Walker on Obamacare: Correct identification of symptoms, wrong diagnosis
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It is amazing that the Democratic base claims they would be unhappy with getting everything they supposedly wanted from the new law (subsidies, ban on recession, ban on pre-existing conditions, Medicaid expansion) just because the Court eliminated only the highly unpopular individual mandate.
It is important to remember that exactly four years ago then candidate Obama was running against the idea of an individual mandate. The individual mandate to purchase private insurance was a traditional, Republican/Conservative idea opposed by many Democrats and liberals (who presumably preferred more universal public programs). The Court striking down only the mandate would actually make the Affordable Care Act more, not less, like the health care reform program Obama originally promised. Yet apparently making the law more like the health care program Obama promised would still leave most Democrats unhappy.
The mandate went from something Obama said he strongly opposed, to something Obama said he reluctantly supported to get a deal, to an essential element of the law Obama is desperately trying to protect at any cost. In their Court argument, his Administration even put the ban on pre-existing conditions and community rating in serious danger of being thrown out as well to strengthen the legal case for the mandate.
Apparently not only has Obama’s position on the mandate shifted radically, but he has managed to shift the bulk of his base’s opinion of the mandate with it. Obama’s shift and the partisan nature of this fight has caused base Democrats to develop a frankly bizarre attachment to the individual mandate.
This is a reminder of the true power of the bully pulpit.
No.
The pulpit has no power if there's no congregation. I confess I've been skeptical of tribalism as an analytical construct (as opposed to a metaphor) but watching the contortions of Democrats supporting their Leader as he does everything Bush did, and worse, has sold me. Live and learn! The great Arthur Silber.
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Comments
Thomas More, Walter Lippmann, Leo Strauss
I have been a democrat and a Democrat my entire voting life. I no longer consider myself a Democrat and I'm starting to have second thoughts about being a democrat too.. The more I witness, the more I understand the antidemocratic leanings of More, Lippmann, and Strauss, perhaps most succinctly expressed in the Almond-Lippmann Consensus. The Philosopher-King is fine until he runs amok. I just don't see any way out of the problem. I'm certainly not happy about it and I really don't know where we go from here.
Attention spans and tribal identification
You are right. The majority of Democratic voters' positions have twisted like a pretzel, and it would be difficult to explain if it were not for the fact most voters didn't know what the 2008 arguments were, they don't remember them now, and they aren't thinking beyond the sort of choice best compared to choosing sides in a brawl. I agree that this nicely illustrates the power of the President if he chooses to lead. Your earlier post noting that now is the time to threaten Obama fits right into this observation. So, what else on the progressive agenda is sufficiently organized to demand some of that good pandering that might just move the nation's policies our way? I always liked Jack London's description of progress as the movement of a yeasty mass this way and that, mindlessly in search of sustenance. Let's try to get the President to put a little more of that sustenance on our side of the mass every time we can.