"Progressives" In The Village

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Media
Posted on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 07:43:35 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

I very much appreciate Kevin Drum but this post and this post really can not be reconciled. Kevin writes:

[T]he reform bill we ended up with is very similar to both the 1993 Republican counterproposal to Clintoncare and to Mitt Romney's healthcare plan for Massachusetts.

Just below that post, he wrote:

Glenn Greenwald commends to us Jeremy Scahill's take on healthcare reform:

[I]f you look on the liberal blogosphere, people like Jane Hamsher are attacked mercilessly for having the audacity to stand up and say "this is a Democratic sellout."

I've got nothing but props for Scahill's work, but this is just wrong. [. . . M]ost of us who supported the current healthcare bill — warts and all — did so because it was, plainly, not only an enormous first step1 forward, but the only way to make that first step.

Scahill and Greenwald's point is not about supporting the legislation - it is about pretending the legislation was the greatest progressive triumph since Medicare. Drum (and every other Village blogger) says the legislation is conservative reform in his next post. And yet he and they also say this is a progressive triumph. It isn't. Maybe it will evolve into one, as Drum predicts in this piece. But the ACTUAL legislation is, IN THEIR WORDS, conservative reform. And people have been attacked for saying so.

Speaking for me only

< "Progressive" Reform | The Emergence Of The Dem Blogosphere >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

"Progressives" In The Village | 22 comments (22 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Yes, the actual legislation (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Militarytracy on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:14:10 AM EST

is conservative reform. If this were a progressive triumph Americans would not still be dying needlessly in the name of making a profit. If this is a progressive triumph for the citizens, then the only things missing are the coliseum and the lions to deal with the pains and the inconvenience of the capitalism untouchables.

Yes, indeedie (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by david mizner on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:31:20 AM EST

This is the contradiction at the heart of the effort of Village progs to sell the bill. Jonathan Chait is especially guilty of incoherence.

What has emerged from that machinery is not merely "better than nothing" or "a good start." It is the most significant American legislative triumph in at least four decades.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/just-noise?page=0,1

Obama's plan closely mirrors three proposals that have attracted the support of Republicans who reside within their party's mainstream: The first is the 1993 Senate Republican health plan, which is compared with Obama's plan here, with the similarity endorsed by former Republican Senator Dave Durenberger here. The second is the Bipartisan Policy Center plan, endorsed by Bob Dole, Howard baker, George Mitchell and Tom Daschle, which is compared to Obama's plan here. And the third, of course, is Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan, which was crafted by the same economist who helped create Obama's plan, and which is rhetorically indistinguishable from Obama's.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/obamas-moderate-health-care-plan

Now, for Chait perhaps there is no contradiction: he believes that it's a Republican plan can be a grand progressive achievement. But for progressives who are actually progressives, the contradiction is blatant.

"progressives" with shudder quotes... (5.00 / 2) (#10)
by lambert on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:45:30 AM EST

... is propagating, I see. Haw.

"Progress" toward what, one might ask? HCR (Higher Corporate Returns), apparently....

This "Progress" (5.00 / 2) (#15)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:12:57 AM EST

would never have happened under a Republican. Democrats would have fought this very legislation tooth and nail for what it is -- conservative Republican legislation. If anything, it is REGRESSIVE, rather than progressive.


: The sad thing is (5.00 / 4) (#18)
by cawaltz on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:22:50 AM EST

that some of them didn't because they identify with the brand that offered up the ideas as their own. It mattered more to put a win in the column of the Democrats then to actually say to the Democrats putting out the ideas the conservatives offered up in 1993 that the bill was not nearly "progressive enough."
How sad is it that the "progressive win" is a revamp of conservative ideas and that progressives felt compelled to cheerlead for it because the Democrats were the majority that offered it up.
I suspect this is how Alice in Wonderland felt when she fell down the rabbithole.

And of course they can be "reconciled"! (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by lambert on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:07:26 AM EST

That's what doublethink is for!

I wonder... (5.00 / 2) (#20)
by DancingOpossum on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:44:33 AM EST

...if we will now be looking to the GOP to save Social Security and Medicare and protect us from the insurance industry bailout bill.

It's topsy-turvy world!

The Democrats have handed the Repugs the perfect opportunity to cast themselves as the populist saviors of America. Do you think the GOP is smart enough to jump on this opportunity? I think they might be.

Personal Windows (5.00 / 3) (#22)
by waldenpond on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:49:51 AM EST

Their personal overton windows have shifted and in the view to the outside, the sky is not blue.

