Taibbi: New Democratic Party is an excellent substitute for the old Nixon/Ford Republican Party.

[Karmadillo]

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/03/22/baby-killers/

<edit>

As she inched toward the triumphant win, Nancy Pelosi issued a fact sheet about the bill that cheerfully quoted an E.J. Dionne editorial. The passage:

An op-ed by E.J. Dionne on Friday reveals that the current health reform legislation pending before Congress was “built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.”

The electoral-politics aspect of what just happened with health care is a bit strange. It seems to me that the Republicans capitulated entirely to Tea Party sentiment, a move that sets them up for a Sarah Palin candidacy in 2012, which in turn is a move that sets them up for a crushing general-election defeat. Meanwhile the Democrats spent the health care debate fleeing from their own base, a move that… well, I don’t know what it means, exactly, but it does make me a little ill. The whole picture is strange: Democrats running as Republicans, Republicans running as Turner-Diaries conspiracy theorists.

I don’t get what the Republicans have to gain by painting themselves as hysterical survivalist Ruby-Ridge loonies (Kentucky congressman Geoff Davis pulling out the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag was a move more larded with mawkish over-drama than your average drag-queen tribute to Edith Piaf). It feels to me like they played this one wrong.

It doesn’t matter, though. Should I decide to change my politics and become a conservative now that I’m exactly the middle-aged bourgeois/suburban tool I used to rail against, I can always vote Republican by voting Democratic. The new Democratic Party is an excellent substitute for the old Nixon/Ford Republican Party. They even passed Nixon’s vision of a health care plan. That there’s no Democratic

more...

[OHdem10]

1. Good points, but sad to a liberal like me.

[DURHAM D]

2. + 1

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. + infinity

:(

[bvar22]

13. Standing Up here.

Liberals like me who still cling to our FDR values apparently have no place in today's "New" Centrist Democratic Party. In fact, we are now the "lunatic fringe" and "fucking retards".

The lurch to The Right by "Centrist" Democratic Party Leadership (appeasing Republicans) and the continuing attacks on the Democratic Wing of the Party have created a deep vacuum on The Left.
Vacuums WILL be filled.
It is Physics.

[WVRICK13]

18. I'll Help You Fill The Vacuum

Maybe some day we will once again have something that resembles total dead center and left of center. The entire political structure is right of center, the only choice is how far right you want to be. If you want real centrism or left of center line up with those of us waiting to fill the vacuum.

[Karmadillo]

19. I hope you're right.

nt

[amborin]

24. many got shifted rightward as a result of decades of careful

planning, organization, funding, strategic decisions, etc......from a top down program; the right wing fundies had been planning and implementing this since the 70s

don't have links but you can find them

now, the teabaggers are in many ways more of an organic movement

in any event, the left similarly needs both genuine, organic grass roots social movement, and strategic top-down organization

we can't just hope things will change



eta: ps: there's been some discussion of this on fdl; some have suggested aligning with the green party as one tactic

[Karmadillo]

27. You make awfully good points. We're screwed right now in large part because

we seem to think doing as we're told (vote, contribute, volunteer, wait patiently to be rewarded for being dutiful) is going to get us what we want. We need to play hardball and not keep waiting for some kind of magical deliverance. Easier to say than do, but it's good to see people recognizing the need to change how we've been doing things. Given the problems facing the earth, maintaining the status quo isn't going to work.

[amborin]

28. you're right

[aquart]

5. Yep.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I Never Voted For Ford But He Was The Last Decent Republican

As evident by his amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of maintaining the University Of Michigan's affirmative action policy. He was pro ERA and pro-choice and put John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. I Never Voted For Ford But He Was The Last Decent Republican

As evident by his amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of maintaining the University Of Michigan's affirmative action policy. He was pro ERA and pro-choice and put John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.

[onenote]

6. so how come all those earlier "real" Democratic administrations and Congress

never enacted health care legislation as broad as what just passed?

[bvar22]

14. LBJ's establishing Medicare...

...was FAR more reform than that which was signed today.
LBJ established a Publicly Owned/Government Administered program funded by payroll taxes which COULD be expanded and improved.

After all the drama of the past year, Americans will now be able to BUY Health Insurance from Health Insurance Companies.

Big wow.

