SYNDICATED COLUMN: Violence Works. Incrementalism Doesn't.
Lessons of the Death of Obamacare
"What worries me: time and time again," writes Brendan Skwire in the Philadelphia Weekly about the circuses which are currently passing for Democrats' town hall meetings on healthcare, "[is that] the needs of the stupid and disingenuous are not only treated as valid concerns, but as the greatest concerns." Well, yes. This being the United States, one of the most gleefully anti-intellectual nations on earth, stupid people aren't pathetic dolts to be pitied or perhaps sent to a reeducation camp. They're the shining example we're supposed to look up to.
Obamacare, whatever it is or was going to be once the President saw fit to share it with the public, is dead. That it would die a dog's death was predictable, so predictable that I predicted it a couple of months ago. "No one is going to call their Congressman, much less march in the streets, to demand action for a half-measure--or, in this case, a quarter-measure," I wrote then. "Without public pressure to push back against drug and insurance company lobbyists, nothing will change."
The latest Rasmussen Poll shows most Americans are against Obama's vague "public option," 53 percent to 42.
There was public pressure, all right--from the right. Limbaugh and Hannity stirred up a hornet's nest of frenzied morons, throwing around words like "fascist" and "Nazi" as if they didn't know that they referred to themselves, which of course they didn't. They turned out, bigger and louder than the president's supporters, who were handicapped by (a) not exactly knowing what they were being shouted over about and (b) not really caring that much because there wasn't much in it for them.
I pay $800 a month for private health insurance. That's $10,000 a year, or about $14,000 in pre-tax earnings. If Obama had proposed European-style socialized medicine, wherein doctors and nurses are government employees, I would have stood to have been $14,000 a year richer. As for workers who get healthcare insurance through their employers, Obama could have required all bosses to pass along the savings by giving their employees a $14,000-a-year raise.
$14,000 is definitely motivation enough to pry me away from my usual Netflix evening in order to outshout the rednecks at my local town hall. How about you?
Now Obamacare is dead. The good part is that, because it wouldn't have made much difference in our lives anyway, it doesn't much matter.
Still, there are political lessons to be learned:
Lesson One: Violence Works. The more rambunctious right-wingers showed up with assault rifles outside halls where the president was speaking. Can you imagine what would have happened if lefties had brought their AK-47s to anti-Iraq War rallies? The cops would have killed them. Their friends and relatives would have disappeared into some Bushie secret prison in Romania. Or maybe the Bush junta would have gotten so scared the war would never have happened.
The death of half-assed Obamacare is merely the latest evidence of a fact that the left, in thrall to militant pacifism, refuses to see. Only two means exist in order to effect change: violence, or the credible threat thereof. The charged atmosphere of imminent violence permeating the town hall meetings intimidated liberal wimps from the grassroots to the Oval Office.
Lesson Two: Incrementalism Never Works. The Bush Administration, which barely controlled the Senate and was widely viewed as electorially illegitimate, managed to ram through dozens of pieces of radical, sweeping legislation and start two wars from thin air. Obama's Democrats have a presidential mandate, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a commanding lead in the House--yet they still haven't pushed through a single significant bit of liberal legislation. The difference is strategy: Republicans under Karl Rove shored up the base, declared themselves the only "real" Americans and ran roughshod over the Democrats.
Obama, on the other hand, didn't so much lose the healthcare debate to right-wing attack ads as he argued with himself so long that he ended up winning--and therefore losing. Rather than demand socialized medicine, he proposed a "public option," whatever that meant, in a doomed bid to gain political cover by convincing a few moderate Republicans to break ranks. Now he's given that up in favor of some "co-op" thing. Forgotten in all the noise: there hasn't even been a vote on a healthcare bill.
Lesson Three: It's Easier to Motivate Stupid People. Democrats, led by their professorial boy president, thought they would win the healthcare battle with logic and charts. Republicans understood the truth: there are more stupid Americans than smart ones, and it's easy to stir them up by threatening to take away their guns and kill God (socialism).
Old-school Democrats like FDR and LBJ didn't bother to appeal to Americans' non-existent intellects. They rammed through laws that improved people's lives. People like to live better. So they stuck. Obama should have done the same.
(Ted Rall, President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, is author of the books "To Afghanistan and Back" and "Silk Road to Ruin.")
