It's fast becoming conventional wisdom, but statistics wonk Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com reiterated that Democrats should be nervous about the 2010 midterm elections. "I don't think you should feel at all comforted by 2010," said Silver. The political prognosticator predicted a 20- to 50-seat loss in the House for the Democrats and either a one-seat gain or as much as a six-seat loss for the Democrats in the Senate. This comes from the same numbers guru who called the presidential election results correctly in 49 states. "Don't be complacent about 2010," Silver warned bloggers and activists attending the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh.Frankly, I can't see any way for the Democrats to hold on to their majorities. When it comes to propaganda, the conservatives have found their chops again. The health care debate, even more than the mishandled financial bailout, has damaged the Democratic brand.
The obvious questions:
1. Would Obama have been wiser to hold off on health care reform until after the midterms?
2. Would the Democrats' chances in 2010 have been strengthened or weakened if the president had endorsed single payer? Or if the president had presented a plan to congress (after those much-promised CSPAN hearings, which we never got), instead of letting Baucus screw things up?
3. What the hell is wrong with this country?
In 2007, polls indicated that sweeping health care reform was almost as popular as mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. Yet many Democrats in Congress correctly sensed that supporting that goal carried severe risks. Can you blame them for their skittishness? The public has now turned against the politicians who support the very thing that the public once demanded.
Much blame goes to Obama, who went for the wrong plan in the wrong way, and who allowed the Republicans to define the debate. The propagandists convinced the country that the current debate revolves around socialized medicine, even though no such plan is on the table.
But let's not kid ourselves. If Obama were to endorse 676, the measure would fail and the Dems would lose even more seats in 2010.
In the end, we must blame the American people themselves.
The most telling image to arise out of this controversy was that of the protester carrying a sign reading "KEEP THE GUVMINT OUT OF MY MEDICARE." As an experiment, show this very paragraph to a 20-something of your acquaintance. I'll betcha that most young people -- even college students -- will presume that the misspelling of "government" is the factor that makes the sign laughable.
Americans really believe all the propaganda about the hellishness of Canada's system. They really believe that the U.S. has the best health care in the world, and that France has a system despised by the French.
Consider the Montana woman in this story, who says that she very much wants the government to reform health care, but doesn't want the government "involved." This ignorant nit (her name is Sonja McDonald, and I doubt that her IQ reaches into the double digits) doesn't even recognize the contradiction in her statement. Moreover, she doesn't understand the irony of saying such a thing in a government-funded health care clinic.
The American people are simply too damned stupid to know their own best interests. They won't kick their addiction to propaganda. They'll always believe the various Professor Harold Hills employed by the great corporate interests. The ninnies deserve to be fleeced.
20 comments:
Well, let's be fair. She said she doesn't want the government to be "more involved". There is a difference, as she seems to be acknowledging that the government is already involved. However, if she's like most people, she has no idea just how involved the government already is, basically subsidizing insurance companies (not to mention, taking their huge campaign contributions more into account that the health and welfare of the people they are supposed to be representing). And you really can't deny the irony of here comments about government made from a government funded health clinic.
I've been a registered Independent my whole voting life, and have voted for Dems, Repubs, and a number of 3rd parties over the years. But I just can't understand the fear and paranoia over single payer, especially the plan in 676.
So to a large extent, you are correct, many people really don't support their own best interests.
Gus
When it comes to propaganda, the conservatives have found their chops again. The health care debate, even more than the mishandled financial bailout, has damaged the Democratic brand.
But let's not kid ourselves. If Obama were to endorse 676, the measure would fail and the Dems would lose even more seats in 2010.
At least it's true to leftist ideology. FDR and LBJ stuck to it and succeeded with SS and Medicare. He's ruining the brand. I think he's saying he'll be satisfied with one term because of all the money he'd make from insurance and pharma after 2012.
I don't think I have ever been more ashamed of the level of stupidity in this country.
Maybe equally ashamed - but not more.
It's no wonder that I have friends who turned their back on this country and are migrating to places like Germany.
If this is what these people think is best, they will pay the price for years to come.
Let 'em.
But as for the democrats, they aren't even trying. They could have easily done more to combat this. At this rate, they are simply faking their support for reform.