[onenote]

17. you're not suggesting that the new law will result in fewer people with health insurance

than is the case under Medicare.

Mediacare was a step -- a very big step. But for those who claim that those Democrats were "real" Democrats while the folks that moved the ball a bit farther forward are not real Democrats seem to be letting the old Democrats off the hook for not going further while setting the bar for the current Democrats at a height that no other group of Democrats previously were able to meet.

[Greyhound]

7. The New Democratic Party is too conservative for them, they would be marginalized and ridiculed

along with everybody else that knows corporations are not top be trusted, and that the nation works from the bottom, up.

[truedelphi]

8. Sentence that resonates for me:

Meanwhile the Democrats spent the health care debate fleeing from their own base, a move that… well, I don’t know what it means, exactly, but it does make me a little ill.

It means that the Centrist Dems REAL BASE is the warmongering, GMO food altering, elderly, gay and women's rights avoiding Corporate Puppet Masters. And to stay in power with them in charge, they need lots of Kabuki Theater. How else can anyone explain their HC "Reform" bill that is ponly a fraction of what it could have been.

I could understand this piece of legislation except that:

1) When the Centrist Dems achieved their Nov 2008 victory, 62% of all Americans voted Mr Obama in. He had a mandate and a bully pulpit, and he chosse to avoid the bully pulpit while hoping the momentum would go away. (Sixty eight to seventy six percent of all Americans want something similar to MediCare for all, or Universal SP Health Care for all.)

2) But the momentum did not go away. By November 12th 2010, we have Olbermann trumpeting the fact that the legislative votes for Public Option are at hand. He has speakers on his show that trumpet that fact with him.

3) Luckily for the WH, over the next two weeks, they had the energy to make the phone calls to drive away that movement toward a serious Public Option. Without those actions, they would not have been able to keep their pledges to the Corporate Masters.

[ncteechur]

9. And Teddy Kennedy always regretted that he didn't take Nixon's health care deal.

[Nikki Stone1]

10. K & R

.

[spanone]

11. i don't remember nixon or ford passing healthcare reform.

[bvar22]

16. These "Democrats" didn't pass Health Care Reform either

They passed some minimal Health "Insurance" Reform.
Not the same thing at all.

LBJ was the last president who passed any REAL "reform" in this area.
But LBJ's Democratic Party was much different from today's "Centrist" Democratic Party.

[leftstreet]

22. +1

[bluethruandthru]

12. When republican friends of mine talk about how "liberal" Obama is

I tell them that Richard Nixon was more liberal than Obama. The country has been pushed so far to the right and most don't even realize it.

[Morning Dew]

15. Nixon's plan for health reform

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx

Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.

Three years ago, I proposed a major health insurance program to the Congress, seeking to guarantee adequate financing of health care on a nationwide basis. That proposal generated widespread discussion and useful debate. But no legislation reached my desk.

Today the need is even more pressing because of the higher costs of medical care. Efforts to control medical costs under the New Economic Policy have been Inept with encouraging success, sharply reducing the rate of inflation for health care. Nevertheless, the overall cost of health care has still risen by more than 20 percent in the last two and one-half years, so that more and more Americans face staggering bills when they receive medical help today:

--Across the Nation, the average cost of a day of hospital care now exceeds $110.
--The average cost of delivering a baby and providing postnatal care approaches $1,000.
--The average cost of health care for terminal cancer now exceeds $20,000.

[Heywood J]

21. Here's another choice bit:

The plan is organized around seven principles:
<...>
Second, it will cost no American more than he can afford to pay;

That went out the window quickly.

[Vinnie From Indy]

20. Democrats running as Republicans, Republicans running as Turner-Diaries conspiracy theorists.

That sums it up nicely.

What is truly amazing to witness firsthand is the cult of personality, the willfull ignorance and the absolute denial of reality in regard to the lies told about the PO all through the debate.

At the end of the day, all Americans were lied to by this Administration and the interests of Americans came a distant second to the political futures of many, many Democrats.

[amborin]

23. K&R

[Crunchy Frog]

25. At this point I'm willing to take it over the alternative.

This country has shifted so far to the right that Nixon was practically a socialist by today's standards. It beats the present day Batshit Crazy party.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

26. I like how you think

A fan