Posted by
Bill Crawford on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:44:01 PM
Who here is surprised at the rancor in the Town hall meetings? Not me. I warned all of you months ago that there was a Republican/ conservative reaction bubbling up under the radar, as a reaction to Obama taking office and announcing to the world that his centrist campaign positions were a sham. The interesting part was, many in the media were not noticing this at all, for whatever reasons.
Well, they are noticing now. Only most of them are following along the White House talking points that the ground swell on this is something organized by the insurance companies, the pharmaceuticals and whatever other organized evil they can conjure.
That's the first argument structure offered by the moral absolutists- these people couldn't possibly disagree with us on this, it just has to be outside forces.
Then there is the other shoe that drops- all these people are being duped. Duped by messages of "death panels", "putting grandma to death", etc. This is the old red herring logic- choose the most outrageous words out there, and present them as your antithesis, easier to set on a plate for condemnation.
Which leads to the biggest White House problem out there- the hordes of Seniors out there, looking to live out their lives in a quality borne of advancing medical technology and faced with a series of bills, along with a President, who keep talking about this from a cost benefit standpoint. These people are not stupid, what do you all think THAT will lead to?
A hell of a lot of questions, for starters. And when you face those questions as a party in power with a viewpoint that looks at dissent as some sort of new un-Americanism, you will find yourself trying to put out a fire by dumping gas cans into it.
Saul Alinsky and his "Rules For Radicals" doesn't try to deal with dissent with argument, except to circumvent. And if the circumvention/ deception fails, the next step is intimidation, which explains the union people being bussed in to attend some of these meetings.
Obama is not a pragmatist, or he hasn't shown himself to be one yet. That has made him easier to study. He has a choice here.
The country is still a center-right country. If he and this Congress continue to run into this wall, they will get their heads handed to them in 2010. If he loses the House there, and he shoots for what he can get with that, he has a chance to be re-elected two years later. It's always possible that even by then, the GOP has not settled their internal immigration divisions and will be handing him five points in advance. Otherwise, Obama is a one term President.