largely ignore is that of the collapse of Venezuela under socialism. The Lefts May Daybetter titled Victims of Communism Day came and went with barely a peep about the collapse of the once-vibrant Latin American nation under Hugo Chavez/Nicols Maduro Stalinism. Just as Turkey is about to fall under the veil of Islamist tyranny, Venezuela is reaching the logical conclusion of Leftist tyranny. Thousands have been taking to the streets in protest. Citizens are going hungry in a country that was once the richest in the region. The government is seizing the assets of global corporations. Inflation is running at 280 percent. In a nation that had banned private gun ownership, Maduro is now planning to arm up to 400,000 loyalists to preserve some semblance of order. Central planning and other attacks on individual liberty and private property rights have turned Venezuela into another failed Communist experiment, leaving its people mired in violence, poverty, and misery.

You might think that the downfall of a nation in Americas hemisphere under democratically elected socialists might be subject to intense media coverage. You would be wrong. Could it be that the Left does not wish to report on the end results of its policies?

Lastly, Hong Kongs one country, two systems policy may be heading toward the dustbin of history. During a celebration marking the 27th anniversary of the Basic Law, Hong Kongs constitution, Chinas Hong Kong Liaison Office Legal Chief Wang Zhenmin warned an audience that the more Hong Kong fails to actively defend the sovereignty, national security and development interests of the country [China] in accordance with law, the more wary the country might be on Hong Kongs high degree of autonomy and the two systems. Chapter I, Article 2 of the Basic Law guarantees the territory a high degree of autonomy, under which it can enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial power. But this autonomy is eroding under pressure from Beijing. As I wrote elsewhere following a trip abroad to Hong Kong in 2016, China has been exerting its control [over Hong Kong] in ways small and large, from harassing reporters and book publishers unfriendly to Beijing to blocking elected officials from assuming office if they fail to recite a loyalty oath.

The Chinese are eroding freedom in Hong Kong, step by stepbut the press appears largely disinterested in the story. Perhaps the fearless democracy defenders of the fourth estate are afraid of running afoul of Chinas Communist censors, who might ban media outlets unwilling to comply with local censorship laws. Or maybe, sadly, they sense the inevitability that Hong Kong will be subsumed by China regardless of their reportage.

Whether under Islamist tyranny or the Leftist tyranny of the Latin American or Chinese varieties, democracy is gravely threatened in major areas of the world right now. By and large, the Western media intelligentsia has nothing to say about it. The march of authoritarianism does not seem to rise to the level of importance of the latest Trump Twitter outrage, or his comment about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War, or the manner in which a White House advisor sits on a couch in the Oval Office, to take just a few examples. The Washington Post and its cohorts are right that democracy dies in darkness. They should turn their attentions now and then to the places where the lights are going out.

Benjamin Weingarten(@bhweingarten) has written for The Federalist, PJ Media, and Conservative Review. He is founder and CEO of ChangeUp Media LLC, a media consulting, production and publication advisory firm. You can find his work atbenweingarten.com.

Photo by Susana Gonzalez/GettyImages

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Where Democracy Really Does Die in Darkness - City Journal