This:
I’m not an “activist” in the classic sense of the term, and I don’t have my own blog. I am not a bagger of any kind, Tea or Fire. I am a professional political operative in Washington DC who tries to elect Democrats for a living. I have spent many late nights and many early mornings working for people and causes I believed in, and I’ve moved to faraway cities away from my friends and loved ones for low pay in order to get people elected who I thought at the very least shared my instincts for moving the country forward.
And if the House doesn’t pass health care, modified in reconciliation or not, because Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley, I am fucking done. That is it. To see my party abandon the most important domestic goal of the past fifty-odd years right as it sits on the one-yard line because Blue Dogs took a fraidy-pee and progressives took a snit is more than I frankly can handle. It’s awful to feel as if my professional and personal commitments have been so cavalierly pissed on because of overreaction to some colossal stiff beating a shitty candidate in my home state.
I’ve been saying this since day one on every measure that matters, whether it be DADT, or what, the problem is Congress. The Democrats have too many internal divisions, and the Republicans have too much unity to simply oppose, and they all know they have a golden parachute in lobbying or on Wall Street no matter what happens.
BTD
Holy shit. Now you are going PUMA/Nader?
Unbelievable.
james hare
Exactly how I feel. The Democrats have been promising health care reform since before I was born. If they can’t get it done, they don’t deserve any power. Neither do the Republicans, but I’m not going to call myself a Democrat if what we have in congress are Democrats.
AxelFoley
This is the biggest problem.
Democrats love to go on about how they don’t march lock-step with their President, unlike Republicans, but unlike Democrats, Republicans get shit done.
Democrats love to air their dirty laundry in public, while Republicans keep that shit under wraps and put on a unified front.
eemom
I really want out of this country, now.
And it is all so very ironic because a mere fifteen months ago I wanted out if McCain got elected.
Violet
They will lose an entire generation if they fail on this. Heck, they’ll probably lose several generations. Even hard core Dems can’t support this sort of chicken sh!t action.
John Cole
@BTD: Say what?
Mr Furious
Me too.
I know I’ve felt this way before and come back, but I honestly don’t know how many times I can be expected to pick myself back up and rejoin the fight.
When there really is no fight.
Jim
I don’t know if this is the same person, but an anonymous Dem political operative says that the political pros, the people who work full time on campaigns, are furious at the elected politicos. I was exasperated at the way elected Dems panicked after Coakley-Brown, but know I’m feeling some panic that those same Dems don’t see the multiple shitstorms headed at them from pretty much all sides, while they desperately flop around trying to figure out how to get David Broder to write a column that says they’ve “righted their ship” or some such bullshit anachronistic metaphor.
CT Voter
That comment from your reader needs to be sent to every Democratic member of the House and Senate.
They are living in so much denial that it’s a wonder they can breathe at all.
El Cid
Can I maybe mention again the fact that Democrats currently have one more Democratic Senator now than they did one year ago, when Obama was inaugurated and all seemed possible?
brantl
And you wind up having to vote for the unorganized people who aren’t moral midgets, because the other side, although well organized have the goals that moral midgets have. “I/me/mine!”
madmatt
“To see my party abandon the most important domestic goal of the past fifty-odd years”
Really our most important agenda was funnelling TRILLIONS of dollars to fucking insurance companies without making them do a damn thing for it? FUCK YOU, your years of work have actually helped bring about a system so corrupt that nothing progressive can ever be accomplished. Thanks for nothing, stay home from now on!!
MobiusKlein
I suspect the House also doesn’t want to moot itself. If all that matters in Congress is vote 60 in the Senate, then why have a House and President at all?
danimal
We’re on the one yard line and we’re not even attempting a field goal. We’re giving the ball to the middle linebacker and walking away from the field.
Call a roll call. We need to know which Dems are putting vanity, ego, profiteering and purism over the needs of litterally tens of millions of people.
brantl
Repeal the rule that allows the fillibuster, if not that repeal the rule/understanding that allows the non-fillibuster fillibuster.
Robin G.
Can someone organize a mass Galtian exit of all the Democratic legislative staffers and political operatives? I’d like to see Steny Hoyer have to answer his own goddamn phone.
And if I’m nearly in tears of fury over the work I put in in 2008 only coming to this, I can’t imagine how these professionals must feel.
BTD
@John Cole:
From the comment you quote – “if the House doesn’t pass health care, modified in reconciliation or not, because Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley, I am fucking done. That is it.”
what does that mean to you John?
Robin G.
@madmatt: Shut up. Really.
(Okay, John, I know you don’t like comments that aren’t substantive. Sorry. I just don’t have much else to say on this one.)
FormerSwingVoter
That’s it. If HCR fails, I’m going Republican.
Sure, it’s going to suck to see the top 1% start getting 99.9% of the income, and to be in a state of perpetual war with some nation of brown people or another, but getting mediocre-to-bad solutions to our problems is better than getting none at all.
eemom
and that Supreme Court travesty today was really the fucking icing on the Scott Brown cake.
Fuck Kennedy for siding with the Scalia gang. Fuck Martha Coakley for fucking up in Massachusetts. Fuck every fucking senator and congressperson who fucked up HCR. Fuck. Them. All.
Comrade Luke
And to top it all off, both houses of Congress are giving up without even formally announcing who is for and who is against. All it takes as a congressperson is to say you’re not going to vote for it behind closed doors and they table it without holding anyone publicly accountable.
Karmakin
There are two issues at play here, that makes these things very difficult/impossible.
The first, is the Senate, to be perspective, the “Brotherhood” of the Senate. They’re dealing with very serious issues here. Thousands of people die because of the problems with healthcare…millions have their lives, their dreams destroyed. However, how do you debate this? How do you call that nice guy you have lunch with on Tuesday out for killing thousands of people a year? How do you get the real-world consequences across? You really can’t. So the debate, at least the moral concerns coming from the left, have to be entirely ignored.
The second issue, is that a lot of these politicians are/come from upper-middle/lower-upper class backgrounds. That’s where their friends were, that’s where their family is, etc. So they have certain concerns that need to be met.
