In October of 2007 I sat in a family room in Boulder, Colorado watching game four of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies. I had a sense of impending doom, and felt powerless. The Sox were crushing the Rocks. It would be a four game sweep.
We had tickets for game five. That’s why we had come to Colorado.
I read now that there is a growing consensus on health care and the chances for passage of “reform” is growing daily. A somewhat liberal Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has endorsed the “Obama Plan”, and others will fall in line.
Reform is dead. Barring some brave resolve by the House Progressive Caucus, we’re screwed. Health insurance companies are about to score a major victory.
Here’s what we are going to get:
- Community rating
- No refusals for preexisting conditions
- Regional co-ops, or insurance “exchanges” where we will be able to choose among various private insurers.
Here’s what we are going to give up:
- Single payer
- Public option
- Elimination of the subsidy for Medicare Advantage
- Elimination of the subsidy for big pharma under Medicare D
- Cost controls
- Regulation of insurance companies
- Universal coverage
- Reform of the health care system
This is, in other words, what Democrats might call a “sweep”. It’s total victory for the insurance companies. There’s no control of pricing other than a wispy notion that insurers might “compete” when they have no incentive to do so. The important corporate subsidies are still in place. We’ll have no choice but to purchase private insurance, and those of us who cannot afford their whacked-out prices will be used as conduits for yet more subsidy.
The Democrats are talking like this is some sort of victory. I think they are thinking about Game 5.
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Read on from here only if you want real reform of a decrepit non-functioning democracy. The rest is about a much broader topic – elimination of the tyranny of the Democratic Party.
In 2000, Al Gore supposedly lost Florida, though we’ll never know for sure, as what happened there that year, in this silly system, cannot be regarded as any kind of meaningful forum. Nonetheless, the official tally had George W. Bush winning by 537 votes.
Here’s some other tallies:
- Patrick Buchanan, Reform Party: 17,484 votes
- David McReynolds, Socialist Party: 622
- Harry Browne, Libertarian Party: 16,415
- Howard Phillips, Constitution Party: 1,371
- Ralph Nader, Green Party: 97,488
- Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party: 1,804
- James Harris, Florida Socialist Workers Party: 562
- John Hagelin, Natural Law Party: 2,281
Guess who, in the above list, the Democrats decided was the “spoiler”.
Here’s further breakdown, courtesy of Sam Smith: The following constituencies voted for George W. Bush in the following percentages:
- Blacks: 9%
- Voters under 30: 46%
- College educated: 49%
- The poor: 37%
- Working mothers 39%
- Democrats: 11%
- Union members: 34%
- Self-described liberals: 13%
- Gays: 25%
- 1996 Clinton voters: 15%
- Pro-choice: 25%
Again, guess who the spoiler is. Ralph Nader.
Democrats, in the years since 2000, have demonized Nader and taken special pains to marginalize any who voted for him. Nader voters present a real threat to Democrats – we are natural liberals and progressives. The purpose of the Democrat(ic) Party is not to advance liberal and progressive voices, but to quash them. Consequently, even though Al Gore beat himself in so many ways, Democrats have seized on the opportunity to put any nascent threats of a progressive uprising down.
And we must now live with the results. A majority of the American public wanted single payer, even more a meaningful public option in health care. The Democrats stuffed us.
Further, in 2008, Democrats campaigned on a wide range of progressive issues beyond health care reform – ending the war in Iraq, closing of Guantanamo, the end of torture, the end of rendition .. all of these have been carried forward by President Obama. He has even given us a bigger and better war in Afghanistan (the real purpose concealed) and managed to drive everything else off the radar screen. There has been no meaningful reform. It is as if George W. Bush won yet another term.
Oh yeah, and there’s that bailout thing. Oh yeah – and he’s ratcheting up tensions with Iran, playing the jingo card, just like Bush.
There are no progressives in the Obama Administration. His Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is a right winger. Obama is to liberals as Reagan was to conservatives – a muse, a Pied Piper, one who looks good, sounds good, and smells bad.
Obama and the Democrats used the community organizing group ACORN to roust up votes among the underclasses. They have now unceremoniously dumped them.
We need to fight back, of course, and there is always hope, as party politics has never been the well from which we draw progressive change. But the first step in meaningful reform is to turn people against Democrats, and towards reform movements outside that party.
Doing so, you might say, will only result in the election of Republicans. Maybe so, but as the record shows, election of Democrats makes not a dime’s worth of difference. Why should we care about that?
Piece of Mindful 
In 2000, a whole bunch of people who are not otherwise whacked out bought into the idea that there’s no real difference between George Bush and Al Gore. I think the marginalization has been pretty light, considering the scale and consequences of this error.
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Yes, assuming that thinking beyond two parties financed by the same people is a whacked out idea, and that Al Gore would be anymore the real deal than Obama. (He didn’t even campaign as a liberal, fer Chissakes.)
Poleez.
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No Real Difference Between Al Gore And George Bush
This doesn’t say anything about whether AG is as progressive as X (some point on a scale) or “real” whatever that might mean. Whether the funding is the same — and there are some differences, but maybe not as much as one would hope — you still end up at the same place: the difference between the candidates (and their vision of what government is for) was such that a blind man could see it.
Most people who vote for fringe candidates are whacked out on one thing or another. The bulk of Nader’s supporters were different: Not crazy. Therefore morally accountable for the consequences of their choice.
