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On Day 64 in the White House, America and Donald Trump just witnessed the world of difference between business and politics.
The US President launched into his bid to obliterate the "Obamacare" national health insurance scheme with all the fervour of a hostile corporate takeover.
He circled his target, highlighted its weaknesses, made a bid and — when it met with a frosty reception — presented it to shareholders as a "take it or leave it" offer.
House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared in awe of the way Mr Trump weaved his legendary deal-making magic on Capitol Hill.
"He came here and knocked the ball out of the park, he knocked the cover off the ball," he gushed, as he spoke of the President's ability to "close the deal" with the Republican caucus.
Except, politicians in Congress are not the same as shareholders.
A bill for a law is not the same as a bill of sale for a corporate asset.
Selling a flawed bill not a done deal
History will now record that Mr Trump misjudged and lost his very first test as President — the ability to turn executive will into legislative reality.
On reflection, there were many miscalculations behind the final capitulation to "pull the bill" which would have repealed Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act and replaced it with the Trump administration's American Health Care Act.
The bill had deep policy flaws embedded within it and painful consequences for millions of Americans wanting affordable and comprehensive health insurance.
Those flaws — including generous tax cuts for the wealthy and a huge withdrawal of public subsidies worth a whopping net $US337 billion ($442 billion) over a decade — will be the subject of endless reviews and post-mortems over days and weeks.
But in the first instance, it is instructive to examine the entire "repeal/replace" enterprise over the last three weeks from the Trump administration's perspective.
As a businessman in his 1987 ghost-written tome The Art of the Deal, Mr Trump offered many gems of advice on how to make a billion or two.
"Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition," he wrote.
"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it.
"My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I'm after."
Since the American Health Care Act first saw light of day on March 6 — 19 days ago — its proponents at the White House, assisted by Mr Ryan, have aimed very high and pushed and pushed as hard as they could.
But they had not reckoned on the bloc of conservatives in the Republican Party — the "Freedom Caucus" faction — which would never yield to the tactics employed against it.
In the end, they won — somewhere between roughly five and 40 Congress men and women (mostly men) simply refused to budge in the interests of the President or the Republican Party.
Each had assessed the bill on two terms; the impact on voters in their home constituencies and, of course, the re-election prospects of some in the 2018 mid-terms.
Their reservations are no doubt genuine — especially their concern over health insurance premiums and the upfront fees ("excess" or "deductibles") both tipped to rise sharply if the bill had passed.
Trump needs to return to the table soon
But from every defeat, there are lessons to be learned and there are more than a few for the Trump team from the "Obamacare" debacle.
Will it unleash a wave of vindictiveness against intransigent Republican conservatives — especially those due for re-election in 2018?
Will it be more consultative in future legislative endeavours — for example, tax cuts and the renegotiation of trade deals?
Is Mr Ryan the best of intermediaries to negotiate deals with Republicans? (Hint: his relationship with Mr Trump has been rocky, to say the least!)
Can Mr Trump, as President, rise to meet his reputation as the ultimate "closer" of a deal?
The available evidence so far is that slick talk counts for little in relations between the White House and Republicans on the "The Hill".
The lesson for Mr Trump is a timeless one: politics is the art of the possible.
Votes are not won as shares, loans or bills of sale on plots of land might be.
First, the product on sale needs to be saleable — and there is a fair argument to say that the "American Health Care Act" never was or would be acceptable to "middle America".
For now, Mr Trump is clinging to his own deal-making aphorisms:
Having walked away from the table on health insurance, the President cannot escape the Washington reality.
He needs to be seated at it again, and soon, if he is to deliver on tax cuts, budget cuts, swamp-draining, trade deals and every other promise that formed his pitch to "make America great again" — and which voters bought to put him in the White House.
Topics: donald-trump, world-politics, health-policy, government-and-politics, united-states
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