Spare Me The Tears: Liberal Activists Aren’t Showing Up For Obama and Democrats Because of Democratic Decisions

“Of course the activists aren’t showing up. Who the hell would expect them to? If Obama or Democrats in general want activists, who by definition are hardcore people who actually believe in liberalism to show up and fight for them, they need to offer liberalism, not warmed over centrist pap.”

Yup. I’m sitting on my duff these days with nothing to do and no one to spend my money on.

As my husband often reminds me, “F*#k ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

I don’t know if it’s fair to call all of us demotivated.

I, for one, am highly motivated: When the Dems don’t deliver on Medicare For All — and do declare victory in time for the midterms by passing a pissant public option that bails out the insurance companies by forcing us to buy junk insurance with the IRS acting as the collection agent — I want to see the Dems go the way of the Whigs.

And yes, making health care a right and delivering on it is a moral imperative, just as abolition was.

Yup; I’ll catch their backs when they catch mine.

Count me not motivated. My S.O. and I were just talking about this–trying to convince me that getting any of the bills passed is worth something, even if only for the political victory. I explained how it’s worse than nothing if the so called public option is too small to reduce costs and feeds the nosurance beast such that costs rise and folks still are uninsured and there’s a backlash against the subsidies to buy insurance, etc. I think the S.O. might be starting to get it.

Medicare for All. Everybody in, nobody out. Simple, Effective, Just, American.

Jeebus!

Headline: “Democrats blow healthcare reform and blame base.”

You realize what is being set up, right? It is a meme. The idea is that there is a correct lesson that Washington officials must learn from this. That lesson is that it is not possible to attract a reliable left-wing base for anything that will play in Washington. Even when the Democrats were in power and proposed the left-most thing that the People Who Matter would allow, the left-wing base did not appear in its favour. Consequently, this is a pretext for a *further* shift to the right…

The Democrats have been saying forever that most people are Democrats, if they would just get politically engaged (youth, the poor, women, minorities). The Democrats have been questing for that Holy Grail coalition forever, and I think Obama and his team thought they’d finally put it together in the last election. From then one, the Democrats would not only be free of the Republicans, but also free of the old-school left, a shrill, outdated minority whose voices would be overwhelmed by this new unstoppable electoral force.

Surprise!

Ian- thanks!

Sorry this is just a quick note- I gotta run. I’ll check back.

riverdaughter (and anyone else!)- I’ve been a Massa supporter since the get go. I’m on the email list, even tho I don’t live any where near.

I posted a youtube of him at Corrente, and hipparchia picked it up. Thread is worth a read- imho! *g* Informative. imho.

http://www.correntewire.com/eric_massa_member_congress_should_read_legislation_should_understand_what_problems_are

Selisa>> While if you dig enough you can find a poll somewhere that will support just about any view, the Gallup Poll shows that 75% of tax payers like their current coverage, and the Rasmussen Poll shows 53% oppose the bill as it now stands. This given the drop in the Presidents poll numbers suggest a majority do not like or trust the current bill. Now I understand the system must be fixed, but given the performance of those within the Beltway do not want more bureaucrats involved in my heath care.

Aisha 180 – the link i provided above has a list of about 16 (i’m tired and maybe miscounted) polls taken since 2003. ian is right. the “extreme” is the majority position: national health insurance, private health care. everybody in, nobody out. no deductibles, no copays and no coinsurance. for about the same amount of total national expenditures. and since everyone is in the same plan (including congress and us), we have the best chance of our interests being aligned — congress effs up our health insurance and they eff up their own (and their family’s).

some info on financing, etc.:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/august/fiscal_responsibilit.php
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php

See, people think that by threatening to deny support to the Democrats, the Democrats will move left on core issues, for fear of losing the base. But that’s not what’s happened in recent history, for the most part, and there’s no reason to think that it will happen this time around.

Since Gore didn’t win enough votes to take the presidency (or prevent the chicanery that took it from him, take your pick of wordings), has the Democratic party moved left? If not, why not (hint: it cannot be attributed merely to the 2008 campaign)?