Keeping wages low
Keeping investment markets growing
Keeping taxes low
Stopping entitlements
Making sure they can use their relative wealth to gain priority for things such as health care
Preventing things from interfering with their oh so precious little lives, or things that might “influence” their children.
Those concerns, for most of us, are silly. Or even downright wrong. But if you look at DC, those are the concerns that really turn the debate among the radical centrists. That’s what they want.
chopper
@Robin G.:
hey, it’s always easier to bitch on the internet than it is to work to get people elected. because well, none of those people are 100% perfect so why leave the house?
james hare
@BTD:
I think it’s fairly clear what John is saying. This party is not worthy of support. It’s like the Republicans and abortion — make a promise you know you won’t keep and get the rubes to come along for the ride.
Kryptik
@BTD:
It means there’s nothing to be done. We’re fucked and there’s no way to right the ship, because our leaders are such fucking moral cowards that they’ve ceded power because of one goddamn senate seat.
That’s not going PUMA/Nader. That’s saying ‘fuck it’ to the whole American Political process and waiting for the guillotine to come down on us all.
It’s a disgusted resignation to the political reality we face now: we have no voice.
JustMe
To me, it means that some staffers are going to make the rational decision that there are more productive things to do with their professional lives.
Comrade Luke
@danimal: Not requiring a roll call really shows their true colors imo. There’s no excuse for that.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
First of all, who wrote the blurb?
Second, why get mad at pols in DC? We have people right here on this blog who were ready to pull the plug on HCR months ago if it didn’t have the bells and whistles that they insisted were so fucking important. Dems, who act, not only on HCR but other issues, as if they and only they have the right path in mind and nothing else is acceptable.
Look right here to the BJ comments section and figure out why the boneheads and the potatoheads hold court here every fucking day, saying things that would be laughable if we saw them on righty blogs, and not only creating, but promoting, division in our ranks.
We are the problem. The pols are just reflecting the fact that we can’t get our own act together, people. Face it.
Kryptik
@chopper:
Hey, look at the people we worked to get elected this last time around! Didn’t they do such a good job of it?…
The problem is that the party is tone deaf, the leaders are fucking cowards, and we can’t do shit about them because no matter who we’ve elected, they show their ass time and time again at every teabagging shadow they see.
Rick Taylor
@BTD
__
I’m not sure that’s a fair characterization of John’s position here, but you must have noticed that a number of wonky reasonable pragmatic bloggers are starting to sound shrill. Ezra Klein and Josh Marshall come to mind. Even reasonable pragmatists have a breaking point.
chopper
i just wish the dems would realize that the GOP isn’t interested in talking unless they’re in the position of power.
sigh. congress and the scotus. i guess our asses aren’t going to fuck themselves, amirite?
BTD
@james hare:
That’s what Naderites/PUMAs say.
I am arguing for the continued fight for the soul of the Party. For not quitting.
The alternative is the Republicans.
Look, everyone will do what they think is best, but quitting is a bad idea imo.
Cure 7802
I keep thinking that there is no way that the Democratic Congress is going to let this thing die six inches from the endzone…
Then I remember how many Dems are weak-ass pussies. If this thing goes down, God help us.
Short Bus Bully
I’m a lifelong Dem and a life-long hater of religious extremism and the winger mentality that has grown up over the last few years as a reaction to the pants-wetting cowardice that was exposed in this country after 9/11.
That said, I’m with John and with the reader he quoted.
FUCK this Democratic party if they can’t finish this thing off. The Republicans would have jammed their every wet dream down our throats if they’d had these kind of majorities, I’m tired of apologizing for the party I’m supposed to be supporting.
What does this mean? The country is well and truly fucked for the long term. One party is evil, the other is too unorganized to govern.
Canada or Australia is pretty nice this time of year.
BTD
@Rick Taylor:
Everyone has a breaking point.
The one I that crosses the line for me is stopping fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party.
I can not imagine that when John calms down he will really endorse the idea of quitting.
chopper
@Kryptik:
that’s true but working to get democrats elected is still a hell of a lot more work than waiting for the goopers to fuck shit up and complaining about it on the internet. despite the dems current spinelessness i still gotta give props to the poster for putting so much of his life on hold to try to improve the system. even i’m not that cynical yet.
Comrade Dread
This.
This is why no real reform will ever happen. It will interfere too much with Senators and Congressmen cashing in their influence for a big payday.
BTD
@JustMe:
I hope that is all it means.
If that is what this post is about, then fine.
I think it is meant to be more.
Unless John is arguing for Dem staffers to quit in protest, I would not see the point.
But I hope you are right.
james hare
@BTD:
There is no soul of the party. The 316 elected Democrats in the House and Senate are completely worthless. They should all be replaced by Republicans if necessary. Just get them out. No more Lucy and the football. Really all 535 members of congress should be replaced, but whatever. At least the Republicans won’t promise to fix the health care mess and then screw it up with commanding majorities.
Brien Jackson
@brantl:
And ypu’re getting the votes from that where?
Jim Heim
I’m a county Democratic chair with decades of Democratic activism behind me. I’m at the end of my rope. Should Democrats in Congress lose their nerve and fail to pass a health care bill, I will be done. If we can’t pass core Democratic programs with the overwhelming majorities we have, we are hopeless.
FormerSwingVoter
Is it time to step away from the ledge?
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/01/its-reconciliation.html#ixzz0dGllA2KE
Unofficial, but – they’re doing reconciliation.
danimal
@BTD: I won’t speak for John, but if they give up without a fight, without a vote, then it really is time to toss the existing Dems out and build a new party. The GOP may win a cycle, but a more unified, determined liberal alternative would eventually emerge. This group of Dems isn’t worth a bucket of spit if they are willing to bail on a 40 year priority because they lost a senate seat.
Bobzim
If it’s truly over, health care reform is now the official 2nd Third Rail of American Politics because moderate Dems know that progressives’ requirements won’t fly in their district and the Firebaggers will work to elect a more conservative candidate to get liberal policy.