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
"What worries me: time and time again," writes Brendan Skwire in the Philadelphia Weekly about the circuses which are currently passing for Democrats' town hall meetings on healthcare, "[is that] the needs of the stupid and disingenuous are not only treated as valid concerns, but as the greatest concerns." Well, yes. This being the United States, one of the most gleefully anti-intellectual nations on earth, stupid people aren't pathetic dolts to be pitied or perhaps sent to a reeducation camp. They're the shining example we're supposed to look up to.
Obamacare, whatever it is or was going to be once the President saw fit to share it with the public, is dead. That it would die a dog's death was predictable, so predictable that I predicted it a couple of months ago. "No one is going to call their Congressman, much less march in the streets, to demand action for a half-measure--or, in this case, a quarter-measure," I wrote then. "Without public pressure to push back against drug and insurance company lobbyists, nothing will change."
The latest Rasmussen Poll shows most Americans are against Obama's vague "public option," 53 percent to 42.
There was public pressure, all right--from the right. Limbaugh and Hannity stirred up a hornet's nest of frenzied morons, throwing around words like "fascist" and "Nazi" as if they didn't know that they referred to themselves, which of course they didn't. They turned out, bigger and louder than the president's supporters, who were handicapped by (a) not exactly knowing what they were being shouted over about and (b) not really caring that much because there wasn't much in it for them.
I pay $800 a month for private health insurance. That's $10,000 a year, or about $14,000 in pre-tax earnings. If Obama had proposed European-style socialized medicine, wherein doctors and nurses are government employees, I would have stood to have been $14,000 a year richer. As for workers who get healthcare insurance through their employers, Obama could have required all bosses to pass along the savings by giving their employees a $14,000-a-year raise.
$14,000 is definitely motivation enough to pry me away from my usual Netflix evening in order to outshout the rednecks at my local town hall. How about you?
Now Obamacare is dead. The good part is that, because it wouldn't have made much difference in our lives anyway, it doesn't much matter.
Still, there are political lessons to be learned:
Lesson One: Violence Works. The more rambunctious right-wingers showed up with assault rifles outside halls where the president was speaking. Can you imagine what would have happened if lefties had brought their AK-47s to anti-Iraq War rallies? The cops would have killed them. Their friends and relatives would have disappeared into some Bushie secret prison in Romania. Or maybe the Bush junta would have gotten so scared the war would never have happened.
The death of half-assed Obamacare is merely the latest evidence of a fact that the left, in thrall to militant pacifism, refuses to see. Only two means exist in order to effect change: violence, or the credible threat thereof. The charged atmosphere of imminent violence permeating the town hall meetings intimidated liberal wimps from the grassroots to the Oval Office.
Lesson Two: Incrementalism Never Works. The Bush Administration, which barely controlled the Senate and was widely viewed as electorially illegitimate, managed to ram through dozens of pieces of radical, sweeping legislation and start two wars from thin air. Obama's Democrats have a presidential mandate, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a commanding lead in the House--yet they still haven't pushed through a single significant bit of liberal legislation. The difference is strategy: Republicans under Karl Rove shored up the base, declared themselves the only "real" Americans and ran roughshod over the Democrats.
Obama, on the other hand, didn't so much lose the healthcare debate to right-wing attack ads as he argued with himself so long that he ended up winning--and therefore losing. Rather than demand socialized medicine, he proposed a "public option," whatever that meant, in a doomed bid to gain political cover by convincing a few moderate Republicans to break ranks. Now he's given that up in favor of some "co-op" thing. Forgotten in all the noise: there hasn't even been a vote on a healthcare bill.
Lesson Three: It's Easier to Motivate Stupid People. Democrats, led by their professorial boy president, thought they would win the healthcare battle with logic and charts. Republicans understood the truth: there are more stupid Americans than smart ones, and it's easy to stir them up by threatening to take away their guns and kill God (socialism).
Old-school Democrats like FDR and LBJ didn't bother to appeal to Americans' non-existent intellects. They rammed through laws that improved people's lives. People like to live better. So they stuck. Obama should have done the same.
(Ted Rall, President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, is author of the books "To Afghanistan and Back" and "Silk Road to Ruin.")
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
posted by Ted Rall at
12:37 PM
33 Comments:
Ted, this is so far your best and most thought-out column of the year.
The people at the townhall meetings were both Democrat and Republican. Many of them were quoting from the house bill, and the politicians had not even read the bill. They didn't know that HR3200 prevents someone from keeping their current insurance if there are any changes in their insurance, including deductibles or payments.
The intellectual lightweights are the statists who can never refute with facts, only with name calling. And when name calling doesn't work, they send out SEIU thugs to beat up a black man selling flags.