You can't pretend to be serving the interests of your constituents and stay in office, eventually people catch you in the lies.
At least the republicans tell you they want private industry to win out.
The democrats serve industry, but tell you they are serving you....
What a load of crap!
I live in a high-Republican area close to a military base. I know a lot of folks in the military, and they are all "Obama is a socialist and giving one penny of my hard-earned dough to help illegal aliens and welfare mothers buy aspirin is the first sign of the Apocalypse wait let me get my gun you lousy liberal" types.
Yet just try to gently suggest that they end their own dependence on government-funded healthcare and the screaming will start. Of course, "that's different!" Because "I served my country!" (I had one of them add once, "and you never did a damn thing for your country!").
Similarly, I can recount many tales of talking with people who have good union jobs as they relate all the great things their union did for them--raises in the midst of a recession, great healthcare, intervening with bosses, a whole litany--and then conclude, "But I hate unions! I hate my union and I always vote the opposite way they tell me to, HA HA, I'm such a rebel. Don't get a union job!"
The disconnect is earth-shattering. You can't do anything but shake your head in pity.
Do not ever assume that Obama and the Democratic leadership wanted to pass genuine health care reform.
At best they hoped to pass something they could call reform that was really more like a cheap paint job on an old rust bucket.
Think about this - they can move heaven and earth to pass something like the FISA revision that nobody except the telcoms wanted.
But when it comes to something WE want, they suddenly become inept.
Failure is a feature, not a bug.
I don't think the issue is government involvement but how much. The more area of our lives the government controls, the less free we are to make our own individual choices. Government is already involved in everything we do because of our tax system but to determine who gets health care and when really pushes the envelope and is striking a nerve with folks.
I hope the dems lose some seats in 2010 just for the sake of balance if nothing else. Obama won the Presidency and the Dems took the house/senate on promises of "change". Now we need some common "cents".
Lonni
Lonni, you're nuts. I can't believe this blog attracts guys like you.
I disagree that Obama endorsing Single Payer from the gate was the wrong move. In fact, I think the fact that he didn't is the main reason he's in the awkward position he finds himself in now. First of all, he was elected on the premise of "change." Sweeping, radical change. Wishy-washy, middle of the road non-commitment is not radical, nor change. Secondly, you don't negotiate from a position of strength by opening with severely compromised goals.
Clearly drawing the lines from Day One would have forced everybody to declare their true positions and intentions without hiding behind smokescreens.
If what emerged had been a viable public option compromise, so be it. But, if that's all you meekly ask for, all you're gonna get is the "nothing," or insurance industry benefiting "worse," we're headed for now.
Well come *on*.
We stand by and let the Right hollow out thresh away and let rot and dissolve public education in this country and allow the remains to stew in their brackish corruption..
We stand by and let the small donor Right create a snaggletoothed fantasy land of their own devising on AM radio and utterly monopolize the public airwaves therewith..
We let twenty years of intensive consumerist training and direct marketing to children and adolescents pass us by unremarked, teaching two full generations that passivity is the American Dream..
and now we want to jeremaiad about the Ignnce of Amerkins?
Face it Joe, this here's the face of a class war lost. The Wealthy Coasts have been so self enamored and distracted with the shiny baubles of our own falsified 'upper middle' class status that we were happy to congregate around our Ikeas and Mac stores, and leave the districts to sell the rights to Coke advertise directly to the kids still stuck in those public schools.
WE have been perfectly happy to take a large helping of noblesse, thanks, but hold the oblige please. Turns out we are the ones consuming the entrails of our democracy, after all. O glorious irony.
We libruls have shown no evidence of giving any more of a good goddamn -- or knowing a goddamn thing -- about anyone outside our clans than that guy holding the sign. He knows he's getting shafted and is shouting back, using the wrong words but the right sentiment. Substitute Republican Corporate Predatorism for Govmint and he's spot on, no?
I mean is there a difference between them now? He doesnt see one, most here dont either.
The cynic in me wants to believe the failure was deliberate, but then I hark back to the old saw about never attributing to evil what can be explained by incompetence.
