Yesterday Newt Gingrich outlined the Republican strategy going forward, saying that the Democrats "will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for forty years" by signing civil rights into law. Leave aside the deep cynicism of this view of racial equality: Gingrich was expressing the Republican belief that health-care reform will be so unpopular that it will reduce the Democrats to minority status for two generations. (In the House debate, Republican after Republican excoriated the Democrats for defying the will of the American people-as if the elections of 2006 and 2008 were inconsequential compared to a couple of last fall's Rasmussen polls on health care.) But Gingrich's analysis is based on a flawed analogy. Civil rights brought an oppressed minority of Americans closer to equality, and-as Johnson knew-was so hated across the South that it was bound to cost the Democrats the region. Health-care reform, if it does what its supporters claim, will humanize a system in which the vast majority of Americans feel trapped. It will redress social and economic, not racial, injustices. Its breadth and potential effect will resemble those of Social Security and Medicare far more than civil rights-programs that became prime instances of popular activist government and tied substantial segments of the electorate to the Democratic Party for decades. Journalist George Packer served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo.
George Packer writes: Barack Obama stared into the abyss of a failed Presidency and found the passion and will to do something truly great
Not Radical, But Major
from Interesting Times by George Packer
In the two months between Scott Brown's victory in January and last night's vote in the House, Barack Obama stared into the abyss of a failed Presidency and found the passion and will to do something truly great. He remembered that getting the policy and the congressional votes right is only half the battle-that leadership requires engaging the opposition in a philosophical debate, and bringing the public along through continuous persuasion.
I watched the House debate and vote on C-Span last night and found it clarifying (in the moments of prolonged silence when nothing was happening I switched to the yammer-fests on cable news and couldn't stand it for more than a minute). Yes, there was some ugly business inside and outside the House chamber. There's a fevered strain of extremism not too far from the heart of conservatism today that carries an implied threat of violence, and some elected officials seem comfortable with it. But what struck me about the Republican speeches on the floor of the House more than their low tone was their ideological purity. Health care brought them back to first principles. The implied or explicit premise of every Republican I heard is that any involvement of government in our lives is an arrogant abrogation of freedom. The kinds of arguments only a few hard-liners made against Medicare forty-five years ago are today the overwhelming-the smothering-ideology of just about every Republican official.
The Democrats' speeches were hardly inspiring. Nancy Pelosi, the indispensable figure in this saga, who should go down in history as the Master (or Mistress) of the House, is a poor public speaker, and most of her colleagues managed to turn high political drama into garbled litanies of policy prescriptions. The Democrats are as averse to boiling things down to their essence as the Republicans are addicted to it. C-Span isn't kind to the rhetorical skill of members of either party. Last night produced no lasting speeches, but it produced lasting legislation and gave the country its first piece of sweeping social reform since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House-a period of reaction that lasted as long as the years between the Civil War and the Progressive era. Obama described the bill as being not "radical" but "major," which is exactly where he wants to be. His decision to fight for it against the odds will redefine his Presidency.
Yesterday Newt Gingrich outlined the Republican strategy going forward, saying that the Democrats "will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for forty years" by signing civil rights into law. Leave aside the deep cynicism of this view of racial equality: Gingrich was expressing the Republican belief that health-care reform will be so unpopular that it will reduce the Democrats to minority status for two generations. (In the House debate, Republican after Republican excoriated the Democrats for defying the will of the American people-as if the elections of 2006 and 2008 were inconsequential compared to a couple of last fall's Rasmussen polls on health care.)
But Gingrich's analysis is based on a flawed analogy. Civil rights brought an oppressed minority of Americans closer to equality, and-as Johnson knew-was so hated across the South that it was bound to cost the Democrats the region. Health-care reform, if it does what its supporters claim, will humanize a system in which the vast majority of Americans feel trapped. It will redress social and economic, not racial, injustices. Its breadth and potential effect will resemble those of Social Security and Medicare far more than civil rights-programs that became prime instances of popular activist government and tied substantial segments of the electorate to the Democratic Party for decades.
This prospect might help to explain the fury of House Republicans last night.