No, what happened was that the Democrats set up the meme of the moderate American, the sane adult people who were not Bushie crazies but still supported Mom and Apple Pie and standard economic orthodoxy. And anyone supporting “socialized medicine” was not of these moderates, but the loony left.

It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t reflect the views of the *actual* US public. It merely matters that it reflects the views of what some call The Village. This Village creates its own reality. The public will vote as they are told, or they’ll stay home and the crazies will take the country…

Witholding support doesn’t work, according to you, and clearly giving support doesn’t work, and trying to support Congressional candidates who are actually progressive instead of presidential candidates who clearly aren’t doesn’t work either.

Well, I mean, you’re the one insisting that a dollar devaluation is not the way out of this mess either. (I think so too, but if anything our conversation on that matter has made me less convinced of this.)

Look, for me the problem is that the timescale and electoral focus is wrong. Nothing is going to happen until more than 50%-60% of the population thinks (knows) it is going to be left without heart surgery for want of cash. Until that is the case, it’s going to be easy for AHIP et al to buy off the politicians.

I live with this system and for most people (in demographics that vote), there just is no sense of urgency about it. I read about it on the internet for sure, but I also talk to people about it—consciousness-raise, as it were—and the reaction I get is both some annoyance at the US system, but a bit of boredom at the sanctimonious Canadian lecturing a country that isn’t his. (That’s not including the glib “Penn and Teller” young libertarians.)

Consequently, from a short-term electoral standpoint, it’s a either matter of holding the door open for as long as possible, or hastening the collapse. I consider the latter to be inhumane at the very least. In the long term, if the Village doesn’t smarten up, other doors may open.

At considerable cost.

You, my friend, are explaining very clearly to me what the answer to your question of whether you should stay in the US and build a career is.

Oh, no, you have the wrong impression. I thought I told you about the biz I’m in the last time we met in la Ville-Reine? If so, the next time I’ll explain it to you.

But here’s a truth for you. According to folks I know who work in the house, there are enough votes in the House of Reps to pass single payer straight up. With a lot of arm bending, such a bill might get from 48 to 50 votes in the Senate. (Maybe 51 is Mass gets a new liberal Senator soon enough, and Byrd doesn’t die.)

This is a high point year, mind you. 2010 and 2012 the numbers will get worse. But liberalism is the most dangerous force in America today, it is taking everything Versailles can do to keep liberals down.

I read this, and I hope you are right. If it is the case that a majority in both houses can be mustered and a bill sent to Obama’s desk that he must then veto to please the People Who Matter, I will still eat my words. If such a circumstance were to come to pass, I think you would be wrong that this is a high-water mark for Real American Liberals.

Once the health care dam is broken, real discussion of structural changes in US society can be contemplated. Talk of dollar-devaluation before reform would be moot. If this is even remotely possible then short-term electoral prognostication would be worth it, as you say.

But you’ll forgive me for being a bit doubtful, no?

But here’s a truth for you. According to folks I know who work in the house, there are enough votes in the House of Reps to pass single payer straight up. With a lot of arm bending, such a bill might get from 48 to 50 votes in the Senate. (Maybe 51 is Mass gets a new liberal Senator soon enough, and Byrd doesn’t die.)

Those numbers are good to hear, Ian. If that’s the case, what’s with all the talk about single payer “not being politically feasible”? (I’m taking “feasible” to mean “within the realm of possibility,” not as meaning “likely” or even “probable.”) Is the question incredibly naive?

Is that Washington insider “savviness“? Or a lagging perception? Or a form of disinformation?

Seems like it’s actually become more feasible, with current legislative alternatives being what they are, the national consensus being that the health care/insurance system is seriously broken, and the polling for single payer being what it is.

ian – i understood, from your original comment, that your source was commenting on the house and that the senate numbers were your guess. this is, imo anyway, in stark contradiction to the cw that everyone knows single payer is so impossible that there’s not point in even discussing it.

will wait for your new and improved / clarified comment… would still like, if appropriate, to quote you that not everyone with an insider’s pov thinks it’s impossible for single payer to pass in the house.

