To summarize

12 thoughts on “To summarize”

1. if Obama’s effort fails, Armey will happily take credit
   At this point, I’m cheering him on. When health care “reform” comes down to nothing more than 50 million people forced to buy crap insurance that leaves them just one serious illness away from bankruptcy, it’s time to pull the plug.
   Go, Dick, go!

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2. I’m with you, but with one big reservation: the conventional wisdom will be that even this vanishingly insignificant level of pro-corporate non-reform was defeated because people don’t even want that. Even if a final bill is scuttled because the House progressive caucus makes good on their promise to vote against any bill that lacks a public option, it’ll forever be spun as a victory for Dick Army.
   On the other hand, I was gobsmacked to see this [from a commenter] over in Dibgyland:

   The bottom line is that if the final bill doesn’t have a robust public option in it, then this Nader-blaming lifetime Democrat will never vote for a Democrat again, no matter what. It will be the final proof that the only option is to help support a third party, even if there are minimal or no gains in the short term.

   And from what I can glean from that thread, dissatisfaction with the Democrats is apparently boiling over around those parts. We’ve all seen how that goes, of course, but who knows? Maybe there’s hope yet.

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3. then this Nader-blaming lifetime Democrat will never vote for a Democrat again
   Jesus fucking Christ on a popsicle stick.
   Better late than never, I suppose. But getting a clue sooner sure would have been even better.

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4. the conventional wisdom will be that even this vanishingly insignificant level of pro-corporate non-reform was defeated because people don’t even want that.
   Sure, that will be one of the competing explanations for the failure of a “reform” bill. Another one will be that old Democratic-Party standby, blaming progressives for “making the perfect the enemy of the good” (of course, the two explanations go hand-in-hand because progressives, they will say, “Don’t understand that the American people a fundamentally conservative and won’t go for pie-in-the-sky government health-care schemes.”)
   But I think there’s a pretty powerful counter-narrative that we could push back with: That you can’t fight an energized right wing with a disillusioned left wing. We’d be sending a dozen buses from Wisconsin to a single-payer rally in D.C. right now, if Obama had come out for single payer. We’ve done it before for antiwar marches, and I’d love to do it again for real reform of our screwed up health care “system.” But I won’t lift a finger for this Max Baucus-authored clusterfuck. If millions of progressive Democrats have Digby’s (!) reaction, it would demonstrate that the progressive base of the Dem party can’t be taken for granted, and that Obama’s middle-of-the-road approach is the road to failure. Or, as Jim Hightower puts it: “There’s nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

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5. Oh, John, I thought you meant Digby herself said that. That would have been thrilling.
   It’s good that some of her readers are possibly starting to come around, but man, if Digby had said that…

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6. Oh, it wasn’t Digby. Never mind.

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7. Oh, okay. So still clueless, then. That’s more like it.

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8. I guess I should have specified “a commenter over in Digbyland” (I’ve added it in to avoid bamboozling anyone else). Sorry for the unintentional mislead, y’all. Maybe it shows how low my astonishment bar is that that’s enough to get me excited.

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9. I suppose it’s time for me to come clean and admit that I wander over to Digby’s place from time to time and leave comments under a (different) pseudonym claiming to be a ” Nader-blaming lifetime Democrat” who’s going to leave the Party if they betray me one more time. Mostly, I do it so John has something to feel optimistic about.

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10. I knew it was you, Steve…I just didn’t want you to think your efforts aren’t appreciated.
    Seriously, I only visit Digby once every blue moon, mostly to get the liberal Democratic reaction to Obama pronouncements and other Democratic smoke-blowing. I hadn’t noticed any drift in opinions there, but then in this thread people were decrying the increasing anti-Obama tenor of the site. Really? Color me doubtful, but I’d be overjoyed if they were right.
    That’s an interesting idea, though…maybe someone should organize a dissatisfied Democrat sock puppet squad.

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11. When I’ve visited digby over the years there’s generally been a group of Naderite types (and one or two who hate the Democrats, but also seem to hate Nader). Whether the percentage of Naderites has grown I couldn’t say for sure because I don’t visit often enough, but maybe. It would make sense, since Obama has been busy showing his centrist credentials and it’s getting harder to think he’s only doing this to win the election, that being over with and all.
    Even digby said something sympathetic about Naderism a few weeks ago–specifically, she said the Obama Administration is playing with fire if they think they can take their liberal/left supporters for granted, and while she was opposed to Nader, she knew that the Naderites of 2000 were disgusted by the corporate rightward drift of the Democrats etc…. Or if that’s not quite sympathetic, she was using the threat of Naderism to fight the corporate-loving tendencies of the Democrats and good for her.
    Of course, since we’re all in the grip of a virtually omipotent national security state the best we can hope for is some centrist Democrat who gives the Powers That Be most of what They want and we should support him for his mostly tiny if not invisible efforts…. Oh, wait, wrong blog.

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12. maybe someone should organize a dissatisfied Democrat sock puppet squad
    The Yoostabees?

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