Classical Values :: Who has more to lose in the ugly new game?

August 07, 2009

Who has more to lose in the ugly new game?

Paul Krugman and Peggy Noonan have both written columns analyzing the protests against nationalized health care, and they agree on one thing: the protests are new and ugly.

Noonan:

There's a new tone in the debate, and it's ugly.

Krugman:

So this is something new and ugly. What's behind it?

From there, they diverge, and naturally, these two see the health care protesters in very different terms.

In a piece which shows signs of severe rhetorical strain, Krugman struggles valiantly to make the case that the protesters are not really driven by concerns over health care, but that they are actually racists. To do this, he engages in a two-step process: first, he accuses them of being a bunch of Obama-hating Birth Certificate Truthers (never mind whether they are), and once they become Birthers, because of some "driving force" known only to Krugman, it's a short step to Klanhood or something. (I take it that according to his view of the world, questioning the veracity of Hawaiian documents is the newest and ugliest form or racism):

...they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is.

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that's behind the "birther" movement, which denies Mr. Obama's citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don't know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn't be surprising if it's a substantial fraction.

It wouldn't be surprising, eh? Now there's a convincing argument. (Because nothing ever surprises me, shouldn't I already be convinced?)

Peggy Noonan looks at the frantic nature of Democrats' attacks (especially the gathering of a dissident database), and wonders why they are being so unnecessarily provocative:

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn't be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you're president, can't call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you're too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan "extremists" and "right wing," or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They're citizens. They're concerned. They deserve respect.

The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.

And frankly they ought to think about backing off. The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they're all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what's going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation's in crisis, the timing is wrong, we'll turn to it again--but not now. We'll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.

You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up.

This all depends on how stupid the Democrats are. Maybe stupid is not the right word. Paul Krugman is certainly not stupid; he's a highly respected economist, but he doesn't seem to realize that straining to call people racists when they are furious about socialized medicine not only won't persuade then, but it might very well have the opposite effect.

Of course, this may all be part of the plan. I tend to assume people have sense, and rightly or wrongly, I have been assuming that the Democrats don't want Obamacare to pass right now lest it cause a 1994-style backlash at the polls. If we assume that this is the unacknowledged Democratic consensus, then all the deliberate antipathy and baiting makes sense. The idea is to provoke people as much as possible right now, so that it will look believable to blame them for Obamacare's defeat.

My argument assumes the Democrats consider holding Congress to be more important than passing Obamacare right now. Should I make that assumption?

As to the Republicans, what is a more important goal? Stopping Obamacare or retaking Congress?

For the Republicans, the goals are not as mutually exclusive as they are for the Democrats.

What's an open question, though, is which would help the Republicans more.

For Obamacare to pass in a hurry?

Or for it to be defeated (and have the media try to blame a lobby of right-wing racist Birther Brooks Brothers Nazis for its defeat)?

posted by Eric on 08.07.09 at 09:57 AM

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Comments

The legislation shouldn't pass because no one on either side of the aisle knows enough about it, let alone the unintended consequences that usually follow major legislation.

As far as the politics are concerned, I have to totally disagree with you on this one. The democrats know full well that this presidency will essentially be over if some form of healthcare reform isn't passed. Their current reaction is based in fear, Not unlike the reaction of the "angry mobs".

Penny · August 7, 2009 11:57 AM

I see it all as a tremendous power grab by Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress. They want to pass this before their coalition fractures further because they might not get another chance to pass it again. The leadership doesn't particularly care what's in the bill; they're just counting on using it as a bargaining chip to help ensure the votes of their core constituencies (unions, acorn, the hard left, etc.) and to (they hope) buy some new votes among currently uninsured individuals. One of the rarely addressed facts about the move towards nationalized health care is the one that Mark Steyn keeps repeating: it fundamentally changes the relationship between the citizen and the state. The Democrats see enacting this change as a key towards holding on to power.

Kurt · August 7, 2009 12:23 PM

Moderates and independents are now the ones at the crossroads. They are clearly showing that they are against the nationalization of health care, but this has yet to translate into a wide-scale distrust and negativism towards Obama, as he still has approval ratings above 50%. Obama is taking a huge risk here to silence them with overhanded language and tactics. If they succumb, he wins big, and also knows that his power has no bounds. If he loses, the dislike of his policies will be secondary, and the dislike of his tactics will be primary. This would mean pernamently losing 30% of the voting public. This would make the election results so overwhelming that even publicly funded ACORN will not be able to overcome it.

Yes, this is his Waterloo. He led his troops here, expecting to see an empty battlefield. Instead, we have a populace finally understanding what they have elected--a Chicago thug.

pablo panadero · August 7, 2009 12:36 PM

I don't think the Democrats in office care if this bill passes or not, because if it doesn't, all the parts of it they actually value will get weaseled into other bills and passed later anyway, regardless of which party holds a majority. That always happens.

I think they've figured out that baiting and provoking people, splitting and pitting them against each other on the terms not of the people's own choosing, is a good in itself for the whole political class. The Republicans in office and at party HQ (and their media mouthpieces like Noonan) aren't making more than a cursory show against it, and not on the grounds their voter base would like them to make it.

guy on internet · August 7, 2009 02:34 PM

The Democrats and the so-called Progressives aren't stupid. They're mean.

Brett · August 7, 2009 03:29 PM

Not quite a Waterloo, since it is highly unlikely that a defeat now would force Obama into immediate exile.

Perhaps something more like the Germans being run out of North Africa, losing territory they will never reclaim.

Obama is embarrassing himself, for a guy sold as being Mr. Cool he's behaving remarkably impolitic. This latest 'get out of the way' rhetoric is going to tarnish him in ways he (ever more apparently) does not understand.

Six months in and the guy is being revealed as an inexperienced amateur and an ineffectual thug wanna-be to boot.

But why are they in do-or-die mode?

IMO more and more I doubt he has the ability to regroup like Clinton did after 1994 so he cannot contemplate defeat and presses forward. One because he does not have it in him, and two because even if he did it would so weaken him in they eyes of his devotees as to render him politically spent. His base is just too brittle to survive a major hit. All of the scrambling and fuss to hold it together would reveal too much that their captain is clueless.

Unfortunately all of this just clears the field for Billary to stage their triumphant return.

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Anonymous · August 12, 2009 01:05 AM