The Tea Party Republicans' Biggest Mistake: Confusing Government With Our System of Government
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/tea-party-republicans-government_b_4080832.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
What's the lesson here? The radicals who tried to hijack America didn't understand one very basic thing. While most Americans don't like big government, Americans revere our system of government. That's why even though a majority disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, a majority also disapprove of Republican tactics for repealing or delaying it.
Government itself has never been popular in America except during palpable crises such as war or deep depression. The nation was founded in a revolution against an abusive government -- that was what the original Tea Party was all about -- and that distrust is in our genes. The Constitution reflects it. That's why it's hard for government to do anything very easily. I've never been as frustrated as when I was secretary of labor -- continuously running into the realities of separation of power, checks and balances, and the endless complications of federal, state, and local levels of authority. But frustration goes with the job.
No one likes big government. If you're on the left, you worry about the military-industrial-congressional complex that's spending zillions of dollars creating new weapons of mass destruction, spying on Americans, and killing innocents abroad. And you don't like government interfering in your sex life, telling you how and when you can have an abortion, whom you can marry. If you're on the right, you worry about taxes and regulations stifling innovation, out-of-control bureaucrats infringing on your freedom, and government deficits as far as the eye can see.
So when Tea Party Republicans, bankrolled by a handful of billionaires, began calling the Affordable Care Act a "wholesale takeover of American health care," many Americans were inclined to believe them. Health care is such a huge and complicated system, affecting us and our families so intimately, that our inherent distrust of government makes us instinctively wary. It's no accident we're still the only advanced nation not to have universal health care. FDR decided against adding it to his plan for Social Security because he didn't want to jeopardize the rest of the program; subsequent presidents never got close, at least until Obama.
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