22
Mar 10Obamacare.
I kind of like that name. Sounds good.
A couple of disjointed thoughts:
- Like Matt Yglesias and David Frum, I thought this had to be the breaking point for the Republican Party. Let’s recap the major issues they’ve been on the wrong side of in the last half-century or so:
- civil rights and discrimination
- Medicare and Medicaid
- gay rights
- torture
- health care reform
On the other hand, they’ve survived losing every major ideological battle1 for five decades, so maybe this isn’t the party’s death knell.
- When Scott Brown was elected and the Democrats were running for cover like roaches, I was pretty pessimistic about any sort of bill passing. So credit where credit’s due–they got it done.
- People are already burnishing Obama’s legacy one year into his first term. I can’t argue with them on the merits of his accomplishments thus far, but… jump the gun much, guys? Nancy Pelosi’s also being lionized (Demonized on the right, but that’s hardly news). Harry Reid isn’t, probably because there weren’t many stories about him fighting tooth and nail for the bill.
- In case you’ve been living under a rock with Internet access, I’m talking about this.
- Torture has yet to be determined. Maybe we really believe in freedom, or maybe we don’t care as long as it’s only the brown folks getting waterboarded. ↩
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Brad DeLong‘s been calling it Romneycare, which i think more accurately captures the policy (if not the spirit) of the bill. That being said, i could also get on board appropriating Obamacare for our nefarious socialist cawz.
I’m not optimistic that this will be the absolute breaking point of the Republicans. The conservative base doesn’t seem to mind the jangling incongruity of opposing HCR while keeping other entitlements intact, so even when the bill bears fruit they’ll find some way to pin the tail on the donkey. So to speak. Maybe we can hope for an end to the crazy for a half-hour or so.
re 1: I suspect the latter, but you know me. As noble as the intentions of the Promise Keepers and their ilk sound, i doubt they would have blown many whistles at Abu Ghraib.
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
yeah, i don’t think there’s any reaching the base–they’ve been marinating in crazy-sauce for too long. i think that they’ve isolated themselves to an extent that they’ve severely limited their popular appeal, but they’ll still have a stranglehold on enough congressional seats from shitty states (most of the south, mid/mountain west, etc.) for quite a while.
heard you’re most likely moving out to nyc?
March 22nd, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I guess it’s a side effect of the bicameral system that Chicago will have as much senatorial representation as the bustling metropolis of, like, half of Kansas. Then again i guess that was kind of the point for the slaveholding founders. Feature, not a bug.
I’ll be moving in mid-August with Jen, venue tba.