These days one cannot swing a dead White House Communications Director without hitting a Republican goon on the teevee machine telling great big whoppers about how the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land. Even John McMaverick -- The Greatest Republican Who Ever Walked The Earth -- cannot pry his mouth open without lying flagrantly and ridiculously about what actually happened with the Affordable Care Act (from The New York Times):
The Affordable Care Act “was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote,” Mr. McCain said, and Republicans must not make the same mistake.
And so let us take a moment to discuss the two reasons why the "rammed through Congress by Democrats" lie has become so ubiquitous that it now comes instantly to the lips of every Republican in Christendom.
First, as Joan Walsh pointed out in Salon years ago, this has been the GOP's cardinal talking point about the ACA (and their alibi for every crime again democracy) for a long, long time.
GOP’s latest shutdown delusion: They missed the Obamacare negotiations!They ignore a year of hearings and desperate bargaining on Obamacare. Plus: The worst shutdown punditry ever
And this is despite the fact that, at the time he was rolling out the GOP's obstruct-everything-at-any-cost strategy, Mitch McConnell told The New York Times that obstructing everything at any cost was the plan.
“It was absolutely critical that everybody be together because if the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out,” Mr. McConnell said about the health legislation in an interview, suggesting that even minimal Republican support could sway the public. “It’s either bipartisan or it isn’t.”
In fact, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that without their absolute, party-line fealty to the "Kenyan Usurper And Congressional Democrats Ram Through The 'Kill Your Sainted White Grandmother' Bill" bullshit to prop them up, the Republican Party would have completely collapsed long before they nominated and elected President Stupid.
But the second reason that the "rammed through Congress by Democrats" lie remains virtually unkillable is because, for the most part, the Beltway media absolutely will not challenge Republicans when they trot it out.
Because they can't challenge it.
Because it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that without their absolute, down-the-line fealty to Big Lie of "Both Sides Do It", the Beltway media would have collapsed years ago. Which means, when covering the biggest domestic policy battle in a generation -- the fight over health care for the American people -- the Beltway media simply will not allow the accepted historical narrative to become that , even though it cost many of them their jobs, Democrats managed to overcome the hysterical and unrelentingly unified opposition of the Republican party to provide millions of Americans with affordable health insurance.
The Beltway media must take this simple story of Good Guys versus Vicious, Racist Assholes and butcher it into a "process" story about the machinations of Congress.
And then they must lie about about that process by helping the Republican party once again rewrite history so that the Left was somehow just as awful as the Right.
7 comments:
Krugman covered this twice recently, once where he reminded everyone (with links to the actual lecture and monograph, so don't give me any more bullshit about how they didn't actually do it like the last time I said this here) that the ACA was the Heritage Foundation's idea, and that their idea wasn't actually any more conservative than what got passed as the ACA: The ACA had more regulations, but their plan had more government spending.
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/heritage-on-health-1989/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
And more to the subject of the post, he wrote about the actually not-dead-after-being-killed-repeatedly ideas the Republicans keep shambling out to eat their own brains over and over, and sounding very Driftglassian, proceeded to note that this is a process that has been ongoing for forty years in which a "rot" has spread through the Republican party because they, long ago, made the decision that lying in order to win elections was just dandy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/opinion/republicans-trumpcare-obamacare-lies.html
-Doug in Oakland
For those of us paid the slightest bit of attention, combined the ability to think independently without having Rush tell us what to think, we witnessed what happened when the D party was proposing and working on the ACA. To be honest, there were some definite back-room deals that happened. That said, Obama/the Ds did their best to engage and involve the Rs in the process.
Mitch McConnell has been much quoted - from factual reality - as stating that the Rs would "stand firm and oppose" Every. Single. Legislation. proposed by Ds in order to make Obama a One Term POTUS.
The Ds gave Rs ample opportunities to participate in the ACA process, but they refused other than to send forth shrieking idiots like Tundra Trash Palin to wail out lies about "Death Panels for Granny."
I have many issues with both Obama and the D Party, but the absolute resolute perfidy of the R Party is clear and obvious. They've made most of the TrumpDon'tCare legislative process secretive to the point where they aren't even sharing information with their own party members. Talk about behind closed doors. And of course, they have never offered one time for the Ds to be engaged and involved. Such a thing is treated as absolute HERESAY by the R Team, as if it would utterly taint the legislation beyond redemption.
