Sometimes it seems the GOPs crusade against Obamacare will never end.

It was just six weeks ago that Republicans suffered historic losses in the midterm elections , in no small part because voters were so angry about efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act . By putting Democrats in charge of the House, voters made sure the GOP couldnt try it again.

But now there is a new threat to the law, thanks to Reed OConnor, a GOP-appointed federal judge in Texas who on Friday ruled in favor of a lawsuit that claims the ACA is unconstitutional . If his ruling took effect, the entire law would come off the books which would mean, for starters, that the number of people without insurance would increase by more than 17 million, according to an estimate from the Urban Institute .

His ruling is unlikely to survive appeal, in the opinion of most legal experts. Still, if the political history of the Affordable Care Act has shown anything, its that nothing is ever certain.

OConnors decision makes the lawsuits implausible journey to success a little more plausible. In the meantime, its doing damage to both the law and people who benefit from it.

Thats perfectly in keeping with the pattern of the last few months and, really, the last 10 years during which Republicans have been doing everything they can to undermine the program, from Washington and in the states, even as they insist they support its goals of making sure everybody in America can get health care.

Its a style of governing that should sound familiar, because its the way Republicans have long treated other large government programs that they want to tear down, even though those programs are popular and provide vital services. Theres no reason to think theyre going to stop now.

Even Conservatives Agree The Legal Argument Is Lousy

The central issue in the lawsuit, known as Texas v. Azar , is the ACAs individual mandate and, in particular, its financial penalty for people without insurance. Republicans in 2017 reduced the penalty to zero as part of their tax cut, and youd be forgiven for thinking that, by taking away a penalty, Congress would have made the law less constitutionally suspect, not more.

But you would be wrong, at least in the eyes of the 20 Republican state officials who brought the case.

In 2012, when the Supreme Court first heard a previous legal challenge to the law, the five-to-four majority upheld the mandate on the grounds that Congress has the power to levy taxes. If the penalty no longer has monetary value attached to it, the plaintiffs say, then the mandate cant be a tax, removing its constitutional justification, and because Congress originally intended for the law to work as one giant, interlocking scheme, the whole law now has to come off the books.