Reviewing Republican behavior during the Health Care Reform debate on Saturday, you would think an militant band of spoiled toddlers with Tourette’s had occupied the right half of the House. Or howler monkeys. If it was not the most embarrassing display of bad behavior in recent government history, it is only because of everything else Republicans did lately. When lying didn’t work (they want to euthanize granny!) they tried hyperbole (health insurance reform is LITERALLY THE SAME THING AS STALIN TIMES THE HOLOCAUST!). Then they tried lying again. Then lying plus hyperbole, stamping their feet and shouting.
Normally the side that doesn’t have the law on its side, and doesn’t have the facts either, recognizes that you just lose twice if you throw your credibility and reputation into a losing fight. This fight was clearly different for Republicans, and you know what? They’re right. If the GOP had not pushed the Overton Window way to the right compared with where we started when Single Payer was still on the table (ish), Democratic moderates would have no problem supporting the watered down “moderate” compromise that the House finally passed yesterday. The bills would have steamrolled both houses of Congress with decent support from swing-district Republicans if the party had not made it a hill to die on with an emphasis on die.
Bill Kristol had it right in 1994. If Democrats effectively fix health care then Republicans are screwed. Any health care reform that does not suck even worse would effectively be written in stone as soon as it passed. Realigning their issue set to stay relevant could be quite awkward since Democrats already claimed most of the issues that Americans don’t hate. To stay alive Republicans would need to tack somewhere less crazy, but that would motivate Michelle Bachmann’s twenty-some percent of crazy people to go third party. Those two factors would effectively doom Republicans to share a shrinking back bench with the conservative fruitcake party and their pet schmuck Joe Lieberman.
So yeah, Republicans pulled out all the stops on this one. If they can find another stop before the Senate vote they’ll pull that one too. Pretty much the only institutional incentive not pushing them towards brinksmanship at this point is that desiccated raisin occupying space where most people would have a conscience.
SiubhanDuinne
Not ‘hyperbole.’
HYPERBULL.
R-Jud
I would never make that mistake. Toddlers are cute.
MattF
The motto of the Atwater/Rove Republican party is “whatever it takes”. Period.
rob!
Decades from now, children will ask their elders, “You mean there really was a Republican Party, its not just a story you told to scare us?”
Blu-Ray manufacturers will release compilations of actual, live Republicans, and it’ll be like the Faces of Death series but with more flag pins.
SiubhanDuinne
By the way, this post is full of great images:
“Militant band of spoiled toddlers wuth Tourette’s”
“Desiccated raisin where most people would have a conscience”
Wonderful stuff. Thanks for letting me start the day laughing.
Zifnab
Half this fervor is ginned up based entirely on the swill Bachman and Beck feed the audience. If they stopped pumping up the stupid, or swung their base in an entirely different direction with a different set of inane rambling (Beck does this all the time), the current opposition would crumble.
To stay alive, the Republicans need to shut the looney tunes up. They can’t govern like this. Every day is another witch hunt, another rat fuck, and all the witches and rats are within the Republican Party right now.
When was the last time you even heard a serious diatribe against Nancy Pelosi? They’re so busy pillarying the Crists and Scozzafavas, they haven’t been able to mount any credible threats to the Eric Massas and the (grrr… liberal Dem from Florida goes here).
Conservatives are the cancer that is killing
/b/the GOP.The Saff
Krugman warns that if the Rethuglicans keep up their childish behavior, the U.S. could go California and become ungovernable.
I mean, I know how bad the economy is (my job is going away at the end of the year) but the party of no is ideologically bankrupt. They have no new ideas for fixing what ails this country and they don’t even want to try working with the Democrats to move us forward. They figure that by acting like a 6-year old, voters will look at them in the mid-terms next year and say, “Yeah, they’re a much better alternative to a Democratic-led Congress.”
They have no interest in governing.
Little Dreamer
@rob!:
I need a time machine that goes to that decade, PRONTO!
El Cid
Any amount of crazy in service of the right is considered permissible if not expected in this country.
