I'd like you to all put your heads together right over here. Bill opponents to the left of me, bill proponents to the right. This isn't going to hurt much, the Three Stooges used to do it all the time, and they did fine. OK, on the count of three, I'm going to put my hands behind your respective heads and force them together loudly enough to make an audible sound. One ... two ...
Three.
I'm sorry, that was a little stronger than I intended. I guess that I was a little more worked up than I thought. You've been knocked out for a while, so just take it easy. OK, bill proponents, you seem a little more awake right now, so bill opponents, you just rest there for a little while while I talk to the proponents.
OK, proponents? You feeling OK? Good. I have one simple message for you: learn to negotiate.
You seem to think that we have the solemn responsibility to issue a pronouncement, for the benefit of all of History, as to whether this is a good bill or not. Understand something: we're not really doing the policy thing here. Many of us would like to, and we have some nice discussions about it, but our role in the process of passing bill is not really so much determining what the bill's content will be. We're part of a political movement here, we're taken as a sign of progressive opinion, and our major role right now is to reflect progressive opinion -- or what we want others to think that progressive opinion is.
You think that we don't really have a policy problem with this bill? Great! You may be right. My own feeling is that we have more of one than you think and less than your opponents think, but that the bill is improvable over time. But, you know what? That doesn't matter right now. Because we do have a political problem: two of them, in fact.
The first political problem is that moderate to conservative Democrats (and once-Dems like Joe the Mamzer) want to destroy the Left of the party for its own sake. They are driven both by seeking political advantage and by, frankly, hatred. They are now in the process of overreaching, and that can be to our advantage, but the fact is that they will not be happy unless we are unhappy. That sounds petty and juvenile -- because it is -- but that's where we stand. If we talk about how good the bill is, that is a signal to them to make it worse.
This is not a joke on my part. Their goal in this process, for some of them even more so than the final content of the bill, is to make this bill something that will make us unhappy. So, for God's sake: BE UNHAPPY. That is the only way to get the further weakening of the bill to stop. There will be time to mend fences within the party with the bill being as bad as it is, but for policy reasons we would like the worsening of the bill to stop now. So: muster up some contempt for the bill. Say that it verges on unacceptability even if you don't mean it. Otherwise, it may get so unacceptable that even you will reject it. Learn to negotiate. Saying "yes, this is acceptable" before the end of the process is begging to get rolled.
The second political problem is that a lot of people believe that the bill sucks and are honestly demotivated, which does create a problem for us in 2010, 2012, and beyond. You cannot solve that problem right now. Just stop trying so hard. We're going to have a deep crater in progressive opinion -- and then we're going to dig out of it. But even when that time comes, you are not going to browbeat people into giving up their beliefs. And, even if you do, changing opinions on Daily Kos does not change them in the broader public. It's like trying to eliminate a boulder by erasing its shadow. That will come later, after time passes, after tempers cool -- and it won't happen until tempers cool. Right now, your motive is to just get something passed. People who are screaming about the bill, believe it or not, are paradoxically making the bill more likely to pass -- over their objections. You, as noted above, are paradoxically not. You will be very important to the healing process once a bill is passed, when it comes to proposing new legislation that can improve things, but now is not your moment.
Real Democrats out there, who have never heard of DKos, will be angry about this bill. You will only win them over, and back into active participation in the party, by respecting their concerns. We need to solve a political problem here. I've suggested that Lieberman has done us a favor by giving us a villain, someone to blame personally for the bill's deficiencies. I hope that you'll start thinking along those lines, about how to run a unifying political campaign, rather than trying to split the stone-like shell of progressive pessimism and luxuriating in irony.
There is some possibility that progressive legislators, emboldened by progressive activists, will prevent even a bill that you see as good from passing. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. But, more likely, Obama and Rahm will cross that bridge before us -- by buying those lawmakers off with progressive goodies to compensate for their having to take such a tough vote. That is good! That's what negotiation gets you.
OK, bill opponents. Sorry that you were a little slower coming to. Now it's time to talk to you. You get two messages. The first message for you is: have some humility.
I'm a policy wonk. I love this stuff. But I will, quietly, admit this to you: I can't predict the future either. It sure does make sense to me that voters will react badly to universal mandates without a public option -- but who they blame for them is a matter for politics, which is somewhat under our control. You're correct that the party is potentially in deep gravy over this and you are channeling public resentment that we would do well to notice. But neither you nor they out beyond the blogosphere really know how some of the worse aspects of this bill will play out. Neither you nor they know what improving legislation we might be able to slip into future "must-pass" bills, that might for example cut into insurance company windfalls. We control Congress and the Presidency, folks! We have more ability than you might think to take some sneaky steps to right things.
Having some humility means that you have to avoid despair. Look, if you know that you're about to die, then you're excused for getting a bit fatalistic. But if you only know that you're going to be hurt, and that there's a good chance that you won't die, then fatalism is counterproductive. It precludes planning. It makes it less likely that you'll be able to cope with your environment.
People who believe that this is the end of progressivism, the end of the Democratic Party, are just being silly. History continues to be written; we progressives didn't die off in 1980 or 1988 or 1994 or 2002 and we won't die off here either. Sounding the alarm is good, but the future will bring opportunities as well as travails -- and we have to be positioned to take care of them. One thing that I tend to do is to trust the good will of our better leaders. We elected them to lead. They know things, they have insider information, to which we don't have access. Surreptitious promises may have been made to them. So, if Tom Harkin and Bernie Sanders tell me not to despair, then I am not going to fucking despair. I suggest that you do the same.
The other message is: "Direct your anger."
A 59-foot ladder cannot span a 60-foot chasm. It's not because the people who are holding the ladder don't want it enough. It's physics. Wanting to cross the chasm is irrelevant if the ladder's not long enough.
Here, our ladder isn't long enough. It was never going to be -- we now know, given that Lieberman has essentially said that he was going to do what he had to do to thwart the bill. We didn't have 60 Senators, we had 59 Senators and a wart.
So who do we get mad at for that? I ask you too, now, to be strategic. We are more likely to get better health care if we direct our anger at the people who are thwarting it than if we direct it at the people who are failing to deliver it.
I don't care whether you believe that this is the Democrats' fault. I ask you, for the sake of people who might be helped by a better bill if we pick up a seat or two in the Senate in 2010, to blame the Republicans and Lieberman for this.
Yes, we're all sad that the Democrats are not stronger. But blaming the Democrats only ensures a Congress that is less likely to pass a bill in the future. So, as a political matter, Blame Joe and the Party of No.
If we pick up one seat in the Senate, we don't need Lieberman. Two, and we don't need Nelson. Three, and we don't need Lincoln. If you believe that this bill should be better, then work to build a Congress that will pass the bill that you want to see.
As you're often inclined to point out, lives depend on this.
Now, a final word to both of you.
You're on the same side. Seriously. I'm not just singing kumbaya. You are.
There are reasons to support this bill and reasons to oppose it. But there are no reasons not to want it to be a better bill than it is -- which means that we have to win the political fight that takes place not just in Congress but in the hearts and minds of the American people.
In that fight, at least when emotions cool, we are on the same side. Let's act like it we realize that.