Hopefully soon I'll have enough posts to start my own.
A Brave New World
Do you feel different this morning? You should. Something special happened yesterday. I’m not just talking about the historic vote on healthcare reform. I spent the entire weekend watching the debate on all the cable channels.
I watched as the tea partiers got nasty. I’m not just referring to the racist and homophobic slurs, but the majority of the crowds with signs talking about communism, socialism and-the-end-of-freedom-as-we-know-it types. I saw Dems on TV trying to answer why they were proceeding in the face of poll numbers that showed the American public opposed the bill by a small margin, whilst John Boehner and the gang insisted that it was in violation of the consent of the governed. Nevermind that the GOP wasn’t too concerned about consent of the governed when they impeached Clinton. All polls showed only between 17% and 25% support for that option, yet they persisted.
Nevermind that the bill has been demonized for months on end and every scare tactic in the book was used to alter the polls from the widespread support for the plan in June 2009, even among Republicans and especially Independents. Never mind that the GOP has used a big scary boogeyman called November 2010 elections to frighten Democratic lawmakers in swing districts.
Something strange happened. The Dems came together and pulled the trigger regardless, and today, not only are they OK, they are stronger than they have ever been.
Republican calls for repeal are tantamount to a football team who just got scored on trying to take 7 points off the board instead of scoring their own touchdown. It ain’t gonna happen!
Guess what else ain’t gonna happen? Losing control of Congress. The American public, who has been confused by the debate and the deliberate mischaracterization of it, will now get to choose between the “problem solvers” and the “ranters and ravers.” The list of immediate benefits will be the referee in the rhetorical battle. The death panels will be revealed as fable.
But most importantly, I feel that the Democrats have finally developed the confidence they need to act on even more pressing issues. To take on huge special interests and their proxies in congress who have up to this point been so successful in scaring Democrats and stopping action on healthcare, climate change, financial reform, deficit reduction, trade policy reform, immigration reform, etc.
Doing the right thing is good politics. Time reveals that. Just take the war in Iraq and the flip in the polls. The same is happening with the stimulus bill and the automaker bailouts. We took hard political steps, but they are working.
They were hard votes because the GOP could scare people or divide them into them and us camps. Democrats showed last night that American is not a zero sum game. The whole of this country is greater than its parts, its factions. Our founding fathers actually feared factions more than anything else. So despite their best shot at Obama’s Waterloo, manipulating the words of the founding fathers, those who sought to divide this country are all the weaker for it.
It’s a brave new world for progressives. I certainly hope we all feel it as move on to tackle climate change. The planet itself is certainly not a zero sum game. There are no winners and losers if we fail to act, we will all be losers. I hope that Democrats carry with them the moral of this story. Do the right thing, and you’ll be okay. More importantly, history will smile on your bravery.
Come on over to my blog at
http://www.nancyskinnerlive.com to comment and subscribe.
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