Any amount of sanity in service of the left is considered hysterical, dangerous, and possibly outright treasonous.
The Establishmentarian types don’t like that the teabagger neo-Confederates look unseemly in their excitedness, but they’re sure glad they’re there to keep the nation from thinking anything actually liberal or, god forbid, left.
mandarama
@rob!:
FTW. That comment just got my morning off to a MUCH better start.
Napoleon
@The Saff:
Chris Hayes had something to the same effect recently. The only way that happens is if the Senate does not do away with the filibuster and related type rules (such as holds). I hope at this point Reid understands that the Californiazation of the US is clearly on the horizon and has started talking internally with his caucus about implementing a repeal or change to the filibuster. Really it Californiazation happens its not the minority that is to blame but the majority for not pushing and living by majority rules (as opposed to super majority).
rob!
@Little Dreamer: me, too. “Imagine there’s no GOP…its easy if you try…”
@mandarma: thanks, I try!
zhak
Unfortunately, the Dems aren’t much of anything either.
Right now, the two political parties are the Sellouts and the Nutballs.
4tehlulz
Why do you liberals try to underplay the actual risks? The actual formula for health care reform is (Stalin/Holocaust) * Cultural Revolution.
jwb
@Napoleon: Yeah, but if this happens, we’re going to hear stops we didn’t even know the wingnut wurlitzer possessed. Really, it’s going to make health care=Dachau look like child’s play by contrast.
El Cid
There’s another dynamic at work here which most people don’t enjoy mentioning, but, a lot of times, Republicans are the excuse that Democratic officials and pundits use to block or minimize policies, legislation, and analyses that they themselves don’t like.
Of course now that’s supplemented with a wide variety of other available excuses — and with a healthy note of realism — about 60 Senators and the independent Holy Joe Lieberman, etc., etc., but we shouldn’t always play along with the game where we believe that some official really would be on the liberal / progressive side we prefer if it weren’t for those meddlin’ Republicans / 60 vote requirement / Olympia Snowe / Joe Lieberman / Ben Nelson / Max Baucus / Kent Conrad and so on and so forth.
AndyT
When we move on to the next big policy debate, climate change, immigration reform, education reform, will the Right go on to claim that whatever policy the Dems are trying to enact is equal to STALIN or HITLER? Will there be Tea Parties claiming that cap and trade = Mao’s Cultural Revolution or that improving public schools = Khmer Rouge death fields? Will the MSM soberly discuss the newest ‘greatest assault on American liberty’, while pretending that we didn’t just hear that rhetoric about health care?
El Cid
@4tehlulz: To the power of The Killing Fields, times eleventy billion.
On the other hand, we don’t want to get hyperbolic, here.
Ash Can
@The Saff: He shouldn’t give them ideas. I’m sure they’d be delighted to do away with all government (except for a massive wehrmacht). The thing is, however, they themselves are the government, so their aversion to government is actually self-loathing. When I think about it that way, I begin to understand how they can all be so flat-out fucked in the head.
Ken G.
The Teabag wing will control the White House, House and Senate within five years. You read it here first. “President Palin” is an an absurd notion the same way “President Reagan” was in 1976.
The Saff
@Ash Can: I mentioned this on a thread last night but if they hate government so much, why don’t they just get out and let people who want to govern govern? I know it goes back to Reagan’s “government is the problem” silly inauguration speech. And the fact is that few, if any, in the media call them on their bullshit. Did anyone actually explain “Hoot-Smalley” to Michele Bachmann? Of course, these are the same folks who would never admit they were wrong about anything; if you don’t admit to making mistakes, how can you learn from them?
I hadn’t thought of the self-loathing theory but you may be on to something.
Bruuuuce
R-Jud @2: Obviously you’ve never lived with toddlers full-time. Sure, they look cute, but their behavior is too often anything but.
In any event, it would be nice to have a stronger hand from the podium, enforcing such rules of civility as Congress has.