I agree with the previous poster. This one is spot on, especially with regard to the efficacy of violence and the feeb factor.
Right on the money, Ted! The late, great Molly Ivins and burned-out Jimmy Breslin are patting you on the back, not to mention thousands of 'lost-for-words' citizens who see all Democrat 'leaders' as Cubs fans and Republicans as pure evil. Occasionally, Satan (the GOP) is defeated, but it always says, "You have won this time, but I'll will return!" Actually, the GOP didn't even have to retreat. Barack Obama might as well have said, "Thank you, sir, may I have another? Thank you , sir, may I have another, and another and another?" The Democrats are intent on making "Bullshit Baffles Brains" the success story of the GOP.
What else can be said? America has been bought and sold, and we are definitely doomed unless the Democratic Party STOPS PLAYING FUCKING NPR NICEY-NICEY with the Home-Grown Terrorist Party (GOP). ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
Mostly I agree with you Ted, it'd be nice to see Dems ram through some good legislation in the same way bad legislation has been crammed down our throats for my entire life. Still, on the subject of violence, I must point you to this article from Sara Robinson of Orcinus. She points out that when the power elite are threatened by populism and make a formal alliance with thugs to subvert democracy by physical threat or force, that's called fascism. We've now seen it happen.
But given all the awful things Democrats have done in order to cling to power and toady up to the rich and the warmongers over the past 20 years, I am not at all confident that violence practiced by Democrat partisans would be any less fascistic. Next time Ralph Nader decides to run for President, I could easily imagine Democratic brownshirts breaking into people's homes who vote for him and loading them onto boxcars in the middle of the night. They'd say it's a "necessary compromise" with their principles in order to preserve the Fatherland.
Obama's intellect has been greatly exaggerated. He has the kind of verbal brilliance that goes far in academia, law and politics; all fields that place an especially high value on the ability to spin bullshit.
I'm guessing he wouldn't have gone far as a scientist or an engineer, but he sure can impress folks with how smart he is (in a nonspecific and not particularly practical kind of way.)
M Guy
I pay $800 a month for private health insurance.
Oh. My. God.
A friend pays $1900 a month for his and his wife's health insurance. Where does it end?
"they send out SEIU thugs to beat up a black man selling flags."
Bull-fucking-shit.
To me it sounded like the dude picked a fight with the union guys and after the camera started rolling, all the guys around him started accusing the SEIU guys of picking the fight. The guy you are talking about is a fake, he clearly got up and was okay in the video, but showed up to a protest in a wheel chair the next day. The people in the union members are not thugs, but heroes looking out for the working class.
Rall Blog Commenter Tip of the Week
One of the benefits of being a regular rall.com reader is that you get insider tips on avoiding the next draft*, or on how to survive an approaching apocalypse.
As the US spirals toward depression and fascism, anyone with an ounce of self preservation in them is trying to find ways to move to Europe (Canada is too close for comfort, and has no nukes.)
I have looked at the issue. Most jobs require you speak a the language of the country. There are opportunities teaching English, but those are fading quickly, and my friends in that business say you can't get enough hours. There are however, so-called English-taught schools throughout Europe. Here is a list of schools in Italy. I am in contact with formerly-American aides and teachers from these schools regarding the feasibility of this route.
To quote a wall street banker from a Rall cartoon last year, "To the escape pod!"
*one of the first entries on rall blog was regarding joining the local draft board, which excludes you from draft rolls.
I agree private health insurance is too expensive. Imagine if you could purchase health insurance from any provider in the country. Imagine if you could pick and choose the options available in each policy, so you are only paying for what you need. Unfortunately, government has so over regulated what they must sell and who they can sell to, there is virtually no competition and you are forced to pay for insurance you may never use.
Re: M Guy's post:
Obama is a mental lightweight who has achieved nothing until he ran for President and duped a bunch of guilt laden libs who couldn't run fast enough to the ballot so they could tell their fellow shallow libs that they voted for a black man.
"It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time." -- Barack Obama
Anon 4.46: who gives a shit? It's politics, not science. Our last president was bad at politics. This is an upgrade.
Shady:
YEAH! Let's get those government thugs out of here, so that insurers can simply refuse to pay claims and leave more people bankrupt! We don't need any sort of leverage! Do you marketeers ever think of the next step when spewing whatever it is Ron Paul fed you?
@Aaron Manton:
Better than G.W.Bush? This is supposed to be praise?
No, it's not science, but it's not so far removed from engineering. He's taken the controls of a badly damaged machine and he needs to operate it and fix it at the same time. The trouble is, all he really knows how to do, apparently, is get elected.
