Many of us made personal sacrifices to work hard for your election. I almost let my roof cave in because all my energy and time was going into your campaign. We believed what you told us. We hoped again. You said we would change the world. We thought you would make the critical difference.
Now you are in office, surrounded by the wealthy and powerful, and many of your supporters are in despair. You are breaking our hearts. Change You Can Believe In sometimes seems to have morphed into Bush III. Do you have any idea how much your people need that change you promised, right now? Do you remember us? About one in five Americans is unemployed or only able to find part time work now, and even more will lose their jobs over the next few years. We won’t count the people freezing under bridges. Unemployment is about to run out again, as winter closes in. Even those who still have jobs, for the time being, know that they can lose them, with their health insurance, at any time.
Compromising on means is not at all the same thing as compromising principles. Teddy Kennedy may not have always gotten everything The People needed, but he never gave up on anything without first giving it his absolute best effort. He never gave up on our interests, even temporarily, without a fierce fight. Caving in, in advance, every time you think you might meet resistance is not compromise; it is only spinelessness. Waiting for someone else to work out a solution and hand it to you may seem easy (though it’s very painful and not at all easy for us, your people), but it is not. It is only delay and loss and ugly agitation. Teddy was the Voice for the Voiceless. Are you that voice now, or are we just an annoyance to you?
We need FDR today, not Hoover. We need LBJ, minus Viet Nam/Afghanistan. The right wing fought Social Security tooth and nail, fought Medicare tooth and nail, fought Civil Rights tooth and nail, fought (and recently crippled) market regulation tooth and nail. They are still trying to dismantle all of them. They will never support reform, however much you sacrifice The People’s interests to them. Their real interests are clearly opposed to our needs. They profit from a system that hurts most of us. Short-term, and they do only think short-term, this really is that rare zero-sum game. They will never support you, no matter how much you cater to them. No reforms have ever been achieved easily, with the entrenched interests being nice to you. FDR had to fight hard for The People, and he did. LBJ had to fight hard for The People, and he did. Will you?
Real people are suffering and dying every day for lack of basic medical care. I know too many people with life threatening conditions, who for the time being still have what passes for good health insurance, and they are terrified of what may happen to them in our merciless society. They aren’t even "the least of these," but our country doesn’t care for them. Aren’t we flunking our highest moral test there? Will you help them? Signing any old health care bill, fake reform, could easily make things much worse for real people. Everyone will notice if it’s a sellout, believe me. You would make the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and the right wing very happy, though. The first two will profit from our suffering, and the right wing will display it as proof that government never works.
We urgently need you to LEAD on health care, strongly and clearly. Health care is the key to everything else you will be able to do. But you can’t do it without committing to some content, without finally being FOR something concrete and specific. You need to be FOR health care simply because it is good and right. As the motivational posters say about goals, if you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t get there. Everyone knows that the devil is in the details. Speaking as someone who’s been out on street corners trying to do it, you cannot sell the fuzz and fog you and OFA have been putting out. It comes across as a con job. I have been able to swing skeptical people with the House bill’s provisions and the House’s hearing results, though.
70% to 80% of the population still wants something like Medicare For All, and people still like you personally, but you are rapidly losing the trust people had in you at your inauguration. Charm is not enough. If you care, you will have to put up a fierce fight for change. You will have to take vigorous action and take personal risks if you really intend to protect The People. Remember Yes, We Can? If you care, you need to stop saying, No We Can’t, without having even specified a plan. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. You won’t get decent health care handed to you on a silver platter. You’ll have to commit to it and fight for it. Please tell us that isn’t too much trouble for you.