Add to that the now-possible Sen. X, (D-PhRMA) and the whole thing turns into a toxic mess.
Brilliant.
Mary
Josh Marshall just called for organizing in support of the Senate bill. Time for BTD to run along to TPM to mock Josh for making such a stupid suggestion.
Joe Beese
I’ve seen the centerfold and I’m here to tell you that “colossal stiff” is hyperbole.
PTirebiter
Wow, that comment gives me little better perspective on the disappointment I’m feeling. I’ve donated some money, written some letters and suffered a few heart aches over the last 30 years, but nothing like my life’s blood. I truly hope these clowns are stricken righteous over stories like this person’s.
kay
@Bobzim:
Absolutely true. No one will go near it.
Kryptik
@FormerSwingVoter:
Show me any sign that Senate Dems are willing to fight, especially against the Bayhs and Liebermans who have already telegraphed their hard shift right, and then I might have hope for reconciliation.
Unfortunately, I can’t see us even getting the 50+1, with too many Blue Dogs already wanting us to shift and abandon anyone to the left of Limbaugh.
Church Lady
I’ve never been one of those people to scream “America – love it or leave it.” However, when I see the whiney ass crap coming from the keyboards of people like eemom and Short Bus Bully, my only thought is “Just go.” Just pack your shit – absolutely no one is going to stop you. Find somewhere else to live, since you think this place sucks so much, and just move your whiney ass right on down the road. You won’t be missed.
madmatt
Hey Robin G- why don’t you tell me whats wrong with my statement…are you saying the senate bill is not a MASSIVE giveaway to the insurance companies and PHRMA, are you saying that insurance companies will be prevented from charging ANYTHING THEY WANT.
Tell me one good thing in the bill, I haven’t heard anything at all positive about it. As somebody who can’t afford to see a Doctor…fuck you, the bill doesn’t do shit!
FeverDream
Look, I agree. I am right there with everyone in disgust and anger and disappointment. I actually suspect this country may be in active decline — it’s not something I’ve really let myself admit; I haven’t been saying it to anyone, even to myself, until now, and the thought chills me down to my soul.
But I can’t walk away yet, not while there is some chance that HCR can be moved forward via reconciliation.
Please call Harry Reid and your reps today (or call them again if you did so yesterday) and ask them to support reconciliation. With reconciliation, there is still the possibility of a public option, Medicare buy-in, Medicaid expansion, and other stuff that progressives actually WANT.
Just call. Leave the fetal position or your plans to move to Canada or whatever desperate move you may be planning on another day.
PTirebiter
@Joe Beese:
Clean kill shot, nice.
BTD
@Mary:
I think it is a stupid suggestion because that requires the House Dem to screw over the unions. that is not going to happen.
Better activism would be pressuring the Senate to work on a reconciliation bill to go with their already passed Senate bill.
Now, if like Mary, you oppose all changes to the Senate bill, this will be anathema.
If you are ok with some revisions to the Senate bill, you will see that is the path to passage.
Fern
Here’s another thing I don’t understand – that they should look so gobsmacked by Coakly’s loss because there was no goddamn plan for dealing with the it. Even if they couldn’t do something to increase the likelihood of her winning, the least they could do would be to have some kind of plan and talking points for handling the fallout.
Your country may well be getting closer to being completely ungovernable – what with the new court ruling, a largely under-educated, gullible, self-indulgent electorate, and a whacked two-house system for passing legislation that makes it almost impossible to set a coherent policy and get legislation through.
I do not know that I have ever been more grateful for living under a parliamentary system.
freelancer
Ugh, My liver can’t take much more of the Democratic Party.
Notorious P.A.T.
The Senate bill is not a massive giveaway to the insurance companies.
It’s not a giveaway if you get something in return for our money. And if we enact safeguards (no rescission, no denial for preexistings, etc) then we will, in fact, get something in return.
Brick Oven Bill
For the first time, in my adult lifetime, I am proud of Massachusetts.
This Scott Brown guy seems pretty good.
Yossarian
I wrote the blurb John quoted, so I’ll clarify a few things.
I have no intention of going PUMA or Nader. To be literal about it for a moment, Hillary being elected President wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference vis-a-vis our current predicament. And I like Hillary. Our problem is Congress for one thing, and for another thing her top operative, Mark Penn, just wrote about how Obama needs to resubmit health care reform so it’s smaller and more “bipartisan.” Any anti-Rahmbos need to read that fucking drivel before they start pining for a Clinton restoration. And secondly, more Naderites wouldn’t have helped because as much as we hate to admit it, it’s not just the Blue Dogs who are holding this thing up. Grijalva, Nadler, and other true-blue progressives who I generally admire told Pelosi they won’t vote for the Senate bill, period. They are a huge part of this current problem, so more lefty purism isn’t exactly high on my agenda in terms of health care.
As for BTD’s point about the soul of the Democratic Party, well, souls are nice but without brains and balls they just kinda float around out there, don’t they? Right now large portions of the U.S. House of Representatives refuse to vote for the already-passed Senate bill that they could send to the president’s desk TOMORROW if they so chose. They do so for various reasons, some corporatist and paranoid about the Brown election and what it “means,” and some because they don’t want give up on a fantasy about a more progressive bill suddenly becoming available and passable in a Senate in which we just LOST a seat. So, whatever this says about the soul of the party, it says very little about the guts, intelligence, strategic acumen, sense of perspective, and so forth.
My point is not that I’m going to become a Republican (god forbid). It’s not even that I’m going to disengage from politics (I think I’m constitutionally incapable). But as a professional who’s sweated blood and given up a LOT of personal fulfillment for very little money, looking at the current situation does make me wonder if that kind of effort is worth it. And I suspect I’m not the only one.
chopper
@Brick Oven Bill:
you’re talking about the pictures, right?
gopher2b
I’m coming out of retirement to make this comment — I just cannot resist.