They have been doing this for months. The left and right had their crescendos with the vote, the village faux have been flopping around trying to retain a position in the village. They wouldn't want to be disappeared like Frum. It's been unpleasant to read.

Intellectual honesty has been replaced (none / 0) (#2)
by ruffian on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:18:31 AM EST

with the staking out of positions. I could say it starts with the Republicans mischaracterizing even their own old positions as 'liberal socialism'. Oddly, the progressive reaction seems to be to agree with them in way, except turning it inside out and calling old conservative ideas 'progressive'. If they are trying to redefine the center, they seem to be going about it backwards.

The post is ironic considering (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by cawaltz on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:24:26 AM EST

the post prior is about Republicans not recognizing conservative ideas for what they are. Apparently, progressives have the same darn problem.

That's what happens though when political posturing takes precedence over policy positions though I guess.

I suspect that the progressive shelf life will be 10 years at most, just like the Republican shelf life was once people started realizing the party that stood for small government and fiscal responsibility did neither. So shall go the party that spouts it is about gender parity and equal rights all the way up until it is convenient to barter them away.


Progressive and conservative at the same time (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by ruffian on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:55:25 AM EST

Takes a lot of mental contortion to believe that. I'd hate to live inside a brain that could do it.

Reminds me of the old SNL fake commercial - "It's a floor cleaner! It's a dessert topping! Tastes great, and look at that shine!"


It's amazing how pretzelfied (5.00 / 2) (#16)
by cawaltz on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:16:13 AM EST

people have become just so they can put a checkmark in the win column of "their" side.


: I'll even grant them that (none / 0) (#21)
by ruffian on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:45:10 AM EST

there are times when getting the win is all important. This IMO was not one of them. Policy should have come before political gains and losses on this issue, and it did not.

I personally think its purposeful (5.00 / 5) (#4)
by cawaltz on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:30:21 AM EST

the group seems like a squeamish and cowardly lot. Party trumps everything. They spend half their time opining how awful the Democrats are and the other half their time voting them right back into office. After all, it'd be so much worse if it were the Republicans that were actually setting back women's reproductive rights or voting for the Patriot Act(rolling eyes). If the end result is going to be conservative I don't see what my incentive is to support Democrats. Then again I'm one of those old fashioned people that believe principles(and your willingness to sell them out) define who people are.


Exactly (none / 0) (#12)
by lilburro on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:00:56 AM EST

If they are trying to redefine the center, they seem to be going about it backwards.

: I can't quite explain it though (none / 0) (#13)
by ruffian on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:04:08 AM EST

I have a feeling that if I really understood it my head would explode.

It is a conservative peice of legislation (none / 0) (#6)
by Same As It Ever Was on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:34:12 AM EST

Nevertheless, it is a progressive triumph in the sense that for the first time, the right of access to health care for all Americans is recognized by the law. An obvious point, perhaps, but an important step that, as we've seen, is not a point without controversy.

: Really? (5.00 / 6) (#7)
by david mizner on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:37:05 AM EST

"the right of access to health care for all Americans is recognized by the law"
How so? This bill will leave some 23 million people uninsured. It doesn't have much if anything to do with "the right" to health care; it makes health insurance more affordable for many of the uninsured. At best it promotes the idea that everyone should have access to health insurance.

: I have to agree with Mizner (5.00 / 5) (#8)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:39:40 AM EST

The only thing that has been recognized is the requirement to purchase health insurance.
There is no "right"involved, rather an obligation.
Now the theory is that this leads to access to health care, and it probably does, though the quality of that care is not guaranteed.
But this "rights" talk is not correct.
ESPECIALLY without a public insurance option.

: The legislation does not even provide (5.00 / 2) (#17)
by MO Blue on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:20:37 AM EST

universal insurance coverage let alone health care.
The progressive triumph is that they have been able to confuse insurance coverage with health care and persuade millions of Democratic voters that they love conservative policies.

: Not all Americans, not all health care (5.00 / 5) (#19)
by Cream City on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 09:34:59 AM EST

and with his Jane Crow executive order, Obama makes it even worse -- breaking his bottom-line promise that everyone with health insurance now would not lose anything.
Obama even inserted Bush's conscience clause in his executive order -- going farther than did the Stupak amendment.
Jane Crow laws are not cause for celebration, not by true Democrats, liberals, progressives, et al.
So for those who do celebrate this, there is another name.

: Some do not see it that way (none / 0) (#9)
by trillian on Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 08:42:43 AM EST

What Healthcare Success?