You don’t seem to care. I’m sorry, but you don’t even seem to be paying attention. If you want real health care for your people, you cannot continue to waffle and evade as you have been doing. People will follow a leader - they won’t follow a follower. So far, you have only been following, and reacting, and using the far right’s framing of the issues. To win, you will have to be a strong advocate for The People’s needs. Nothing is ever won by people who are only on the defensive. If you care, if you are FOR anything, that is what you need to be talking about. Only that. You can’t just keep repeating the far right’s talking points, unless that’s what you intend to sell. "No, we won’t kill Grandma," is a ridiculous response. Try something like, "We’ll give Grandma even better care," instead.
There is a difference between right and wrong, isn’t there? Temporizing with evil doesn’t change evil, it only corrupts you. Have you read Goethe’s Faust lately? In practical terms, too, people will not follow a leader who’s too wimpy to stand up to the bad guys for them. Someone who caves in every time some group is nasty to him is not the leader so many people voted for. Losing a battle is not the worst thing. People will still follow a happy warrior for The Good, if he fights hard, picks himself up, and goes on. Backing down doesn’t have the same effect. Determination and persistence are necessary, if you care about your people. Lobbyists for the powerful are right there with you, and The People must seem invisible now. It must be easy to forget about us. Please don’t.
Your people are in pain and anguish today, more of them every day. What they’re dealing with is even worse than You’re On Your Own. Any grudging help that The People get is minimal, while they see Wall Street using their tax money to give out huge bonuses and to party. After causing our economic disaster, Wall Street is once again repackaging bad mortgages, and the old ones have still not been dealt with. So much for reform. Bubbles are not green shoots. Trickle Down has never trickled down to the consumers - who are 70% of the economy. Odd, that fact always seems to be ignored in policy decisions. But then, Wall Street seems to be deciding national policy, and they are focused only on their own short-term profits, on the next day’s gamble.
Meanwhile, I take calls from hungry people, who will remain hungry even after they get everything that’s available. Huge amounts of money went out quickly and unconditionally for Wall Street, and Wall Street is rolling in our money again. Smaller amounts for life support for The People have come out slowly and stingily, with many conditions and an incredible paperwork burden. The Emergency Food funds are only now reaching real people. How long should people go hungry? I’m glad you can go golfing, but please also consider that, at the same time, too many real Americans are literally starving.
Tactically, what on earth are you thinking? You, of all people, with all your skills. I grew up in a political family, hearing about liberal issues and gritty tactics, and many of the things you’ve been saying lately have stunned me and made my blood run cold. Why is this happening?
The main explanations going around seem to be: [1] You have a very clever secret plan that will suddenly yield results which are the opposite of what we see happening (many many people really do love you and can’t believe that you would betray them or that you could fail). In other words, what we are seeing can’t really be happening; [2] Your loyalty is actually to the Democratic Party as a club of elected members, with no principles and no obligations to the public, and you think that a failed plan will get you lots of campaign contributions for your members; and [3] Clumsy as your handling of health care has been, you do want the right thing, and have just misjudged how to manage it. Things have been busy. So we should help you.
I assumed [1] for quite a while, but it pretty clearly isn’t going to happen. You’re losing public support and trust, even though The People want what you campaigned on, and you still haven’t been willing to commit to anything solid.
Most of the evidence supports [2], and comes mainly from four alarming actions: (a) You specifically dismissed single payer from the beginning, although it would be most efficient and although most people wanted it, without getting anything for the public in return for that concession to the right wing. That immediately moved the Overton Window, the range of possibilities, to the right, and left no compromises possible, except failure. This is also known as negotiating against oneself and it never leads to good outcomes; (b) You made a secret deal with Big Pharma to protect its profits, and again, got much less for the public than you could have; (c) You’ve treated opponents of reform with kid gloves and flattery, which isn’t simply your overall style, because your people have been willing to pressure and threaten progressives who are trying to get what you say you want; and (d) Although the Republicans have clearly and publicly said that they will not ever support meaningful reform, you keep insisting that any bill has to be bipartisan. That means that a handful of right-wingers override the majority that the public voted for, and that any bill would only protect large corporations’ profits, not The People.