EFroh
I totally agree with your point, but the problem, I think, is that the bill isn’t going to fix health care effectively. My only hope is that at least if something passes, we have a baseline and can go back later to improve/fix the current problems in the bill.
But the extension of coverage to many (but not all) of the uninsured is a huge victory and should be acknowledged.
What’s bad is that is that public option seems very watered down (hopefully it will be a stronger (and more available) alternative to the privates in the final bill).
And the abortion issue (not covering the procedure) does not bode well for Congress keeping its nose out of what does and doesn’t get covered (particularly when powerful and well-organized third parties who may be interested in a procedure or certain drugs get involved). We desperately need an independent and separate agency (like the UK’s NICE) so as to stop pro-lifers from interfering in decisions that are the providence of women and their doctors. Not sure if the current bill has anything similar, but if it doesn’t, it really needs one.
Napoleon
@jwb:
So what. The Dems have to stop gaging what they do based on how loud the right howls about it (unless its to do the very thing they are howling about, since it is a good rule of thumb that anything the right hates is a pretty good idea for the country as a whole).
If the Dems don’t break the obstructionism in the Senate then, and I mean this with all seriousness, there really is no difference between the two parties since no matter how good the Dems appointments and plans are if they never come up for votes what does it matter?
Bootlegger
“…and I feel fine.”
PeakVT
El Cid nails it.
But today is a good day. It’s been 20 years since the “Fall of the Wall” so I’m going to try not to think about US politics for a few hours.
IndieTarheel
@rob!:
OK, I admit it, when I read that, I was momentarily horrified.
__
Then I giggled.
Ash Can
@The Saff: Just getting out would be the sensible thing to do. These are not sensible people.
Riggsveda
@The Saff: The reactionaries of the Republican party have never been interested in governing. Their work, once elected, is to break the machine, while weilding a lot of petty power and cashing a nice check along the way. Once the government no longer functions, the social Darwinists and Objectivists that poisoned the water will have the chaos that follows as cover to climb over the backs of the weak and begin the long, long devolution back to feudalism.
Also, Chris Christie is fat.
Riggsveda
“wielding”
Ash Can
@PeakVT: I can’t believe it’s been 20 years already. I admit that when the stories first broke I didn’t turn on NBC or CNN right away because it simply didn’t sink in that it was really happening. I was thoroughly stunned.
GReynoldsCT00
Sure they do, they think they are the only ones fit to do so don’t you know…
Morfydd
I distinctly remember that twenty years ago my most pressing emotion was relief that I might make it to twenty without dying in a nuclear conflagration.
Today I’m in Berlin and my eyes won’t stop leaking.
Today I am not going to care about US healthcare.
Zifnab
@Morfydd:
Then you’re kinda in the wrong thread.
toujoursdan
The Republicans are interested in ruling. They aren’t much interested in governing. It’s about gaining and retaining power, not promoting the general welfare or securing the blessings of liberty.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: hyperbullic?
At this point, I say to the Dems, bring it all on. Everything. The rightwingnutters are gonna howl no matter what, so might as well go for broke. Let them rant and rail, and then, do the fuck what you want, anyway. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Obligatory Lennon link.
stickler
Napoleon:
Two points here —
1. It’s not clear that Harry Reid “understands” that the Sun rises in the East. And even if he “understands” the problems with the Senate rules, he’s demonstrated zero capacity for dealing with them. The man gives shitty leadership a bad name.
2. Speaking as one of California’s neighbors to the North, I have to correct the rampant misrepresentation of California’s malevolent effects on everybody else around. It’s not “Californiatization,” or “Californiaizing,” or anything else. It’s Californication, pure and simple. And it was called that long before the stupid Duchovny show hit the late nite cable. Stop the Californication of America!
JHF
I wish to hell this blog and others weren’t getting all misty-eyed over the pile of steaming bullshit called “reform.” The main problem with health care in this country is the freaking COST, which will only go higher if this passes. The insurance companies themselves are the problem. No other country in the world has a for-profit health insurance industry. This is nothing more than the Insurance Company Enrichment Act.
