2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Those Who Say They Won't Support the Eventual Nominee -- Consider This... [View all]Kall
(615 posts)Last edited Sat Feb 27, 2016, 02:03 AM - Edit history (1)
That's just political reality. This idea that (just taking one example) it's a long-term strategy to pass a Republican health care bill from the 1990s with 100% Democratic votes, trumpet it as great despite voters not perceiving it as so, and then base its long-term survival on holding the White House in perpetuity is just the dumbest strategy ever. The ACA has been underwater in public opinion since Day One and contrary to what the six-figure Democratic professional strategists were saying at the time, did not save Congress for the Democrats in 2010 (oops) and did not lead to political suicide for the Republicans for attempting to repeal it once people experienced the benefits of it, because people were unimpressed with the benefits of it, so the Republicans have attempted to repeal it 60 times with no political consequences (oops).
Of course, back then the six-figure Democratic political strategists were saying that the ACA wasn't what people wanted, but was just the first step on the road to single-payer. Now the line is that single-payer is impossible because of the ACA. I never bought the first argument, but Lucy and the football comes to mind for those that did.
Now, compare that to the number of times Republicans have tried to repeal single-payer Medicare. So, the way to make "progress" lasting is not to construct some Rube Goldberg device that is fundamentally unpopular based on peoples' experienced results and then fight a perpetual rear-guard action to defend something they don't like. The way to make progress lasting is to build support for and eventually pass a program that is fundamentally popular based on peoples' experienced results (like single-payer Medicare) and which they want already, so that when a Republican is President (it's going to happen eventually) or Republicans win Congress, public opinion will punish them if they dare to mess with it. Or if they stand in the way of creating it. So this is not difficult to understand, but it's beyond the understanding of some people when their interests lie in not understanding it.