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Which are zero.
I see one meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans, and one only: We get slightly better judges with Democrats.
In matters of war and peace, no difference. In matters of foreign policy, no difference. In matters of finance, no difference. In matters of social welfare and domestic spending, no difference. In matters of health care reform, no difference.
In matters of rhetoric, big differences!
Your use of words and phrases like “fringe” and “whacked out people” is deliberately polarizing, and apparently meant to insinuate that those of us who can cut through the crop are mentally off-kilter. It’s meant to be insulting, and is insulting. It’s a marginalization tool, used effectively, but having no substance.
On the other hand, I have a few choice words for blind followers.
To hold us morally accountable for the consequences of [our] choice based on some vague notion of what someone might have done is absurd. Especially when there is no evidence, from Gore’s tenure as VP that he would do things differently.
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Trends have been steadily away from progressive since 1980. Clinton may have been different from Reagan and Bush, but the trend line never reversed. NAFTA, Recissions/Welfare Reform, Bosnia, Bank Deregulation, Media Consolidation, Lawless Logging, etc, all Clinton policies on the same trajectory. Bush II only steepened the descent into neoliberal hell. Obama may have his hands on the stick, but the stick is stuck on corporate subsidies and market myths, and no opposition party. A democracy can’t function without an opposition party, however marginalized, however misunderstood. A vote for Democrats is a vote against democracy. Health care reform is not proof enough?
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Mark, sometimes the shoe fits. The difference between the Gore position in Iraq in late 2002 and the Bush position on Iraq in late 2002 cannot be called zero. The difference between the Baucus bill (disappointing as it is) and the Grassley bill (oh wait) is not zero. If you think Al “Lockbox” Gore’s position on social security would have been the same as Bush’s in 2005, you’re coming from a place I find incomprehensible.
I used fringe and whacked out to refer to people who are voting for candidates like Howard Phillips and David McReynolds. My point wrt a large selection of Nader voters is precisely the opposite: they’re not whacked out, and thus should be expected to know better. But didn’t, instead buying into a very dangerous fantasy.
Are Democrats all that a progressive could desire? No. Absolutely not. Are they therefore the same as Republicans? It’s a ridiculous assertion, especially after living through 2001-2008, and amounts to staking out a fringe position.
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The parties are not the same. Democrats are far more damaging.
The difference between the Obama position on Iraq, and John McCain’s, was not zero. That is, during the campaign. After the election, turns out there was no difference!
Foreign policy is bipartisan. Our leaders do not value the opinion of the public and cannot shift with every breeze. Foreign policy from their view must be, and is, exempt from politics. They talk about it, they do not change it. What is going on now is exactly what would have gone on under McCain.
The “lock box” was pure fluff, nothing more. At the time of the campaign we had a budget surplus, an accident and a rarity. Therefore, FICA money was not being borrowed. Gore said he would make that a permanent feature of the program, but it is impossible to do so. Cannot be done. That was window dressing.
Democrats are different than Republicans. They tend to appoint better judges. The party has many progressives in it, as they’ve nowhere else to go, but they are marginalized. Obama has none in positions of power. Rahm Emmanael holds them in contempt.
That you are satisfied with the minute and marginal delivery of small things that you might not get from Republicans? Nader said it best: Democrats control people by keeping their expectations low.
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By the way, Clinton had a secret plan to privatize Social Security. Read about it here: http://www.counterpunch.org/blackburn10302004.html
It’s well documented and admitted to by Clinton aids. And the point is this: Clinton was far more likely to succeed at it than Bush, as he would have coopted natural opposition to it.
Democrats are more dangerous for exactly that reason.
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Mark, the Social Security Trust must invest it’s excess revenues in U.S. Treasury Securities by law.
The argument might be that it wasn’t being spent – but that’s untrue as well. Due to the impact of off-budget spending items the National Debt increased in all years Clinton and Bush.
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Agreed.
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http://www.openleft.com/diary/15477/what-is-populism-and-why-are-democrats-afraid-of-it
Mark, I hope you enjoy reading John Emerson.
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Very interesting. It will take time to sink in, and I like Emerson’s detached demeanor. His attitude about fusion voting goes right to the heart of the problem.
However, my immediate reaction is that he starts on the false premise that we have , in any sense, representative government in this country. We have two features that make us un-representative: Winner-take-all elections, and private financing of campaigns.
The end result of those two features is two parties, one controlled by wealth, the other by wealth.
What we call “populism” are all those strains of dissent that are blocked out of the two parties. Progressives are a large force, but cannot get off the ground due to the inability to achieve 51%, an impossibility for any outside movement.
It’s tyranny, but very subtly so. That’s why I said that our elections are “highly energized inertia”. They are meant to be so.
Then there is propaganda … a powerful force. It is like our sex drives – omnipresent and driving much of our behavior. But we don’t talk about it much.
I focus my efforts on pointing out the problem of Democrats, as I regard them as the most pernicious and anti-democratic movement in our society.
But note that in 1992, Ross Perot seized on populist discontent and survived an onslaught of covert ops and subtle manipulation to garner 19% of the vote. In 1996, he was shut out of the debates.
This is not good. This is not representative government. We don’t live in a republic, democratic or otherwise. Populism is the cry of the unrepresented forces,many strains, all having that one thing in common.
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