The contemplated public option is meaningless. The mandate will ensure a Republican takeover of government. The Democrats apparently have a death wish.
They should KILL THE BILL and start all over with true single-payer. Anything else is a tragic, unforgiveable fraud.
tripletee
@JHF:
I love the smell of purity trolling in the morning.
Jen R
@JHF:
You might have half a point if people in favor of the bill were proclaiming that the fight is over, and everything’s fixed now. Of course, nobody’s doing that. We’ve never had universal, or near-universal, health coverage (And we still don’t yet, but I’m cautiously hopeful.) That, in and of itself, is huge.
Of course we have to deal with costs. This bill implements a few cost-cutting measures, but not enough. Again, it’s a *start*, not a destination. But a start is more than we’ve had in my lifetime.
How many more decades are you willing to consign poor and sick people to our current nightmare system while you insist that nothing less than purity will do?
No country has just jumped from private insurance companies to single payer overnight; you think the United States is going to be the first? It’ll never happen.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I always like your writing but sometimes little jewels stand out.
Meanwhile, in the Post this morning, Howie Spurtz refers to the HCR bill as being “stuck in the Senate.”
‘Cos you know, at the time Kurtz handed that piece in, it must have been what? Maybe 24 hours after the House passed it.
Oh right, I’m assuming the piece wasn’t written well before and Howie didn’t just cross out House and replace it with Senate.
Joshua Norton
Don’t worry. There’s time for the bill to emerge from the Senate as tax cuts for Wall Street execs.
Morfydd
@Zifnab: oh, piffle. Like every thread here doesn’t eventually devolve into an open thread eventually.
Fine: my Rush-listening mother told me she’s wearing black in mourning for HCR passing. So, hey, someone on the Right is discouraged. That’s a good sign, yes?
Brian J
I know it’s a mix of both, but I am curious of the exact composition of their opposition. How much of it is due to the fact that they just don’t want the Democrats to win now and then win in the future because of the first win? How much of it is due to the fact that they don’t like the regulations and tax increases?
A large part of me thinks it’s more the former, since you could probably find a bunch of Republicans (who aren’t in government, unfortunately) who could agree with at least some of the new regulations and taxes. But then, elections are by no means guaranteed. To the extent that they can’t control parts of the process, like the employment numbers or demographics, elections are out of their hands, but they can respond to the rules of each game. By this, I mean to say that they could have joined the Democrats in fixing health care and shared in the glory, thus have taken some of the thunder away from then. The payoff wouldn’t have been immediate, but instead of having voters being reminded that the Democrats were the only ones responsible for fixing health care, it would have been at best a good electoral pitch for them to and at worst a wash. One way or another, it wouldn’t have hurt them as much as a clear victory for the Democrats only would have, so the parts of the process that they can control would have moved on to something else–abortion, foreign policy, whatever else captures the minds of voters at the time.
Maybe the Republicans are just too shortsighted to see this, as all parties in distress usually are. Or maybe they just don’t care, because, rightly or wrongly, they believe that the package as a whole violates their core principles.
YellowJournalism
There was a short blurb about the vote on our local news last night. My father-in-law turned to me and asked, “So is it just the rich people who oppose health care reform in the US?”
R-Jud
@Bruuuuce:
Oh, I have, and I know (I have a pre-toddler near my ankle, banging incessantly on a pot as I type this)– it’s just that the Republicans have all of the whining and tantrums and none of the cuddliness.
Ryan
This of course assumes that the health care reform package that passed the House is indeed better than the status quo. I’m not convinced.
Little Dreamer
@Jen R:
No, he/she is hoping YOU will, since it’s a disinformation campaign to make sure nobody who has a pre-existing condition can get insurance. Repubs know that if we get healthcare reform (and of course, the bill recently passed in the house is not perfect reform but more than we have now), they are going to lose a lot more power.
jcricket
Look, my toddler is a PITA – but he demonstrates more critical reasoning skills and occasionally does something really cute and worthwhile. Plus he’s shown he’s capable of learning (both from us and from stimuli). Plus, when he’s being a PITA it’s because he’s FUCKING 3 – he can’t be expected to know any better how to manage his emotions or deal with difficult situations.
