Interesting Obama interview by @CitizenCohn, from his (essential) new book on the history & meaning of Obamacare. Dunno if he draws the same dire conclusions I do, but to me Obamacare symbolizes ... everything about current US politics, none of it good. huffpost.com/entry/obama-in…
Primarily, Obamacare illustrates that ALL the incentives in US politics have lined up against people trying to reform things. Obama was fighting a unified, nihilistic right. He was fighting a large group of (truly terrible) conservative Dem senators. And he was fighting ...
... against an activist left convinced that if the Bully Pulpited hard enough, he could force those conservative Dems to do what he wanted. That left him, & the Democrats pushing reform, with effectively no friends, no organized popular backing -- fighting everyone.
The fact that Obamacare got done at all (and 20M+ people now have insurance they didn't before) traces back to a series of miracles -- briefly having 60 Dem senators, being wildly popular himself, reconciliation lining up just so. It can't be replicated.
The world we're in now is better illustrated by the climate bill Dems tried to do after Obamacare. Again fighting a nihilist, unified GOP. Again fighting horrible conservative Dems. Again fighting a left that demanded Green Lantern miracles. Again: no real friends, no backing.
But that bill did what all bills do now: died in the Senate.
Obamacare slipped through a narrow aperture that was rapidly closing. It's fully closed now, and nothing big will pass again until/unless fairly radical democratic reform happens. Dems are now stuck ...
Obamacare slipped through a narrow aperture that was rapidly closing. It's fully closed now, and nothing big will pass again until/unless fairly radical democratic reform happens. Dems are now stuck ...
... and worse, getting *comfortable* being stuck, pushing all reform through tweaks in the tax code buried in reconciliation bills. That's a horrendous way to govern, politically & policy-wise. It won't ever do what Dems most need to do, which is demonstrate to Americans ...
... that big, bold government can help improve their lives. It's not a stable equilibrium -- and it is currently collapsing in the direction of quasi-authoritarian minority RW rule. All the incentives have lined up behind reality-show politics & against real reform.
Dems' only hope of breaking out of this doom loop -- to repeat myself for the zillionth time -- is to bypass/reform/kill the filibuster & pass sweeping democracy reform in the next two years. Absent that, they, and America, are fucked. </fin>
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