The straw that broke the liberal's back?
A
band of liberal revolutionaries is storming the Capitol, hip-checking
elderly Tea Party activists and snatching the anti-Obama protest signs
right from their arthritic hands. They're chanting, screaming, wailing – "Traitor," "Vile Betrayer," "No-bama, No-bama..." – and tearing the cloth
from their breasts in agony as they fall to their knees, pound the
earth with clenched fists, and curse the gods of progressivism for the
posturing con artist occupying the White House. American flags burn in
the background. Hope and Change T-shirts burn in the foreground. Blue
flames crisscross like daggers in the sky as the ominous clouds form
like cyclones above the White House. The governors who have gathered
with Obama inside the State Dining Room are all smiles and nods as the
president explains his openness to the idea of letting individual states
create their own health-care laws in lieu of the ever-unpopular "ObamaCare" legislation, while everyone outside hoists pitchforks and
decries the unraveling of populism, not as they know it, but as they
imagine it.
When I saw the headline from The Hill, "Obama backtracks on health mandate, wants to allow earlier opt-out," this
was the fantasy my conscious mind created as it envisioned the reaction
of the news from left-wing diehards, bleeding hearts, and feverish
bloggers.
The
already fine line between fantasy and political reality draws paper
thin the more time President Obama spends in the White House. The
details don't matter to the extremists on the left who envisioned Obama
during the campaign as a messiah of modern American leadership. Politics
today is less about policy than it is about perceptions, and the president's
admission that his health-care law could be altered or amended if such
adjustments helped the country implement across-the-board reforms serves
only to ignite the flames of doubt and fuel the fires of intra-party
betrayal in the eyes of uncompromising liberals.
He's
already guilty of compromise, negotiation and capitulation – the
trifecta of evil that is embodied, historically, by those whose souls
are either sold to the powerful deal-makers within Washington or bought
by the corporate lobbyists without. We saw it first when he gave up on
the single-payer health care option. We saw it a second time in his deal
with Republicans to cut taxes for the rich. We're seeing it again with
this appeal to bipartisanship over implementation of what is arguably
the most historic piece of social legislation enacted in Congress since
civil rights.
For
the lefties who voted for, campaigned for, and prayed to their Wiccan
goddesses for a progressive panacea to the Bush era, this may prove to be the
straw that broke the liberal's back.
And
yet it means nothing to the pragmatists who understand that consensus
is key to any law and that popularity is paramount to any successful
legislation.
Twenty-five governors – representing half the country – have filed suit
against the series of reforms included in the 2010 legislation that
conservatives refer to as "ObamaCare." Polls consistently show an equal
division of opinion on whether the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act is good or bad for America. And minds are still unmade as to
whether repeal of "ObamaCare" is better than the health insurance
company abuses that plagued the country before such protections were put
in place.
If
it is disappointing to a certain faction of the American public that
Obama has decided to continue his efforts to improve the law that will
most likely define his presidency, then that in itself is disappointing.
It is, after all, the liberal class in America that boasts of top
placement on the intellectual hierarchy of the political – and social –
ladder. They should be the first not only to understand but to
appropriately analyze the limitations of bureaucracy, the stalwart
opposition to change, and the restraints of progressivism. They are not
only its advocates but its victims.
The
president's abandonment of the single-payer option nearly split the
Democratic Party in two, even if it was consistent with his campaign
promise to lead by consensus, not with an iron fist. His capitulation on
tax cuts nearly severed his ties not only to liberals but to fiscally
conservative Blue Dog Democrats, and he accepted that blowback as a
consequence of his suddenly treasonous promise to reach out, whenever
possible, to his opponents in Washington. It's worth mentioning that all
of his alleged "capitulations" polled well for him, as the general
public seemed to appreciate that a national leader tried to unite the
country with a willingness to compromise rather than to divide the
country by refusing to listen to the opposition.
It seems not every Democrat in America is liberal. (Somewhere in the world, a bird of idealism dropped dead from surprise.)
(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)
(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)
Labels: 2008 election, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Bush tax cuts, Democrats
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