My arguments with the people pushing the public option (especially those whose job it is) have convinced me, pace Sibelius, that they are even more against single payer than they are against passing no bill whatsoever.

but why? why are they against single payer?

i have been sensing a ton of hostility — stuff like calling people “single payer or die”, not even acknowledging (let alone addressing) the critiques from really expert sources if they are associated with pnhp (for crying out loud even elizabeth warren’s coauthors!) — and i’ve been wondering where the heck the hostility is coming from. i mean, even the batsh*t crazy right’s critique (such as it is) gets addressed. my working hypothesis has been that there was some kind of an insider’s whisper campaign, but that’s really more of a wild guess because i just don’t know.

You’re a murderer…

yeah, i’ve gotten some of that (or at least similar). but here’s the thing: i supported the MA 2006 reform (not a lot, but made phone calls to reps and did a bit of phone banking). i bought the incrementalist argument (and to be fair, for MA i probably still do because it’s an experiment the rest of the country could learn from if we were so inclined).

but i also didn’t think it through. although there are people who have been helped (and i’m probably one of them because my insurance, while very expensive, now covers prescription drugs) there are also people who have been seriously harmed by the reform — people who used to be able to get free care and now have copays and deductibles. how many of them go without healthcare now? how many unnecessary deaths have there been?

the answer is, i don’t know. but if we’re going to be honest, that’s the real analysis. with any of the reform measures now being considered, some lives will be saved and some will be lost. i don’t know how many, but using their logic as you’ve described it, supporting or opposing any of the bills makes us all murders.

doesn’t take away our responsibility to make wise choices. but that’s the reality of the choices we all, po and sp advocates alike, face.

Miss Manners says the proper reason for not doing something that doesn’t fit in with your goals and priorities is “Because I’m afraid it’s just impossible.”

selise, I really appreciate your persistence in asking what the strong pushback is about.

My impression is that the strong hostility arises from single-payer so being obviously better on the policy rationales that there’s no reasonable policy argument to be made for the current alternatives. If there’s no reasonable argument, other considerations (= money) must be examined, which causes the entire house of cards to collapse. Therefore, single payer must be removed from consideration, as it has been, from the outset—”I’m afraid it’s just impossible.” (There are some other considerations—such as being able to “claim victory,” for one—but those are the primary ones.)

he left is about to totally give up on this character. We said he was corporate – they (DU left) said Hillary had met/joined the DLC – we said he was on the right and a 3rd Bush Term – we said he would protect coal – they said he meant what he said and a cap and trade global warming bill would be passed in the first year – we said Hillary represented the civil rights break through – they said how can a (half white) “black” man not represent more of a break through – we said Hillary was real about her support for gay rights – they said “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” would be repealed in the first year – we said Hillary would end the unconstitutional snooping/prisons/rendition to other countries for torture – they said he was a constitutional lawyer College Professor (actually title was instructor) and obviously would do the same as Hillary – we said Hillary would reform health CARE rather than a few insurance contract provisions – they said he was not in the pocket of the insurance companies and would again do the same as Hillary.

Seems they were wrong on every point – I can’t think of a thing that he has accomplished. Heck – we even continue to have unconstitutional presidential “signing statements” veto’s and Justice in court defending Bush practices.

And now being open to dropping the public plan option is the last straw.

This is not a time to stand down and become couch pototoes. This is the time to get out and do FORUMS that explain single payer healthcare, or MEDICARE FOR ALL, which would be a better way to get the idea across. Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles has been doing a series or forums with California One Care, Physicians for National Healthcare program, and Dr. Jo Olson, former head of the CA Progressive Caucus. We’ve had overflow crowds at each of five locations. People are REALLY HUNGRY to get the real facts on healthcare, and as we all know, there really IS only one set of FACTS in spite of the propaganda mongers bought by the for-profit insurance monopolies and their minions.