On top of that, these lying losers voted umpteen times to repeal Obamacare during the last 7 years of the Obama Admin. Yet when they are voted into power, what do they have to show for a replacement?? Absolutely EFF ALL. Zip, zilch, nada, bupkiss, zero. Yet I hear their braindead fans mouthing complete nonsense to the tune of: "Well of course the GOP didn't have any legislation prepared because they thought Clinton would win." And somehow that last sentence seems - uh, I dunno??? - logic-y to them? Like they simply don't care that their so-called "representatives" in Congress wasted SEVEN frickin' years with nothing to show for it!?!
Oh wait! Silly me. I forget myself. All GOP voters want is for the GOP to kick Libtarded azzes. And that's what happened then when the Darky was in THEIR WHITE house, and that's what's happening now with their Lord & Savior, the Orange Foolius, in their now Lily WHITE House (I guess Orange is the new White).
So yes, the narrative continues to this day that the dreadful, horrid, dastardly LIEbruls never ever ever "let" the GOP have a say in the creation of ACA. It's always LIEbrul's fault. Always. Thanks, Obama!
Just leaving this here, regarding Krugman: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/07/heritage-plan-plan-war-medicaid-not-serious-plan-universal-coverage
The whole "without a single Republican vote" thingie is a classic half-truth (There's a Yiddish expression to the effect that "a half-truth is a whole lie"). It neatly overlooks the number of amendments to the bill that were inflicted by the R's. Over 160 of 'em.
And surprise surprise, this is seldom, if ever, mentioned in the press. (I know, I'm shocked too...)
I'd add that the Bothsides Beltway Media will collapse if they stop attacking, slandering, and lying about the ACA/Obamacare.
A third of the voting public is convinced we just emerge from the most unconstitutional, corrupt, incompetent, dictatorial anti-American administration in our history....
....to correct this perceived injustice, they demand a Senate leader who breaks all the rules to pass a secret bill made mostly of billionaire tax cuts and cutting programs our mobbed up, Russian asset, dumbfuck of a President promised he'd never touch.
To acknowledge the reality of the deeply held beliefs of a third of our nation and what has actually happened in DC the last six months would destroy Beltway Media.
I have this boilerplated now:
The Super Majority was and is a media and GOP myth. Dems had the 60-vote Senate for about 6 months, and the health care debate took up the entirety of that span and was actually voted into law after that span -- with plenty of Republican input, more than 160 amendments. The Republicans have always pretended they had no input, but that's just one of many whoppers they like to tell the gullible rubes who follow them.
Al Franken didn't take his seat in the Senate until July of 2009, so the Democrats had no more than 59 votes for the first seven months of 2009. Ted Kennedy died in August 2009, and his fill-in held office until January 2010 when Scott Brown turned it Republican.
The election of Brown ended the so-called supermajority.
But besides that, and crucially, there were Blue Dog Democrats who muscled single-payer and the public option out of the healthcare debate and held Obama back on anything else that would affront a purple-state voter, thus rendering the supermajority hollow. I can still name the pivotal Blue Dogs from memory: Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and most prominently, Joe Lieberman, independent and BFF to Connecticut's monolithic insurance industry among his many other conservative ties. Another of the Democrats' 60 in that span but not when Obama started his push for health-care reform, was Arlen Specter, who switched parties in April '09. Specter was effectively a Blue Dog himself. And until he switched the Democrats had 58 votes, not 60.
So, if you must blame Democrats for not jamming through everything us crazy liberals wanted, go ahead; just blame the ones who actually were responsible, the DINOs.
The ACA was passed 60-39 in December 2009, because enough moderating conservative changes were in it to make the Blue Dogs happy. The bill was actually signed into law, after the, yes, Democratic House added a few modest changes in conference that Repubs blew up into a giant ``never saw the bill'' conspiracy, through reconciliation.
You can apply what happened to the ACA to literally everything else that went through the legislative process -- during the, in reality, 6 months of the so-called supermajority.
So, because of Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans' avowed and sick strategy of obstructing 100% of what Obama opposed 100% of the time, there was nothing remotely like a blank check for Obama.
When it comes to the debt ceiling this round.
I say the Dems make a lot of outrageous demands.
First demand is, Every single republican in the Senate must caste their vote in passage favor of running up huge, big Government debt.
After (without a single Dems House yes vote, every house republican (yes that is T-Potters too) votes yes and only then if Dems demands are agreed to. They can provide the exact number to get to 60 votes in the senate.
Now, what shall those demands be?
I know, Ask McConnell what would he demand if he was a Dem in this position?
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