In more traditional parlance: he is an excellent politician and a complete failure as a statesman. No good as a parliamentarian, either, which is a problem in someone who wants to revive the 19th century model of the Presidency.
M Guy
Do you marketeers ever think of the next step when spewing whatever it is Ron Paul fed you?
I was not a Ron Paul supporter, but perhaps I should have been. He was the only candidate actually concerned with abiding by the constitution.
Since we have not yet had a free market WRT health insurance, maybe we ought to try it. The government is screwing it up just like they screwed up everything else they get their greedy fingers into.
Shady Pines:
De-regulation will NOT benefit the consumer, it never has. De-regulagtion caused the Enron mess in California as well as the financial mess on Wall Street. And now you want to deregulate insurance so that they can cause a similar mess? No thank you.
History is replete with examples that prove that the idea that business will do the right thing without being forced to by regulation is no more than a right-wing delusion. Every time something gets de-regulated the consumer gets screwed; from the great Depression to Enron to the current Wall Street mess.
And yet the right promises that this time, if we de-regulate this industry, things will be different. What's the definition of insanity again?
Said Cirrus:
The people in the union members are not thugs,...
Union bullies are by definition thugs, since the violence Rall exalts is par for the course in their way of doing politics.
but heroes looking out for the working class.
Only in one sense of the word hero.
Shady Pines,
I happen to be a very strict Constitutionalist. But maybe you and Ron Paul ought to read the Constitution. It doesn't say squat about any economic system the US needs to follow. Frankly, the US could be its own brand of socialist while following the Constitution.
Is it socialism or wrong for Congress to borrow money? I know you didn't talk about borrowing money it but it's worth mentioning.
Article 1, Section 8.
"To borrow money on the credit of the United States"
Is it illegal to regulate industry?
Article 1, Section 8.
"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes"
So Congress can regulate as they see fit.
"Since we have not yet had a free market WRT health insurance, maybe we ought to try it. The government is screwing it up just like they screwed up everything else they get their greedy fingers into."
If you want deregulation and no government control feel free to view this travel brochure video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0
I never said health insurance should be deregulated. However, right now, you cannot purchase health insurance outside your state. You cannot purchase health insurance like you can purchase auto insurance. When you purchase auto insurance, you can pick and choose your level of protection and deductibles. Health insurance, you are required to pay for insurance you will never use, but is mandated by your state.
As for California power deregulation, California never had deregulation. I know they called it deregulation, but it wasn't. The state controlled the retail price, but not the wholesale price. The wholesale auction system was rigged: all the purchasers had to purchase at the HIGHEST price bid. Texas did have energy deregulation; their energy was cheaper and more plentiful. California still has threats of rolling brownouts during heatwaves.
Enron was not a result of deregulation, it was a result of violating laws. As I remember some people were sentenced to prison, including Ken Lay. Anderson Consulting went out of business because they helped cook the books for Enron.
Shady Pines,
Now you make an assessment about state government when originally you were bashing the federal government.
Your whole bit about health and auto was backwards. The state makes you get a minimum of insurance for your auto. However, I've never ever heard of a state demanding a minimum coverage on health insurance. That would mean they would be subsidizing it... which they are not.
"Health insurance, you are required to pay for insurance you will never use, but is mandated by your state."
I just really cannot get over this line. I really think you got it in your head backwards.
A friend pays $1900 a month for his and his wife's health insurance. Where does it end?
It ends when we squash the blood sucking for-profit insurance industry. And I mean squash out of existence.
Regarding auto-insurance: I think it is profoundly wrong for the government to require that you purchase something from a private company. If there's going to be a government mandate, then there should be a public non-profit option.
That's my greatest fear about the proposed "reform." Making us buy into shitty, evil, rationed, blood sucking, for-profit insurance policies.
If there's going to be a government mandate, then there HAS to be a non-profit public option.
The insurance industry is driving the policy at the moment. It's no secret that they'd love to have their product (and that's how they see it, as "product") mandated--as long as there's no governmental option available.
The Federal government has made it illegal to purchase health plans across state lines. States have indeed set minimums in auto insurance, however once you meet the minimum you are free to add a la carte. States have mandated that health plans include items you may never use and still must pay for it. We don't really have health insurance, we have pre-paid health care. Health insurance should be for catastrophic care. There is no reason insurance should have to pay for routine doctor visits.