Obama’s administration needs to create its own plan and do it soon. Congress has clearly demonstrated they are not capable of doing it themselves. Frankly, this is an opportunity for the administration to fix what is wrong with the current bills and create a real system based on logic and good policy, not buyouts and bribes.
Once its done, put the plan out there and say he expects Congress to vote on it, he expects dems to vote for it, and if they don’t, he’ll campaign on behalf of whoever challenges them in their primary. It’s time for Obama to take charge of this issue. Period.
Comrade Luke
@Fern:
Unless giving up was the plan.
gex
@Mr Furious: I think this is exactly why my grandfather no longer participates in politics. And why he laughed at me, when I asked why.
“Because it doesn’t make any difference.”
I’ll keep voting for the lesser of two evils, simply because I cannot allow myself to sit idly as Republicans get elected. But the Democrats might be interested in knowing that the money support is no longer there. I have to save that cash for emergency medical situations, not give it to rich liars.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Brick Oven Bill:
Come on, I thought you were Scott Brown.
You handsome devil, you.
Short Bus Bully
@Church Lady
Checked the news much lately? Read this blog much lately? There are more than two of us who think this country is well and truly fucked and are fighting off the angry apathy with both hands.
Let’s hope we win and stay involved.
However, after all the effort everyone put in getting Obama to the White House and getting all these spineless Dems elected… One special election in Mass. is enough to ruin months of backbreaking labor? Because the in-state Dems were too fucking lazy and stupid to NOT fuck themselves into oblivion?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
It just boggles the mind.
P.S.- Just read Yossarian’s comment. WIN. THIS. ALSO. AWESOMESAUCE.
Notorious P.A.T.
Hehe ) nice
I sure hope so.
steve
This is why I gave up on being involved in the Democratic party at the local level (I live in a medium-size college town). The constant internal bickering, the endless drawing-lines-in-the-sand over trivial stuff, the empty threats to leave the party and mount third-party primary challenges, and most of all the pattern of electing people and then turning on them — I just couldn’t take it anymore. I finally concluded that they thought it was more fun to argue and complain than govern.
Mary
@BTD: Don’t let BTD fool you people. The unions want the Senate bill passed and they want it fixed later. The manic progressives are specifically trying to tamp down any organizing in favor of the Senate bill, arguing a confusing message to organize in favor of reconciliation for a public option. Translation-let the Senate bill die. Front page post at DKos says “Don’t Panic.” Translation-don’t do anything.
If you want healthcare reform, please call your representatives and the White House to tell them to get this done. It’s not over yet.
Mike E
@Brick Oven Bill:
BoB, your an ass.
If that dude is feeling crappy about all his hard work going for naught (saddly), he should try being a conservation activist for 15 years! I’m on a fucking cloud!
Notorious P.A.T.
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re such a freaking idiot. Seriously. Obama holds a press conference and you psychoanalyze him like a half-assed Sigmund Freud–“oh, he lacks belief in himself because he grew up without a father, yadda yadda”–but a guy who does a naked photo spread in a national magazine? Nothing to say about that, huh? God you’re stupid.
Brien Jackson
@gopher2b:
Ok, and when 41 Republicans prevent it from getting a Senate vote, then what?
GReynoldsCT00
“i just wish the dems would realize that the GOP isn’t interested in talking unless they’re in the position of power”
They are interested in talking even then, dictating yes, passing all kinds of shit even when they are in the minority yes, but never any real desire to work together ever, that I can see.
scudbucket
Absolute craziness here! DFH Puma BTD is the only one talking sense anymore. AAARRRGGGHHHH!
BTD
@Mary:
If the unions are willing to wait for the companion reconciliation bill, the Senate bill would be passed this week.
Mary seems to think I am more powerful than the unions.
That is delusion.
Comrade Luke
@Yossarian:
All I can say from reading just the couple of comments you’ve posted today is: please don’t give up. I understand how you’ve invested your life in this and now it seems like it was for nothing, but we need people like you who are actually in a position to help, help.
Maybe you can just try to get a better work/life balance, and hopefully not make failures like this make you physically ill? While I obviously never worked in an environment that impacts people like you do now, I do know a little bit about how being so invested in something can affect your health.
Of course, the result for me is that I quit my job and,my Cobra’s expiring in June and now I’m going to scramble for health care, but other than that I have no regret :)
scudbucket
@Brick Oven Bill: No points for you: you didn’t write in Haiku form.
Brian J
Although I don’t work in politics for a living, I can understand his frustration.
I don’t understand the thinking that many seem to be under. The bill isn’t perfect; it never was going to be. But is it so indefensible that it’s not worth passing? Hell, even if you wanted something like single payer, what’s the reasoning behind not passing this? I don’t see any reasonable argument for how voting this down helps pass something like single payer or anything else that is beyond the mark of what we currently have. It seems to make it less likely, in fact. If the private insurance market keeps collapsing, as many seem to think it will, we’ll have something like single payer soon enough. Why deny people the help they need in the mean time? You don’t prevent starving people from eating junk food if that’s all you currently have to offer. You give them the junk food and then work on finding something more nutritious.
scudbucket
@BTD: Mary seems to think I am more powerful than the unions.
It’s Democrat Derangement Syndrome.
Robin G.
@madmatt: Pre-existing conditions.
meh
I’m starting to like that whole unitarian gubment thingey that bush was doing…
williamc
@BTD:
BTD, they are all becoming a bit unhinged. I think that following the President to the center (which in the nation of morons and con-artists we live in currently is deep into the right), has cause some here to loose their stuffing. Liberals want HCR more than anyone else in this country and have been told to eatshitanddie over and over all year as everything that some of us have spent decades working on has been bargained away for an insurance industry boondoggle. I’m not a “kill the bill”er, but I at least have taken the time to understand their point of view, and not just beat up on people who actually understand the issue from a policy/activism standpoint and not just a political standpoint.
JC and the other people raging against “progressives” holding their noses and passing this bill are no better than pundits on tv talking about stuff they don’t get, Oh, and btw, you are totally helping Glen Beck out with his eliminationist rhetoric concerning Progressivism.
