Excerpt from GOP wins could threaten recovery By PAUL KRUGMAN
Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption “National Socialist Healthcare.”
The key thing to understand about that rally is that it wasn’t a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a GOP press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.
As we can see from the health care vote over the weekend, the moderate solution – in lieu of some sort of single payer system enjoyed by the entire rest of the world – of a voluntary PUBLIC OPTION which about 5% of Americans would buy into has been defined as a GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER of our economy. [If you haven’t realized yet, GOVERNMENT and PUBLIC are Republican code words for BLACK and HISPANIC.]
The Health care bill in the House was a squeaker passing by only 5 votes with the Senate version to be filibustered by an Independent moderate, Senator Joe Lieberman.
Speaking of silly old Jewish Bubbies, unlike most Bluedog Democrats, Lieberman is not going to destroy health care reform out of fear that a majority of his Connecticut constituents are White-Wing tea baggers. Rather he is making his stand for the same reason he makes every stand he takes – how many Muslims can we kill. Though I am not quite sure how he ties that into health care, I have no doubt AT ALL it’s how his brain works.
The 2010 election will have some very discouraging factors at play for Democrats:
1) The statistical fact that the party in power loses seats in off year elections.
2) The excitement of the 2008 election has subsided and the young and minorities will have better things to do than vote.
3) Unemployment will still be hovering around 10% giving moderates the urge to throw the bastards out and there being more Democrat bastards than Republican bastards.
4) These KIND OF PEOPLE who carry posters of the Holocaust to define health care and the President who hate the damn GOVERNMENTS! and the damn PUBLICS! so much their hair bleeds – are going to crawl out from under their rocks come Hell, High water or an early Mayan end to the world to go vote.
Put it all together and the Democrats 10 seat advantage in the Senate and 40 in the House are going to be will greatly reduced.
This will make governing almost impossible, as Paul Krugman puts, Washington will become Californiafied, where the GOP is strong enough to keep anyone form doing anything at all.
This all goes far beyond cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. These Tea Baggers with the support of the White Wing GOP would rather bring America to its knees than hand it over to those damn GOVERNMENTS! and PUBLICS! You betcha that’s what this is all about.
This of course is only a short term win for them. As has always been the case throughout human history, THESE KIND OF PEOPLE do indeed have surges, but in the long run we do move forward rather than backwards.