The repeated mistake of trying for some form of "bipartisanship" is what kills me. There is a president elected as a democrat, the democrats have a majority in both houses, and as you've pointed out, strong public sentiment existed. But as shown by the SCOTUS votes, health care and every other major piece of legislation to date, the dems gave up valuable stuff to entice the other side of the aisle, to no avail. Every vote on every issue has been party line.
What does it take to just pass the frikkin' legislation they want to, without pre-emptive dilution, since the repubs will vote against it no matter what?
Grow a pair and just pass it!!!
Unless of course the plan is not to pass any of it. Beats me at this point
Syborg...
Simple, they gotta get elected next term. Then they'll vote in whatever they want.
Note, please, that under Silver's (current?) worst case scenario, the Democrats still maintain majorities in both houses of Congress.
Note, also, that the political party holding the WH almost always loses seats in Congress in the mid-term election, and historically, a sizable number, at that.
Had Obama gone with single-payer, there can be no doubt that the brickbats and catcalls about socialism and government takeover would have been measurably worse than now.
Lastly, there is no political model under which a president has a better shot at passing difficult landmark legislation in his third year in office than in his first year.
XI
Step back and look at the context.
World's present financial-monetary SYSTEM is unsustainable beyond saving. There will be a new system. Oligarchy wants supra-national global currency they control (What’s that quote by an old banking family, associated with putting Arnie the Governator in power after the op to throw out former CA Governor out over Enron? “Give me control over a nation’s money supply, and I care not…?”)
OR – Stop this $25 trillion bailing out of the derivative gambling houses shit. Go back to Glass-Steagall standards. Protect necessary banking functions, states, communities. Keep people in their homes. Stop the forclosures. Create a completely new situation in which Federal credit must be issued for productive employment. Emphasis on infrastructure, since we’ve stripped out our industry, infrastructure investment will be the growth factor. Like John F. Kennedy’s space program, it will spin off huge benefits in scientific and technological benefit for the economy (aka the people).
National Association of Manufacturers is attacking the Obama Administration cap-and-trade policy and calling for nuclear power. Reindustrialization is not a dirty word, nor need it be dirty. We are not fucking idiot animals, we can overcome hurdles and bumps in the road. Hillary Clinton is not the only reasonably capable person on the planet, there are lots of others, Hollywood and Wall Street notwithstanding.
Imagine your grandchildren or the grandchildren of some good people you see. Imagine those grandchildren dancing at the wedding of their grandchildren. Imagine older folks once again saying to the kids, “Look. I helped build that. For you.”
XI: I believe that the congressional losses will be worse because I think that the economy will re-tank and that Obama will get nothing on health care.
You may be right that if Obama went for single-payer the propaganda attacks would be even worse. Although it is hard to see how they COULD be worse. If Obama had done the right thing, though, he would have the progressives -- plus the PUMAs -- fighting tooth and nail for his plan. Right now, the left does not really care.
The right-wingers are screaming bloody murder. The left-wingers are going "Meh. Better than nothing -- maybe." You know full well who is going to win THAT battle.
Obama did not have to say "single payer" during the primaries. He was a rorschach blot onto which the progs projected their fantasies.
My own thoughts are along the line of Cinie’s.
I think the biggest reason health care reform is in such trouble right now is the lack of transparency. Obama doesn’t take straightforward positions – his modus operandi is to try to create the illusion that he’s on everyone’s side, but at bottom there’s nothing real (typical narcissism). But the vagueness and unwillingness to commit is allowing the Right to define his proposals (since the proposals are unclear, complex, technocratic). Along these same lines, many people are recognizing – at least at a gut level – that the administration is not being honest – e.g. trying to sell some of these non-single-payer health care proposals as cost-saving measures (when most would actually increase the deficit), the drug company giveaways, etc. And there’s a lot of anger at the administration’s Wall St bailouts. And an increasing perception of Obama as elitist and out of touch with the great unwashed. All of this increases suspicion and leads people to buy how the Right is painting and defining the proposals.
Given the economic collapse and the desire for change, I think it would have been possible to pass single payer if it had been put forward properly.
What makes you think Obama cares about Democrats losing seats?
How exactly has he differentiated himself from Bush in terms of policies?