Without a promise of a reconciliation bill in the Senate, there is a reason no liberal would vote for this POS bill. People seem to keep forgetting that the Senate bill contains some stuff that no respectable liberal would ever vote for: abortion restrictions, the free-rider provision that would make hiring part-timers a better deal for business than full-timers, the so-called Cadillac Tax on high value plans that really is a tax on tons of plans (do people actually know how much their plans cost since their employers pay most of it? they will if this bill passes because the cost will go up on a lot of plans around the country), and thats not even going into the Public Option that House Dems have raised money on and signed pledges to not voting for any plan that didn’t contain one, the subsidies, the Medicaid expansion, and all the other stuff that makes the House bill better. Not only are you asking people to betray their constituencies (the poor, the Unions, the lower-middle class) with this vote, you are asking them to do something no one ever asks Republicans: violate your political beliefs for the good of the country. You are asking people to make their House of Congress irrelevant all because Senate Dems don’t have the balls to play politics in their chummy clubhouse?
That all being said, the House needs to be working on a reconciliation bill with the Senate right now, both pass it, then the House passes the Senate bill. That’s how this happens. Stop whining and make calls. NOW,
Checking Out
You all can go sing “We Shall Overcome” all you want, I’m not buying it anymore.
If delivering control of both Congress and the White House is not enough, then I’ll be dammed before I’m told I need to clap louder in order to get any results, or sit here while I’m being blamed for being angry at such an abject failure.
You bet I’m leaving, and I’m taking the popular majority that got Obama elected with me.
Paula
So, I don’t get it.
Someone from Talk Left is actually more optimistic about HCR than the people here, and the running sentiment on FDL front page is still “kill the [Senate] bill” and “public option is back”.
What the hell are these delusions based on?? They hated the bill when it was actually moving on the congress floor but now that it looks effectively dead in the water they think all their wishes will still be possible?
gopher2b
@Brien Jackson:
All out war. Right now, a lot of independents think the GOP killed a bad bill (regardless of whether it is bad or not). You have to tee the issue up again, and it has to be a lot less messy than the first go around.
It will probably never pass but the point is to flush out the cowards and end their Congressional careers. Right now, nearly every Dem Senator and Congressman can claim they wanted healthcare but the Senate and/or Massachusetts screwed it up.
BTD
@Paula:
Well it is easy to be more optimistic than the ‘the bill is dead” crowd.
I do think the question is when do the unions say it is ok to vote for the Senate bill.
One call from Richard Trumka is worth 10k from us.
Mr Furious
This. That’s why I need a roll call.
And that’s why they won’t have one. Fine. They all go down together. At this point, if they fuck this up the quickest path to HCR is handing things back to the GOP and waiting for the financial End Times and the collapse of the existing system.
Mary
@BTD: @BTD: I’m sure Balloon Juice can generate 10K calls though. Lots of people are calling their representatives to pass the Senate bill and fix it later This is the most important legislation in a generation. The House of Representatives needs to hear the message from their voters that they want the thing passed. And they need to hear it now.
BTD
@Mary:
I was speaking figuratively Mary. If you really think 10k calls is the same thing as Trumka saying what the AFL-CIO wants, you must be joking.
Indeed, the AFL-CIO can generate millions of calls. That’s why Dems need them in November.
madmatt
Notorious P.A.T said
“It’s not a giveaway if you get something in return for our money. And if we enact safeguards (no rescission, no denial for preexistings, etc) then we will, in fact, get something in return”
Thats a mighty big IF there and seeing as the bill allows Ins cos to charge whatever they want by age or by pre-existing condition the bill has done NOTHING, sick people still can’t afford it (I know, I am one of them). I am sure they will figure out a way to work rescissions back into the equation as well.
Also why should 25% of every dollar I give go to executive jets and bonuses. Id rather the insurance companies just price everybody out of the market over the next decade and we start from scratch.
celticdragonchick
@Violet:
Exactly.
Btw, thanks for the props last night on my comment.
eemom
@Church Lady:
oh fuck off, you self-righteous twat.
Rick Taylor
@BTD
__
Add Steve Benen to the list. And by breaking point, I don’t mean they’d actually quit. But these bloggers are speaking with an emotional heat I don’t often see from them. They are upset.
eemom
@Rick Taylor:
Booman too, and a more gentle even-tempered guy never graced the innertubz.
Chris Andersen
I’m not walking away from anything. But I fully expect the Democrats to be slaughtered in the Fall and they will deserve every bit of it.
Unfortunately, the American people do not, and that is the Democrats biggest betrayal.
I will never surrender. I will never give up.
BTD
@Rick Taylor:
They are late to the party (pun intended) no?
Chris Andersen
@Rick Taylor:
As is Ezra Klein. I have never seen Ezra come even close to making heated comments about politics (and that is one of many reasons why I appreciate his insight so much). But long time readers can see the fumes starting to rise from his blog posts in the last 24 hours.
I suspect that the House Dems are just beginning to get a comprehension of just how much fury they will unleash if they really blow this. But I’m not sure if that realization will come soon enough for it to make a difference.
If I were Nancy Pelosi, I would immediately schedule a roll call vote on the Senate bill and then call on the caucus to act like the grownups they are supposed to be (of course, I’d try to be more diplomatic about it).
valdivia
Well I am an on-the-record O-Bot who has been optimistic all along but the show of these congress critters peeing their pants because of the mass election and giving up, without even trying, to get this through just disgusts me. So I totally understand this comment.
valdivia
@Chris Andersen:
and this too. I am not giving up but the idiotic crew declaring health care dead the evening of the election (I am looking at you Barnie Frank) just made me lose it. If they don’t get this done they don’t deserve to be in office. period.
Corner Stone
Wow.
So all the relentless hippie punching and blatant bagging on anyone who disagreed with you and was passionate about issues before this debacle …that was just posturing?
Chris Andersen
@Corner Stone:
Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!!
Not to pick on you specifically, but…
When will people realize that just because someone disagrees with their TACTICS does not mean they disagree with their anger or their passion to do something with that anger.
