Any time I see a question in a news article that “asks a question” related to the current health care bill and the death of democracy. Nine times out of ten it’s a pissed-off conservative columnist that wants to say that the “Obamacare” (oh brother) bill means Democracy will get replaced by communism.
This, however, brings up a much better point, sort of. First off, though, the rather asinine part.
Also cited at times are the divisions among Americans, which make paralysis in Washington natural and maybe even healthy. Obama, after all, was backed by only 53 percent of those who voted, who in turn represented only 64 percent of adults eligible to vote. When half the country passionately fears government intrusion and the other half is passionately ashamed that Americans may be dying for lack of health care, reform is not going to be easy.
This is, possibly, the most angering point I’ve heard brought up by anti-Obama zealots. It’s the kind of thing that I came up with when I was 19 and thought I was original. Much as no one may want to admit it, this is how every election works. Bush got less than even a plurality of voters in his first “win”, with a painfully small number of voters. Also Hiatt is incorrect, those 53% actually only represented 57% of eligible voters. It was 64% of registered voters. Or just do it in straight numbers and since 69.4 million people voted for Obama with about 304 million Americans, then 22.8% of the population decided for the rest.
But that’s how it always goes, more so if you’re like Lincoln or Clinton and only won a plurality of voters, rather than a majority. Then we’re talking less than half of the bare majority of three-quarters of the population.
Anyway, here’s where things get much more reasonable:
Or maybe the country isn’t all that divided — most of us would welcome common-sense improvements in health-care delivery and insurance — but the system feeds on and exacerbates our differences. The advent of the 60-vote rule in the Senate has magnified the already formidable checks and balances built into the Constitution, with the disproportionate blocking power it awards small and rural states. Cable television and the Internet have empowered those with the greatest intensity of feeling. The self-serving redistricting habits of the political elite, designed to protect incumbents, have left most legislators vulnerable only to primary challenges from the extremes of their respective parties.
We live in an era where sound bytes and winning “news cycles” means more than getting things done. The Republicans are more focused on sticking it to the Democrats to win over the pissed-off Teabagger movement than they are on crafting a bill that will, ten years down the road, be seen as a triumph. Which isn’t necessarily their fault, given the ADD-fueled circus that 24-hour cable news has created. Entire elections can be won and lost based on positive coverage or too much attention on a slip of the tongue (McCain had a lot going against him, but near the end he was getting pounded for really trivial things).
Now we have a system that’s terribly crippled, with people calling for changes and reform that just plain aren’t coming thanks to the Congressional blockading, a president who can barely get any nominees confirmed, all because the opposition party has decided that the checks and balances the Constitution affords them must be wielded like a weapon in order to appease the frothing non-masses.
Democracy is in paralysis, and the health care bill is showing us the nature of it, though the bill itself is largely inconsequetial in that effect.
