I was struck by something in this article in Politico describing the typical GOP reaction to the outrageous KKK like conduct of the Tea-bagger protesters to the passage of HCR.
"[shouting 'nigger'] at civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), spit[ting] on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and hurl[ing] an anti-gay insult at Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)."
But Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) said that the outbursts were "a reflection of widespread passion and anger that exists throughout the country." And while he said that such behavior "is never helpful," he also suggested that much of the anger stems from the feeling — amplified exponentially by the passage of health care reform — that the country is slipping out of his party’s hands.
Is America really "slipping out of their hands" and what does this mean?
"Members of Congress are just people," he said. "We just feel like they are rapidly taking this country in a wrong direction, with no interest in what anyone else thinks and with a taunting arrogance unlike anything I have ever seen. So, yes, people will say things they shouldn’t say or do things they shouldn’t do, but that is reflective of the intensity we feel about how bad the majority is."
His "feelings" describe PERFECTLY my exact feelings during the entire Bush presidency: that the nation was on a terribly wrong and disastrous track and that the President and his party couldn't care less what the rest of America thought about it!
"Unlike anything he's ever seen?" Did anybody else flash back to memories of the Bush administration when they saw that line? Perhaps Dick Cheney's famous "So what" response to being told that a majority of the American people opposed his policies?
But, like Digby, it never occurred to me that it was somehow "undemocratic" to vote in policies I didn't like:
I'm sorry these people are so unhappy. I know how they feel. I used to hate it when the Republicans passed some disgusting initiative that went against everything I believe in. But I don't recall having a mental breakdown at the notion that they could do it even though I didn't want them to. The idea that they were obligated to do my bidding didn't actually cross my mind.
So, dealing in the world of reality, how are we REALLY "taking the country away from them?"
Certainly it isn't the bill itself. This bill is something Nixon would have loved and could have supported:
It was back in 1971 and President Nixon was concerned that he would once again have to face a Kennedy in the next year's election -- in this case a Kennedy with a proposal to extend health care to all Americans. Feeling the need to offer an alternative, Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.
At first, Kennedy rejected Nixon's proposal as nothing more than a bonanza for the insurance industry that would create a two-class system of health care in America. But after Nixon won reelection, Kennedy began a series of secret negotiations with the White House that almost led to a public agreement. In the end, Nixon backed out after receiving pressure from small-business owners and the American Medical Association. And Kennedy himself decided to back off after receiving heavy pressure from labor leaders, who urged him to hold out for a single-payer system once Democrats recaptured the White House in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
But it should tell you how far the country has moved to the right that the various proposals put forward by a Democratic president and Congress bear an eerie resemblance to the deal cooked up between Kennedy and Nixon, while Nixon's political heirs vilify it as nothing less than a socialist plot. [...]
So, the reality is that we are not yet "taking the country away from them." I'd LOVE to believe that European style social democracy is in the offing because of the HCR bill, but I'm not delusional.
So, what then IS the reality underlying the "taking the country away from us" feeling on the right? Is it merely the prevailing Republican belief that:
"they represent a majority and they do: of white people.Obama only has a 35% approval rating among whites, (which is down from the 42% of whites that helped elect him.) If you have white supremacist tendencies, you're going to believe that he isn't representing a majority of Real Americans.
Indeed, it explains why Democratic presidents in general can't ever be legitimate. They are, after all, always elected with the support of African Americans, Hispanics and feminist women. That wasn't what the founders intended, now was it?
It is necessary for Progressives to openly attack these insidious positions because we can never win if we simply take for granted that everybody accepts the basic concept of Democracy -- one man, one woman, one vote, that all voters are equally entitled to held determine democratic elections.
Conservatives openly disagree with the basic tenets of Democracy and advocate "purging" those they deem unworthy of the franchise. This tendency goes back to the founding of the Republic and was the position of the Federalists. That's why the Senate was created in the first place (to dilute too much "democracy") and why originally Senators were elected by the State legislature of each state, not the voters (keep it in "safe" hands). By "safe" they didn't mean just white men, but RICH White men.
THAT racism and hatred of democracy more than anything is what underlies the rage of the right. "We" ARE taking "America away from them" if what they mean is non-whites taking a share of political power and making decisions that a majority of white people don't agree with.
That ugly reality has yet to be dealt with.