Tell me again how Republicans are similar?
They’re like rabid jackals. Militant band of rabid jackals. Or maybe those “wusu” animals from Madagascar.
I think Krugman is exactly right and it scares me. The combination of the crazification factor + Republican intransigence + super-majority requirements for doing anything major really scares me. Let’s not even talk about how Democrats can’t explain how the combination of the three above means voting Republican is voting for nothing to happen. And then top that off with the percentage of idiots in the public who think “nothing” is perfectly reasonable as a course of action on healthcare, infrastructure, education issues, taxation, regulation, etc.
At any rate, we’re doomed if the Democrats can’t make at least another 10-15% of Americans understand the situation so that we can get 2/3rd-ish majorities in the places we need it (California, US Senate, etc).
Brian J
@Ryan:
It looks as if there is a reasonable case to be made that this bill isn’t very good since it doesn’t really alter the status quo– the status of private health insurance companies–very much, even if it offers some meaningful changes. I’m still of the mindset that it’s probably better to instill the expectation of coverage if it’s a choice between a bill that doesn’t expand coverage as much because of other factors or because a bill that tried to have the best of everything and failed to get the necessary votes. How many more chances will we get in the next few years to pass a bill like this? Besides, if the private health insurance market continues to get worse, then maybe it’s only a matter of time before the additional regulations that are needed to fix it come about.
ChrisZ
My real hope is that Harry Reid finally grows some balls (I know that won’t happen), gets a bill together that the Democrats will pass but the Republicans (plus Lieberman) will filibuster, and then sits there and lets them filibuster until the 2010 midterms.
Should I maybe care a little more about getting health insurance out to people this year? Sure, but I’m looking long-term, and long-term the Republicans are trying really hard to destroy themselves if only the Democrats will help them along.
jcricket
@Jen R:
IIRC, Taiwan did exactly this in the mid-90s. They went from a system just like ours, to single-payer, over a couple of years (with no intermediate step like a public option or exchanges).
All the same rancor, but the transition happened faster, and everyone was happier than they ever imagined.
Couple years later the costs were rising faster than predicted (like 5% instead of 4.5%) so the conservatives cried “I KNEW IT. CANCEL THE WHOLE THING!” and everyone else said “Let’s just raise taxes .5%” and that solved the problem.
But I don’t think we’re gonna do that. We’re going to end up like France by default as more people end up eligible for the public option b/c they are unemployed, underemployed or simply unable to get any insurance through their employer.
kay
@JHF:
You really have to count before getting hysterical on the mandate. Start subtracting:
all those covered under the expanded Medicaid provisions
all those covered under the subsidy allocation
all those covered under the provision to extend a parent’s coverage to those 27 and under.
Then tell me the number potentially affected by the mandate.
I just don’t think this is as huge an issue as people are making it out to be. The objective is to get people enrolled, because that’s the only way one of the cost-containment mechanisms is going to work. The objective is not to fine people for not complying with a mandate.
kay
And, didn’t we have this mandate debate in the primary?
Obama was anti-mandate and Clinton was pro-mandate. The thing went on for weeks, at those hundreds of debates. Obama used the Illinois state legislature as an example, and Hillary said for costs to come down we’d need a mandate.
The mandate is a huge, shocking betrayal ? How so?
Wile E. Quixote
@Ryan
Wow, look at how smaret Ryan is. He said “status quo” and is very, very concerned. Note that Ryan didn’t offer any actual evidence to back up his contention, no, of course not, but he doesn’t need evidence because he’s concerned, and he used “status quo”.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“I mean, I know how bad the economy is (my job is going away at the end of the year) but the party of no is ideologically bankrupt. ”
Yeah, but there’s a non-zero chance of them getting back into power in the next six years: a big political scandal in OBH’s second term, a U-shaped recovery, or random bad shit (e.g. another big terrorist attack) could weaken the moderate amount of spine Dems have recently shown, get them to reform their traditional circular firing squad, and leave the GOP the victor. Or put the GOP in a position to block legislation and blow up the country to save it.