If you are angry then, please, express it. Do something with it.
But for gods sake, do something USEFUL with it.
I am sick of activism that makes that activist feel good about themselves but does NOTHING to actually advance their cause.
Corner Stone
@Chris Andersen: Chris –
Not to pick on you or anything but I’m afraid you are willfully misconstruing my comment.
I disagree with a lot of tactics I see as well coming from people who are nominally on my side.
That is not what my comment was about.
For months now Cole has set the frame of what was a legitimate concern, and anyone who popped up and said, “Um, that doesn’t seem correct. How about we at least try X,Y, or Z before we cede to some amorphous “political reality” that *you personally* find acceptable?” – Those people got their asses screamed at by a bunch of people here following Cole’s “Tell me how you get to 60!!” lead. Then if you didn’t back down you became a PUMA, then an FDL’er, then a Jane-bot, or whatever the preferred target of the 2 Minute Daily Hate was at the time.
The tactics part has reared its ugly head recently, but the battle to get a wider coalition to not only *fight*, but accept the *possibility* that we *can* fight has gone on for much longer.
And IMO, Cole’s relentless and delightfully witty sandbagging of everyone (and please note that the word “everyone” encompasses more people than FDL) who didn’t bow down to a pre-determined sphere where “political reality” lived, or some stupid fucking “art of the possible” was just uncalled for, time and again.
ETA – and speaking of tactics – how does it benefit something you believe in to bash the most passionate and engaged individuals time and again when by your own admission you agree with 90% of what they agree with?
I think the answer is pretty clear.
D-Chance.
Yggy takes the “punch in the neck” thing a little too far; even his own commenters jump him on it.
Wow, you guys do get a bit unhinged… chill, dudes! O’s got this! Just take a deep breath and relax.
oscarbob
My level of frustration with the democratic party is at its height. This http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/relieved.php?ref=fpblg kinda sent me over the edge. Gee, it seems like governing might be hard or something.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Well then, BJ is not the blog for you. Heh.
And I think what we really mean is, does nothing to advance OUR cause. Because OUR cause is pretty general in nature, while THEIR cause is always something like “I insist that unless I get this provision or this change in exactly this form, then this government/bill/congress/president is SHIT and I won’t support it any more …..”
Which always leaves those of us who just want some frickin progress (you know, the root word of “progressive”) out in the cold.
Obama is all about the art of the doable. Whether he can govern in front of a base that is never about the doable but is about the idyllic, remains to be seen.
Personally, I am coming to think that the implacable opposition of the GOP is centered on this latter question. The right suspects that the left is made up of a coalition of whiny, stubborn shitheads who can’t govern, and all they have to is say no-no-no every day, and we will set about proving them right. So far, it seems to be working.
Chris Andersen
Seems like the current effort to whip Reps. on the Senate bill counts as activism that actually advances things.
But really, I’ve never considered this blog to be much of an activist blog. More of a commentary blog.
Caren
Why do you say this?
When a pollster bothers to ask the follow-up question to why people are unhappy with the HCR bill, most of them say it’s because it does too little.
The Democratic party and the GOP are fighting over the same center-right-> hard right constituents. NO ONE is even trying to please center-left to hard left constituents.
Coakley lost out for two reasons: one, she was NOT progressive enough. two, SHE DIDN’T campaign. She broke the #1 rule and didn’t ask people to vote for her.
Exit polls shows that people who made their minds up over a month ago, or who made up their minds in the last couple of weeks, voted for Coakley. People who made up their minds when Coakley couldn’t be bothered to campaign voted for Brown.
Plus, MA has universal coverage. It’s not in the same position as other states and taking Brown’s victory as a national referendum on HC is just so fucking stupid.
As for the Senate bill? It is a giveaway. Mandated payments with no public option are a horrible idea. Having the IRS be the enforcement agent for for-profit corporations is a horrible precedent. Couple that with today’s SCOTUS decision, and we really will be a corporate-owned country.
The for-profit insurance model cannot succeed forever, b/c they are already taking too much money out of the economy. They won’t be able to maintain their profit margins and as they provide less and less service, more and more people will drop out or move to concierge physicians if they can afford it.
Unless everyone is forced to be a for-profit insurance company customer. In that case, we’re fucked forever.
Quiddity
Many of the Democrats that are causing trouble are old farts. Is it possible that the disunity in the party is because the realignment (Nixon’s southern strategy, and related moves) isn’t fully played out? Could it be that in another (sorry to say it) ten years, the Blue Dogs will have completely migrated to the Republican party, leaving a more unified Democratic party that, when it has the majority in each chamber, can pass unalloyed liberal legislation?
Sleeper
@Corner Stone:
um. Megadittos? Or has that been trademarked by the other side?
Phoebe
@Yossarian: makes perfect perfect sense.
To everyone freaking out, and all my facebook friends babbling about leaving the country: Go into the padded cell and scream. For as long as you need to. Then take many deep breaths and all. And don’t come out until you feel strong enough and patient enough to try and figure out what the best use of your time and energy might be. And maybe think for two seconds about someone in Haiti whose family was crushed in rubble and has no clean water and is surrounded by the stench of corpses. Things often just suck, is all I’m saying. And take you by surprise. Always have, always will. You are just going to have to stand in the rubble and figure out, “Well, what do we do now?” If you want to give up, then don’t leave the country, because it’s not going to be buttercups and ponies over the next hill. Just go to the couch and watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies or play computer games. That’s really the best way to escape. Also meth, and then you die, and mission accomplished.
Jay B.
Obama is all about the art of the doable. Whether he can govern in front of a base that is never about the doable but is about the idyllic, remains to be seen.
Oh fucking horseshit. On healthcare he’s neither governed nor led.
He’s bitched up health care as least as much as Bert Stuptak, Harry Reid, Max Bachus, Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman. Either he let these assholes “lead” the process, keeping his hands clean, powder dry, what the fuck ever and planned to sit back and vote on whatever it was that was finally produced. Or he consented to every stupid watering down that was offered to get people on board — because if I’ve learned anything from this site is that the President is essentially helpless when it comes to enacting his own fucking agenda. He decided to be an observer on the biggest domestic policy in his Presidency.
