The March of Folly

No one should be ready to say that progressive health care reform is "dead." However, progressives have already started looking for who to blame for its failure. Robert Reich thinks it's because of the highly organized and disciplined (mach schnell!) right wing opposition: The Guns Of August And Why The Republican Right Was So Adept At Using Them On Health Care

What we learned in August is something we've long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America's Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August -- not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but because the rights' attack on the Democrats' idea was far more disciplined than was the Democrats' ability to sell it.

I like Robert Reich. He's earnest. He knows his stuff. He (usually) argues in good faith. But reading the above makes me realize how little he knows about the opposition to progressive health care reform. The idea that there is some "disciplined" organzation that has been leading the opposition to Obamacare is to completely misread what has happened. The opposition has consisted of (1) one 5 paragraph posting on Sarah Palin's Facebook page, (2) talk radio, which has been the ONLY major media forum that has actually discussed the substance of the proposed bill, (3) occasional GOP figures like Jim DeMint and Michael Steele, who have often violated the 12th Commandment (no GOP figure shall object to cuts in Medicare), (4) Tea Partiers, who themselves were inspired by an off-hand comment by a CNBC commentator, (5) conservative blogs, and (6) all those fine people who went to see their Congressman and discuss the issue. Yes, it has been a regular Blitzkrieg of Blather. I can see why a Democratic Party that controls the presidency, the Congress, and the bureaucracy; and can count on favorable coverage from most major media outlets, and intellectual support from virtually the entire the professoriate, would be having trouble debating such a slick operation. Especially when the President has been described as a combination, Lincoln, FDR, JFK, MLK, and Reaganesque communicator to boot.

Of course, Reich knows why his side has so much trouble persuading the Great Unwashed as to the superiority of statist solutions to every conceivable human ill: progressives are just too darn smart and disorganized:

You want to know why the left has ideas and the right has discipline? Because people who like ideas and dislike authority tend to identify with the Democratic left, while people who feel threatened by new ideas and more comfortable in a disciplined and ordered world tend to identify with the Republican right. Democrats and progressives let a thousand flowers bloom. Republicans and the right issue directives. This has been the yin and yang of American politics and culture. But it means that the Democratic left's new ideas often fall victim to its own notorious lack of organization and to the right's highly-organized fear mongering.

First, in writing about progressive proclivities towards public policy, it's not a good idea to use phrases like "let a thousand flowers bloom," which does not make one think of the Left's finest moments. Second, notice how Reich subtly evokes the spectre of jack-booted thugs carrying out "directives" "issued" by the "right." You mean all those paunchy, middle-aged people wearing shorts and T-shirts who took time to go to their Congressmen's town halls?

Sorry, Bob, your side is losing because you tried to pass a 1000-page bill before anyone had a chance to read it, and then when they DID have a chance to read it, they found all sorts of crazy stuff with Death Panels being just the beginning. If it's such a good idea to create a public option for insurance, let's hear why. If the IRS needs to be involved in enforcing insurance mandates, let's hear why. If the UAW needs a separate $10 billion health care slush fund on top of everything else they've gotten this year, let's hear why.

But, I know we are not going to hear any of this because so much of it is indefensible. It's so much easier to blame the "stoopid" (yet disciplined!) "Right," than to look around and wonder why one's preferred solutions are so convoluted and opaque. The Left's popular initiatives - from social security to the FDIC and beyond - have an elegant, if expensive, simplicity. This is why they were passed with bi-partisan majorities and have endured. Progressive health care reform does not meet this basic test, so it will go nowhere. That is not the "Right's" fault. That is the fault of progressive's and their fine philosophy.