Against all evidence, for purely emotional reasons, I’m still hanging onto [3]. I’m assuming that you want all Americans to have good health care - which is not at all the same thing as "affordable" insurance. So I have some practical suggestions.
Suggestion One: Accept and work with reality. Not everyone has the same values or worldview as we do. The old Republican Party is long gone. (a) Even the most respectable segment of the present right wing does not believe in the Common Good, and does not believe in any obligation to help others. Their mental universe is zero-sum, so that anything for others is perceived as a loss for them. It’s hard to accept, but they really do mean exactly what they say. (b) Another large and alarming segment of the opposition is made up of bullies, a group I got to know fairly well during my misspent youth as a cop. They will not respond positively to generosity, since they see it as weakness and as a reason to become more aggressive. Think sharks tasting blood in the water. This is a very foreign concept, I know, but it is real. This group behaves much better, and seems happier, if the boundaries are clear from the beginning. Waffling and backing down, as you have been, drives them into a real frenzy. Firm strength calms them. (c) Some of the noisiest opponents are clearly racist and generally paranoid. They are afraid of change and terrified of The Other. Delay and indecision contribute to working them up, too, which is a very bad thing for our society. A quick firm change would be over and would then let them start to adjust to it. They don’t handle uncertainty well at all. The August recess was a very bad thing to agree to, for this reason. My stomach actually turned over when I heard you say, "That’s OK" about it. You will not be able to persuade any of these groups, so write them off and move on. Say so publicly, pleasantly and regretfully, but firmly. You tried to work with them, but they weren’t willing.
Suggestion Two: Stop being so afraid to offend right-wingers. They’re a noisy but very small group, and you’re turning everyone else off by focusing on them. Write them off, pleasantly and regretfully, but firmly. By being so cautious in your primetime town hall, you came across too often as sneaky and evasive, as if you had a secret plan that we wouldn’t like. When you are so concerned about fiscal conservatives that you tell a town hall audience that you’ll pay for health care reform with savings from Medicare, you’ve lost track of how the majority will react. How could you not realize that comment would terrify people who are on or close to eligibility for Medicare? I understand that you were talking about Medicare Advantage, but you have to think about the impact of what you are saying on your whole audience.
Suggestion Three: "Public option" has been pretty thoroughly damaged the last few months. Nobody, including your supporters, knows what you mean by it, anyway. You need to reframe the discussion. Since everybody has been more or less defending Medicare lately, even the right-wingers who actually want to get rid of it, one strong possibility would be to call for STRENGTHENING MEDICARE BY LETTING YOUNGER PEOPLE BUY INTO IT. You would yank the rug right out from under the feet of many of your opponents. It would also use an existing system rather than requiring the creation of a new one – much simpler, much less risky. It could help solve the Medicare financing problem. It would be easy to defend; just keep saying - "We’re going to strengthen Medicare" by giving people Another Choice: (1) Strengthen Medicare, (2) More choice, (3) Cost less per person. Medicare already covers the oldest and sickest people in the country. If you add younger people, the cost per person comes way down. When you say that, even skeptics give you the Oooh look.
Suggestion Four: Decide what you are FOR, what that means, and then be clear about it. When you were asked about rationing end-of-life care, you didn’t directly answer it, and you looked guilty. It’s important to be prepared. You could have just said, "It’s one thing if a procedure will actually help a patient, but sometimes they don’t actually help, and then patients can be put through invasive, painful, unnecessary indignities, so people should have a choice." Stay on-message. "They should have the choice." Prepare your responses and stay on message, even if that doesn’t answer the exact question asked at that moment. Repeating the message of the day does work. If necessary, work up new responses off-camera first.
Suggestion Five: Use your bully pulpit and other resources to move reform along expeditiously. Your people are suffering right now, and the opposition can’t get any nastier. Have you heard what the opposition is saying about you? That won’t settle down until this is done, and the country needs them to settle down, so get it over with. Waiting will only mean more ugliness.