Either way that shows some fatal political instincts, I’d say. Either he looks like a passive, helpless pawn — which sets himself up for almost every stupid criticism leveled at him in the endless primary — or he looks like a suck up to some literally awful corporate interests, a charge that is hard to dispute. All WHILE HE DID NOTHING — because, again, the President has no power to influence Congress or articulate his preferred outcome* (*A fact I learned on Balloon Juice).
But the fact remains that he didn’t lay out anything and, as a result, it’s almost fucking impossible to have a cohesive rallying cry for people who have fought for health care reform their whole lives.
If “doable” means “whatever hash Congress pukes out”, well, sure. But it’s awful leadership. He never articulated a vision for health care, so he can claim whatever comes out as a victory.
Even if it fucking passes how do you defend it? Not technocratically, like “yes, there were some compromises made, but in the end, there’s a slight advantage to it and it will help set up the foundation to a blahblahblah” but like a real political narrative that projects strength and believability? In other words, how do you convince people that it’ll help them?
Does “doable” enter into that equation? Does Obama’s Art of the Possible mean jackshit to anyone in the electorate? It’s the end result, not the goal, not the message.
Jay B.
And what’s “idyllic” about running against the insurance companies? What’s so fucking pristine about supporting a public option that’s a compromise in the first place? What’s so impossible about laying out the fucking case that the public option would help contain costs? Yeah, we in the base are so unrealistic, with our far out ideas about going after an industry everyone hates (except the Senators who run this country) in order to deliver better health care at a lower cost. What a politically AWFUL message that would be! It’s simply not doable!
Then again, why are we bitching about this anyway? Think of the Haitians! Life sucks, donchaknow.
Here’s why I would move to another country, if I could (it IS a little harder than “pick up and go!” Mrs. Nixon): Because it would be a fucking blessing to not give a shit about the politics in a stable social democracy.
FlipYrWhig
Except in every single fucking speech he ever gave on the subject. Increase competition, broaden coverage, curb excessive spending; means TBD. Of course every time he did this, which was _often_, his statements would swiftly be nitpicked for whether he said “public option” with the proper beatific expression. You can say that you don’t like the passion of that vision, or the packaging of that vision, or that it was articulated in a muddy and confusing way, but you can’t say there wasn’t a vision.
Jay B.
. Increase competition, broaden coverage, curb excessive spending; means TBD
Throw in “tax breaks for the wealthy” and it’s indistinguishable from the Republican’s “vision” for health care — really meaningless in policy terms. It’s convictionless boilerplate and specifics-free mumbling. During the campaign, he delivered a much better and more robust plan — and even that wasn’t as detailed as Edwards’ and Clinton’s, but it had the makings of a plan.
But even if Congress took that muddled “vision” to heart, it’s led to a mess of a bill, which, at best, makes things better on the margins. Hope it was worth the majority. And if they don’t pass it, of course, they’ll lose too. Funny how timid, risk-free “doable” politics can turn out.
sparky
@Jay B.: thank you. it is a bit of a relief to see someone else here who doesn’t buy into the idea that passing anything–no matter how awful it is–is better than doing nothing.
relatedly, it seems, at least to me, that BJ has, for some reason, become less free-wheeling and more the home of self-described “pragmatists”. things have gotten to a pretty pass when i, mister mild-mannered, feel that this blog has lurched rightward.
that said, the proprietor retains his ability to craft zingers and the ability to admit a boo-boo, so wackos like me will continue to show up. i just wish it was a bit less of an echo chamber these days.
NB: the SCt decision today is probably the most important thing to happen in a while. perhaps in twenty years or so, the SCt will declare that corporations, to be effective, require more rights than humans.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.:
This is how it always happens:
Us: “Insurance companies suck! Let’s get ’em! C’mon, government, kick some beancounter ass!”
Public: “Woo! Yeah!”
Insurance companies: “These proposals will make your insurance more expensive, and paying for them will mean raising your taxes or increasing The Deficit.”
Public: “Shit! Um… Ah, fuck it. Insurance companies still suck, but I can’t risk losing coverage.”
Every time. Every issue. Because we’re a stupid, stupid people that thinks that the government has too much money already, hence everything _could_ be funded by “cutting waste,” hence any attempt to bring in new money is Massive Tax Increase OMG We Cant Afford It!
Jay B.
@sparky: I’m not completely sure about either approach. At this point, I would call myself a reluctant Pass the Bill type, but I obviously can understand the arguments about killing it.
But it’s the height of delusion to think that any Democrat played this well, including and perhaps especially, Obama. It’s been a terrible, terrible process that’s resulted in a predictably terrible bill that presents two terrible choices: Pass it and try and make it better, despite a probable gutting come November or defeat it and lose even that chance.
Shitty, timid politics at their worst that have completely dispirited “the base” — whose hopes were understandably higher than “giving the insurance companies a LOT more customers with a dubious recission bone for the whiners” — and led to public humiliation after public humiliation for the Democratic Congress.
A total political disaster.
Jay B.
Then we’re fucking toast.
Of course, since we don’t have a Democratic Party willing to actually and explicitly run against the insurance companies, we’ll never really know how effective that argumentation could be.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.:
My thought is, the plan is a technocratic fix that, you’re totally right, shouldn’t even be hard for a Republican to embrace, because it’s certainly not crusading and barely even ideological. Hence it’s both blatantly boring and crazy risky all at once, because it upsets many established interests (both the good kind and the bad kind) while not seeming to offer enough rewards or punishments to make anyone feel invested in it. It’s the Dukakis streak in Democrats: “It’s not about ideology, it’s about competence.” It’s in the vein of the Al Gore “Reinventing Government” initiative. It is a supremely _competent_ bill… with a bunch of ancillary bribes tacked onto it. And I think it manages to trigger a whole slew of game-theory-ish problems about who benefits at whose cost and how to keep the whole thing in equilibrium.
