I was watching Rachel tonight, as is my practice, and her segment with Ed Rendell got me thinking. One of the things that made us so effective in 2008 was the co-opting of memes that had been Republican for the last 20 year. This isn't to say that they are exclusively Republican concerns, but the concepts of military toughness, fiscal responsibility, and support for business have, let's face it, been effectively monopolized in the American mind by the right. It worked in Ed's state.
Our policy and ideals remained liberal, but rather than couching, say, our desire for withdrawal from Iraq in moral arguments about peace or by attacking American exceptionalism, we adopted those cultural markers that have proven so powerful when used against us. Fiscal responsibility! We're bankrupting ourselves with an unwinnable war. Support our veterans! By not sending them to fight and die for nothing. Demonstrate military strength! But do it through strategy, not brute force.
We can't control what the center and the right care about. The fact is, whether or not we think some ideals in this body politic are silly, they're certainly entrenched. Rather, let's submit our policy arguments based as they pertain to these 'American values'. Rather than try to change people's priorities, lets acknowledge that good governance benefits all of us, and speak directly about the merits of our policies in light of the current cultural landscape, not the one we wish we had.
One value that we are not making any headway on is the Right to Choose. The issue's been stagnant for years on the scales of public opinion. Why then are we consistently losing ground? It's because these issues aren't argued in a vacuum. Simply asked "Abortion: legal or no?", you'll see a slightly favorable split for us. The problem is that the right has a powerful social meme on their side, and we don't. Religion goes a long way, and whatever your personal feelings about a woman's right to control her own body, you might be willing to sacrifice that on the altar of faith. After all, isn't that what Christianity's about? The idea that you subjugate your own feelings on issues to the Christian code? Strong meme, and for too long the right has had a stranglehold on the idea of piety.
Of course, there's another powerful meme the right used to control, and that's the idea of support for small business. Capitalism! Entrepreneurship! Good old fashioned pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps American opportunity! As I watched Rachel talk to Ed about the specific way that this amendment goes about dismantling abortion rights, I saw what I perceived to be a chink in the armor and a vital messaging opportunity: Stupak isn't designed to hurt women, or even to kill the bill. Stupak is designed to cripple the small business competitor in the job market.
As I understand it, anyone who receives federal help to purchase insurance can't purchase coverage for abortion, basically. Well who is getting those Federal credits? Small business owners. The idea is to help them purchase insurance plans for their employees, thus improving overall coverage and making them more competitive. What happens to small businesses if the choice to work for Mom and Pop instead of your local Super-Walmart restricts your access to healthcare? No one ends up wanting to work for Mom and Pop, and the local market run by that scrappy American Entrepreneur dies.
The fact is that this is, or course, an assault on women first and foremost. Next its an assault on the poor. After that, its an assault on Healthcare. But the sad state of affairs is that while many people care about those issues, none of them have the same Pavlovian resonance in the American mind as CAPITALISM. So fine. I'd love to change hearts, but if I can't do that I'll settle for minds.
It's true to say that this bill is kneecapping the competitiveness of small businesses. It's true to say that we're crippling everyday American innovators in the marketplace by preventing them from offering fair compensation to their employees. It's true to say that Stupak isn't just anti-choice: it's anti-competition. So lets's get out there and say it.