So the fact the GOP is full of crazy, while giving enjoyable moments for eating popcorn, is not good for the republic as a whole.
The California GOP is crazy as a rabid wombat and has no hope of gaining a majority in the legislature or any significant statewide office (the circumstances that led to the Governator were very exceptional), but they were able to crap on the state from a great height.
jcricket
This was a good article at Washington Monthly about the history of Social Security.
Basically it sucked when it started – hard. And now it’s a magical, magical thing.
Healthcare reform will be the same – esp. b/c of Republicans opposing it 100%. Unless Dems are afraid to run with it as a platform (“Remember us? We passed some healthcare reform, and now we want to pass some more”).
Of course the Krugman article about how we’re all doomed b/c of Republican nihilism scares me a bit (it wasn’t the case in the 1950s, for example). But other than that, the future is ours, if we choose to think that way.
Jen R
@jcricket: I stand corrected re: Taiwan. Still, I don’t think that with our 300 million people and system of legalized bribery of public officials, that it will happen here. (Not saying you do, obv.)
Ryan
@Wile E. Quixote
If my post was useless due to lack of footnotes, what exactly does that make yours?
What this bill basically does to all of our young healthy people is say “buy insurance, or else”. We have a ‘public option’ which will not cover but a fraction of them. What does this effectively mean? Millions of people are now on the hook for yet another expense they cannot afford. It’s an unfunded mandate, only instead of being on the backs of the states, it’s on the backs of the poor.
ChrisZ
@Ryan:
Just ignore him. Wiley only knows how to do one thing and that’s call people concern trolls.
jcricket
@Jen R: Oh yeah – we’re no Taiwan, by any stretch. But it’s an interesting example, because it’s so recent, their system so similar, and the political dynamics are similar (intransigent conservative party, relatively mild liberals).
So it’s possible – but it’ll never happen here. I see a “France-like” future as far more likely, with basic care being 100% provided by the public plan and private insurance being supplemental for everyone that can afford it (or for everyone, but only covering a small subset of stuff).
Nellcote
@R-Jud:
sort of like “Chuckie”?
slippy
@Ken G.: Wrong. The nation is swinging AWAY from that end of the pendulum’s arc. In 1976, it was swinging TOWARDS the right, AWAY from decades of Democratic dominance.
Palin can’t even manage to finish out her one elected term to a prominent office. Who is she going to convince that she can be President? She’s going to need funding and backers.
And there are enough people who are even now becoming ensconced in positions of power who are simply going to stick a monkey wrench into her nuttiness and say “enough, fool! Go away because nobody takes you seriously.”
I worry but the U.S. is not California. We don’t have voter initiatives. I’ve lived in states with voter initiatives, and it’s the most reliable source of right-wing monkey wrench nonsense.
Ian
@4tehlulz:
Lets see what this math adds up too
{Stalin (probably around 30million)/ Holocaust (probably around 10 million)} X cultural revolution (probably around 20million)= ~60 million dead from healthcarereform
Stalin X Holocaust- 300million dead from healthcarereform.
The wingnuts seem to have the math right
b-psycho
@The Saff: Because they hate passing up opportunities to rob people for their own benefit way more than they hate government. Reasonable people, meanwhile, realize that the inevitable use of government for said interests is the real problem with it as an institution.
The portrayal of the wingnuts as proto-fascists is much more accurate than the one of them as wannabe anarchists. Sticking with the latter gives them & their contradictory rhetoric credit they don’t deserve.
lutton
hyperbole?
I didn’t the sound on, but during Boehner’s speech, he apparantly had some issue pronouncing hyperbole. I don;t know if he went ‘hyper bowl’ or what, but it must have been good, ’cause more than a couple tweets flew past at that moment.
http://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/5521801128
lutton
http://twitter.com/#search?q=boehner%20hyperbole