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
I completely agree with most of that (save for the “competent bill” part, natch) and think it could have probably passed in a different political environment without much fuss. But the lack of clarity of what it does, the difficulty people have in explaining what it is, and even why it exists — in short, it doesn’t have an easy pitch — will cripple the already-hapless Democrats who simply can’t message or politically manage shit.
It’s not even a half-measure. It’s an eighth measure sold as comprehensive reform, and that’s entirely the fault of the Democrats when it turns out not to do a hell of a lot for most people.
sparky
@Jay B.: fair enough, and though i am a kill the bill type (because i think it will actually destroy any chance of real health care reform) i can understand thinking otherwise.
either way, though, i concur with you on how this has gone. it was bungled from the beginning, partly via politics and partly through what seems at best to be some odd kind of conflict avoidance and now i see people here reduced to hoping for scraps and that perhaps things can get better in the future.
ps on edit: i agree with your last comment above, and that’s one of the reasons i think passing this abomination will boomerang on the Ds in ways people are not anticipating. when someone opens a letter saying they can buy insurance at 10,000 a month, all they are going to think is, this is the fault of the Ds, and they will vote Rs just out of frustration or just stay home.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.:
Californicated.
I had a hard time believing that a slogan like “Keep Big Government Out of My Medicine Cabinet” would actually work on anyone, considering that the real problem is that way too many people had no fucking medicine cabinet in the first place. And yet, it worked. The fact that insurance companies can sway people into supporting _them_ against “big government” is the thing that drives me to despair.
The quintessential stupidity of American politics is that lots of people support a lot of things… until they’re led to see them as a “tax”… after which they stop supporting them. You shouldn’t be able to fuck up a crusade against insurance companies, whose whole raison d’etre is to take your money as long as possible while trying as hard as possible to give back as little as possible. And yet, insurance companies win that argument over and over again. It’s bizarre. That’s why I’m very skeptical about the potential of liberal populism. “Too expensive” is the trump card to everything we want to do–including even the things that _save money_! What the hell? Bah.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: I guess I should say, the overall framework of the bill is “competent”: the dynamic of community rating -> individual mandate -> government subsidy is, I’m persuaded, a good way to go, and I appreciate the idea of upsetting those who already have insurance as little as possible. We have a Cold War hangover that recoils from “government control,” and that’s not going away.
Whether this particular incarnation of a “competent” idea is good enough is a different question. I think at its core this bill does what needs doing, and would argue about the specifics. But obviously many people disagree and do so in good faith.
Of course, it’s not as good as single-payer, but we don’t do well at trying to figure out how much money gets extorted from us for our health insurance (that’s Bob Somerby’s “looting” point), and people seem to have a hard time grasping that paying more in taxes for something that would _save_ money from our paychecks is actually a good deal. And then the whole Cold War hangover thing kicks back in. Stupid Cold War. I hate that thing.
Jay B.
@sparky:
And I completely agree with you about the way the groupthink has become pretty reactionary here. The easy conflation between opposing the bill and whatever Jane Hamsher was saying — as if they were the same thing. The continual downplaying of the role of the President in a policy debate. The insistence that whatever we’ll end up with is the best we could expect. The endless chanting of “purity” and “Nader” as if we were expecting something that the Democrats themselves hadn’t promised during the campaign, or that somehow, we didn’t think that the long term implications of their decision wouldn’t hurt the Democrats.
But whatever. At the end, and now we’re at the end, one has to make the decision yea or nay. I’m a very reluctant yea. But then, while I hope I’m right and that there’s just enough in the bill for some good to come out of it, I fear you are.
FlipYrWhig
OK, I haven’t checked, and I’m trying to minimize my exposure to it — are the FDLers happy that the health care bill took a big hit?
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
No idea. I’m not going over there.
BillCinSD
How about we all stop panicking. Which I think first means prioritize the senate over the house. Push our senators to go to reconciliation. Starting with the House removes pretty much all the incentive for reconciliation. The people hate the senate bill, but our quavering senators won’t even get onto the parapets to save themselves without a sturdy boot in the proper direction from their voters.
Then once the senate has acted (whichever way that goes) then the House can take action. Reconciliation adding some better areas to the bill would probably ensure house passage, and even if reconciliation fails, there is a good chance the senate bill could still be passed with enough arm-twisting/pork barrelling.
But the panicky chicken little-ism that seems to be all the rage, really only reinforces the cockroach-instincts of the congress.
ruemara
@Paula:
Pure delusions. FDL is now waiting for Bayh and Nelson to rip off those suits and break the hackysack ball, some vegan tacos and dreads while running nude through Congress for Single Payer + Unicorns.
If only I could be so optimistic as they.
Task Force Ripper
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
This may be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen posted here.
Jilli
I feel the same way especially after watching Rachel Maddow Thursday night. She nailed the bedwetters and those freaking out – a much needed reality check. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend watching it.
Good lord Democrats – grow a spine and stand up for what you believe in – just once!!
sglover
That’s why all this wailing and gnashing about the latest Dem rollover is, well, pretty much a waste. Look, the political system set up by the sainted founders was fucked from the start, and now it’s truly pathological. For many of the assholes in the Congress, their office is just a way station on the way to the **really** big K Street money.
You want reform? Push for instant runoff/ranked preference voting. That is, **try** to push for it — the instant you mention it to any weasel with a plausible shot at office, he’ll look at you like you’re talking Esperanto with a Tourette’s Syndrome accent.
Politics is broken, at least at the national level. We’re in the kind of situation that only a Constitutional Convention can fix — in theory. But who wants to see that? All it would do is codify certain power relations that are already quite evident. As far as I can see, the only rational way to engage in public life is to get involved with voluntary associations at the local level. Fortunately, there’s still a lot of that in America.
By the way, I’m enjoying all the angst from all you card-carrying Dems who only a few days ago were apoplectic (yet still smug) at any leftie who expressed dismay at Obama year of rollovers. What’s changed, folks?