Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Cats On Acid



Substantively, Democrats have virtually every issue on their side. Health care, immigration, civil rights, voting rights, Wall Street reform, science, the war on women, sane gun control -- any one of those could be a winning issue for any Democrat willing to stop treating them like taco farts in a crowded elevator.

Plus their opponents are objective awful and insane, which would actually be the issue in this election if we lived in the Better Universe where David Gregory was working a paper hat and trying to upsell you a hot apple pie with your lunch order instead of being allowed to set the terms of our national debates.

So, by any objective standard, Dems who actually want to win should be wading into the GOP, wielding Obamacare (and twenty other issues) like Samson leveling Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

And yet...
Democrats Are In For a World of Hurt If They Keep Running From Obamacare

—By Kevin Drum| Tue Mar. 18, 2014 7:59 AM GMT

Last month, when the latest Obamacare horror story turned out to be largely invented out of whole cloth, I speculated about what this means. "I'm a diehard defender of Obamacare," I said, "and even I concede that there ought to be at least hundreds of thousands of people who are truly worse off than they were with their old plans. But if that's the case, why is it that every single hard luck story like this falls apart under the barest scrutiny?" Maybe it means that Obamacare isn't actually hurting very many people at all.

But this question can be turned around. There ought to be lots of people who have been helped by Obamacare too. So why haven't the airwaves been blanketed with their stories? Dave Weigel says the answer here is simpler: yes, there are plenty of feel-good Obamacare stories. But Democratic campaigns have neither the money nor, apparently, the desire to use them...
In other words:



Thing is, people are not going to alley-fight for you if they think you're going to cheer from the rear and bail on them at the first stiff breeze. They are not going to go to the wall for you if you keep making it perfectly clear that you have no idea what to do with the arsenal that history and circumstance and hordes of hardworking, anonymous activists have handed you.

This what happens when we permit our politics to be dosed to the eyeballs with Both Siderism in every mainstream media outlet every day. Eventually, cats freaking out and away from mice starts to look normal because Benghaaaazi!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Other than the comment sections of articles detailing the later revealed bullshit failures of ACA, I haven't seen a single success story article posted on any major left leaning site.
Any of those sites could have culled those stories from their very own comments, but non seem willing to avail themselves of a real story sitting under their very noses. 5 million people (at the very least) who now have health insurance.
In fact, it seems more the fashion to continue to make jokes about the website "disaster". A disaster now being that, for a period of the first month of it's debut, it was overwhelmed with traffic; Which some might deem ..success!
Jon Stewart himself, in talking about some complex activity the President undertook, remarked just last week...paraphrasing: "Hell, he does that? He cant even get a website right"?
The big talking (and writing) heads are treating the most important legislative and social achievement of the new century, with fingers in the air, gauging which way the winds may blow, as if it may turn out to be some passing fad....like they used to treat the internet.
Sorry for the rant...this is really pissing me off.
I was forced to drop my insurance 10 years ago, when the company basically priced me out by raising my premiums until I had nothing left that could be identified as actual "health insurance".
I went on to the "horrible" website, on the day before Christmas! and had a policy I could afford in less than two hours.
At a price half what if was when I was forced out a decade ago, and with real coverage.
..and I may also mention that I live in one of the backward ass states that is doing everything it can to kill Obummercare.
Fuck these people...seriously.





CM said...

**There ought to be lots of people who have been helped by Obamacare too.**

Yes, why isn't there an ad with a mom and dad thanking ACA for being able to cover their 25 year old kid who lost his or her job during the Bush recession.

What would be the downside of that ad?

bluicebank said...

The ACA is an improvement on the failed health care system in America. I happen to be one who has benefited (though I don't need its benefits, thankfully).

But it is, essentially, a Republican idea from Romney and the Heritage Foundation. It continues the failure of the system by propping up Big Insurance. Not that the far Right needed facts (they don't), but the ACA compromise ensured not enough people would benefit to thwart the expected Right-wing frothing.

In that perfect world you speak of, DG, the ACA is a wash, at best. We live in Crazy Town. We should have gone all in.

Jeanne said...

If this was on facebook i would push like but i know you do not like facebook. I know you have told me many times but i still do not understand why the Democrats do not fight for what's right,what they voted for.Also all the talk that they will be creamed by the Republicans,i cannot imagine why anyone would vote for them. The Democrats need to grow a pair and fight

Mole said...

I always felt both siderism only exist with a weak opposition and that's what lead to it.

I never shared the delusion that politicians are there to help you and only you. But one side treats the other like they're nazi... while being like nazis themselves.

With Dems able to win one a single issue.. I'm starting to think there's a gentleman agreement that republicans can ultimately have their way. Don't like Acorn, it might hurt us in the long run, but okay. Voter suppression? That's not nice, but we won't make a national deal out of it.

And the most frustrating thing.. Obamacare. Not because I hate the program (though not the program i wanted), but the fact it took up to 4 years to act on it.. giving the crazy time to build up their base and win midterm election while not defending it.

It's like a sick game with the people who know the truth have no choice but to vote for dems and dems are awared