What happens if we lose?
I've been asking myself this question quite a bit of late. Let's be honest with each other: victory is far from a forgone conclusion. Our fortunes wobble daily, hourly.
And the answer that keeps popping up in the window of my little Magic 8-Ball is "You really don't want to know."
The costs of not reforming health care are mammoth by themselves, and most of you know very well what they are. But I would argue that the collateral damage of defeat on health care may be far greater than X more years without health care reform.
Let me explain.
I'm only 41 years old, but I have never in my life seen American politics this base, or sleazy, or mean, or dishonest.
I have never seen big business, the Republican Party, and the media collude so brazenly to deceive the American public.
I have never seen anything akin to the insurance lobby's shameless fearbaiting of elderly, low income, and low information voters.
I have never seen anything as cynical as Big Insurance's effort to enlist in their fight against health care reform the very same people who stand to benefit the most from health care reform.
I have never seen something as insidiously well coordinated as the efforts put forth by the enemies of health care reform to tap into and exploit racist undercurrents in this country.
I have never seen the Republican Party this keen to divide. To foment schism and paranoia and even hatred.
What's worse, I have never seen a majority party in such a defensive stance. I never imagined that Barack Obama would, with his eyes wide open, continue to champion a "bipartisan" approach to negotiation despite the fact that it offers less than no benefit.
Which brings me to my point: God help us if they succeed.
If the enemies of health care reform succeed by poisoning the well of debate and democracy, then the enemies of the entire progressive agenda will adopt the health care playbook, and we can look forward to nothing but more of the same. And how many fledgling progressives will be sent into retreat and cynicism by the realization that the only progress and change and reform that is possible is the progress and change and reform that can pass through the needle-eye of the corporatocracy? I cannot imagine.
Do not expect the media to ride to the rescue. This is not about truth for the media. It's about sensation. They have the taste of chum.
You have not seen a lot of me here lately, but I am not on the sidelines. The purpose of this diary is to hopefully awaken a person or two to the unthinkable consequences of defeat on health care, and to stimulate thought and discussion about how we insist to our elected representatives that they get off the defensive. When our president and our congresspeople are in town hall meetings swatting down apocrypha, we are on the defensive, and when we are on the defensive, we are losing.
We can't lose. You can hardly imagine what this country will look like a year from now if that happens.