The Democrats never intended any meaningful public option to begin with. Democrats are owned by the same insurance, pharma and financial lobbies as the Republicans. At least the Republicans are honest about being willing to pull the plug on people who can't afford to pay.
The Democrats strategy isn't faulty; they're not naive; they're not weak-willed. They're liars. All along, they've planned to pass a bill that's good for the insurance companies, then call it reform and declare victory.
But you're right that they only way they'll do it is looking down a the barrel of a gun. Old school Dems like FDR and LBJ face potential mass uprisings. In China last week, a company tried to privatize a steel mill and layoff workers, so the workers killed the boss and took over the factory. That used to happen in the US. Not any more. There might be a violent insurrection but it looks far more likely that it'll come from the right than the left.
If Obama were a populist instead of a technocrat, he would have used to pass laws in which minor modifications would have meaningful results. I just don't understand why people cling to the notion that Democrats have the public's best interests at heart. They don't.
Bruno is right, I'm afraid.
Damn Ted you hit this one out of the park. Gotta forward this to everyone, even my stupid Republican friends:)
@ Aggie Gal. Obama was elected to clean up the mess left by the last president. He was a far superior choice to McCain/Palin. Had nothing to do with guilt only a fear of Palin being within a lack of a heartbeat to the white house. Sorry we have to inject race into everything. Bozo would have beaten the GOP ticket.
I read through the posts here and I can't identify any consistency with Shady's comments, other than a desire to be contrary to anything written by anyone else. This is in line with the purpose of the conservative message on health care. All they need to is shut down discussion and they win.
This is why at the end of the day they generally always win, even when they insist they never do. Shady's purpose is not to engage, it is to shout with the hopes that he will derail any dialogue occurring. That's why he isn't even concerned with the consistency of his stance, or whether what he says is logical, accurate, or relevant.
I agree with Uncle Bruno here, the Democrats never intended to solve this problem. It is their Roe v. Wade. As long as the problem exists they can play it as a card. They are absolutely liars, but that does not mean that the Republicans are right to oppose it, they are also lying by acting like they want to find a solution. The Republicans are even worse because their supposed solution is, in fact, what we have, and the problems with it are the consequences of their policies and unwillingness to solve the problem in the 40s when THE REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD DID.
We're not actually getting a solution to the problem. We're not even talking about the real problem, just beating around the bush trying to act like it's not there at all.
"...in the 40s when THE REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD DID."
Yes, but it took an utter, unmitigated collapse, and deaths by the thousands.
This is why I wanted McCain to win.
oh well...
Angelo, I think attributing social reforms of that nature to the horrors of WWII is a bit sketchy to be quite frank. Temporal proximity does not equal correlation, to say nothing of cause & effect. This is an outstanding essay by Rall because it says what we all know to be true; in order to move forward we have to sit the children and their adolescent world view aside and move forward like responsible adults. Unfortunately they are still in charge. Shady's worldview and attitude is dominant, precisely because it's knee-jerk, thoughtless, inconsistent, and self gratifying. As long as this is treated as acceptable, reasonable, and indeed MORE IMPORTANT, we're stuck. Electing McCain wouldn't have fixed anything, it just would have made me feel a lot worse. I voted for Obama because it made me feel warm and squishy, which is why Ted voted for him too. We both knew the situation was hopeless, because in the broader society, the arguments of Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney get treated like they are extraordinary.
Its not about intelligence, it's about choice. This country needs to make the choice to turn away from insanity.
Shady Pines writes: "However, right now, you cannot purchase health insurance outside your state."
Bull. Is your health insurance company headquartered in your state? I doubt it. You're talking code for enacting a federal law that will strike down all individual state regulations on health insurance.
Shady Pines writes: "You cannot purchase health insurance like you can purchase auto insurance. When you purchase auto insurance, you can pick and choose your level of protection and deductibles. Health insurance, you are required to pay for insurance you will never use, but is mandated by your state."
Do you even know what you're talking about?! Auto insurance IS mandated by your state if you want to possess a driver's license! Further, for those who can't get car insurance because they have a horrible driving record, most states mandate that insurance companies pool together to provide a coverage plan for these individuals. Hell, if anything, auto insurance is more regulated than health insurance.
Santiago writes: "I happen to be a very strict Constitutionalist. But maybe you and Ron Paul ought to read the Constitution. It doesn't say squat about any economic system the US needs to follow. Frankly, the US could be its own brand of socialist while following the Constitution."
Can you imagine Shady Pines' reaction if Congress actually followed the Constitution and took back ownership of money creation from the private banks?
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