It's remarkable how HCR has brought out the feverish dark side of the American psyche. First a couple of anecdotal bits. From TPM:
And then from Ezra Klein:
Jon Cohn spent part of Saturday wandering through the patches of protesters on Capitol Hill. What surprised him, however, was that the protests seemed less about health-care reform than about redistribution itself. To the protesters, Jon says, health-care reform is "about having their money taken for the sake of somebody else's security. When they hear stories of people left bankrupt or sick because of uninsurance, they are more likely to see a lack of personal responsibility and virtue than a lack of good fortune." . . .
From me: I saw a bumper sticker in Seattle the other day that said "I'll Keep My Religion, My Guns, My Liberty, and My Money. KEEP YOUR CHANGE." This sums up the bunker mentality that afflicts the cultural right in this country, doesn't it? The guns are always a part of the formula because they're needed to defend the bunker, especially when you otherwise feel so impotent. You send the troops, and we'll fight you off.
I know that this doesn't come close to representing majority thinking, but it's considered legitimate thinking in this country. The sanctimony of the left is annoying, but the sanctimony of the right, especially toward those whose lives have been destroyed by this HC system, is just ill-informed, myopic, and plain mean. If you're not in the bunker with us, we just don't care about you.
So that's the most generous explanation I can come up for it. Things feel out of control, and people are scared, and it's understandable that they are. And in a world of information overload and rapid change it's important to have a feeling of being in control--no matter how illusory--and a tried-and-true way to get that is by banding together in tribal units that reinforce "mindset thinking" or groupthink.
If you can't make sense of the world, you surrender to the group that articulates a set of values with which you feel the most emotional resonance. People on the left and the right do it. There are enough facts floating around to give one's groupthink some semblance of legitimacy, but it's not about the facts; it's about feeling safe within a particular tribal or group mentality.
For the tea-party right that means a reversion to deeply ingrained habits of thought organized by tribal bigotry and nativism. For most of these people, it's what they grew up with. It isn't so much that people think these thoughts or that they're even responsible for them; the mindset think them. And that won't change so long as people feel that the world is changing around them in ways they cannot control. The reality is that more change is coming rather than less, and it's going to be a very bumpy ride.
****
I just heard that Stupak has been offered an executive order that will basically re-state the Hyde Amendment, and Stupak and his group will vote yes. In other words, status quo ante. I think Stupak got in over his head on this--he should have listened to the nuns, who as a group are down-to-earth, knowledgeable, and bright, rather than to the bishops, who as a group are not any of those things. (Talk about living in a self-reinforcing, ideological bunker.) In any event Obama offered Stupak a way to help him save face. Whatever.
So it looks like this is going to happen, and the reality-based community is interested to know what its real impacts will be, especially on premium and other cost issues. I think it's a plus for the Dems that they got something done, and Obama gets a tip of the hat for getting out there and making the case for it. I just wished he did it from the beginning in support of more robust reform.
Nevertheless, there are enough good things about the bill that I'm happy that it will pass. And it's a good thing for the country that Obama and Pelosi come out the winners, and DeMint and Boehner the losers.
***
UPDATE: It's interesting how the Stupak thing played out in the end. He gets up to defend the bill against the Republican abortion amendment, and he makes the case that the Democrats are the party of life and then gets called a "baby killer" by some crazed Republican. I guess he thought Stupak was in the bunker, and now because he's not, he must be vilified as a traitor.
Whatever might be said about Stupak's clumsy political maneuvers over the last several months, his effort makes the public point that it's possible to be an anti-abortion Democrat. I know that most people in the base don't feel that way, but that's their groupthink at work, and it's much bigger problem than they seem capable of grasping. It's a necessary for all Dems to call a truce on this for now and work on rebuilding the old New Deal coalition that comprised culturally liberal elites with culturally conservative, but economically progressive blue collars.
In the end, Stupak moves were just about getting some respect, and it didn't cost pro-choice Dems that much to give it to him, did it?
***
UPDATE II: Sorry, Mr. President, this is not a bill that worked its way into law from the bottom up. It was designed by Beltway elites primarily to benefit corporate elites, with few crumbs falling to ordinary Americans. They're necessary crumbs, but let's not pretend this is some huge victory for American democracy. The fact is that without the public option, most Americas were opposed to this bill. Most of the time you avoid the worst political b.s., but not with that statement after the bill passed.
That being said, I think that we can all assume that most Americans will get behind this thing once it's been passed. Let the Republicans run of repealing it. Good luck with that.