How is he even a moderate Democrat?
If single payer had been called Medicare for all or if there was better marketing from the guy whose campaign won Ad Ages top award results would have been very different. If 15 trillion to the banksters wasn't vile enough large corporate over extended non tax paying real estate developers are applying for TALF funds. Just wait until that becomes better known. There go another 10 or 20 seats.
Seems like a planned destruction to me.
I'm hoping there's a more pleasant stage than despair and I enter it ASAP
If Hillary pushed for single payer health care in office I'd be the Big Dawg would be campaigning hard for it across the country with her. And Hillary knows the aspects of the system like the back of her hand. Bill and Hillary would've been more convincing and what Americans need right now is reassurance that the President know what the hell he's doing (which he doesn't). When I hear him talk about health care reform, it's clear to me that he's clueless half the time and doesn't even believe in what he says.
If Obama had any real passion to provide healthcare for all Americans and if he was willing to risk going against the Republicans to get it, American citizens would fight with him. Unfortunately, He is completely without any knd of moral compass. He wants to pass a slogan. He really doesn't care at all about healthcare and it shows. He wants to pass something that he can distance himself from if it is unsuccessful. If it works, he gets the glory, if not he can blame Baucus.
Baucus is a disaster. But it was not his job to write this bill. All he was supposed to do is figure out how to pay for it.
Obama stands up and complains about Insurance Companies and PHARMA when everyone in this country knows he is making deals with them behind our backs. Why would anyone support him. Why would any sane Americaqn taxpayer help him pass the Health Insurance COmpany Profits Protection Plan. I think it will pass and it will be a disaster for taxpayers. This weill guarantee millions of new customers for insurance companies, without delivering any kind of assuance of health care to the rest of us.No way will they let that slip away.
More money from us to them. This is what Obama stands for and nothing else.
"The more area of our lives the government controls, the less free we are to make our own individual choices"
That's why people like you say that don't want wall street regulated, or emission standards.... as if there aren't thousands of regulations and safety standards that affect you (by not killing you) every day. Ever go into an elevator? Blame the gummint that you made it out and didn't crash to the floor. Yes, blame regulations.
Now on to healthcare, Lonni, what freedom do you have there, exactly? Are you free to see any doctor your insurance company and/or HMO has selected for you? Or are you "free" to see anyone you choose to see? Can you get alternative therapies if you choose, and will the be covered by your insurer? Are you free to switch insurers FFS? if you are pregnant will your insurance cover the Midwifery costs?
I'm Canadian Lonni. And I resent you folks yammering on that we are not as free as you. I can choose any doctor i wish to see. Any. If i don't like the guy's style I can choose another. My mom got diagnosed with a cancer that gave her "3 years tops" and that was in 1995. Within those three years there were a few advancements in treatment for the cancer that she had, and she's still alive today.
Would the doctors have the "freedom" down in your burg, to switch her medications to these new experimental types? Would the insurance industry try to stop that were we Stateside?
I heard Lou Dobbs say that I am 49% unhappy with my country's health care. That is 51% bullshit. I am fully satisfied. I get my acupuncture covered. i know we treat people fairly, and there are MRIs and CAT scans for those who need, and to be honest, we also have a doctorship that is slightly less of a suckler on the teet of big pharma.
I would say that it is my socialist (ha) country that has a greater freedom when it comes to health "care" and "disease maintenance" as we are freed from the shackles of insurance, and at least freed in part of the heavy handed pharmaceuticals industry. But then again, every time a 16 year-old Jehovas Witness refuses a blood transfusion, we up here have judges over-rule and we force the 16 year old to live. Seriously, we're just like Russian up here, eh?
Joe, you may be right. A second crash, a double dip recession, is certainly possible, and in that case, the incumbent majority party may very well be toast. (But that would equally doom any health care reform plan brought up in year 3 that cost a lot of money to implement, however much it might save in the out years after the investment were made).
And I confess I did the math wrong. The 78 or so Democratic seat majority in the House goes to even with only a 39 seat loss (so 50 net lost seats, the worst case scenario described, would indeed switch majority control, and not keep the majority Democratic as I erroneously claimed).
XI
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