Yes, it is easy to get discouraged when one sees such irrational push back against what should be an easy to understand, needed push to reform a deeply flawed health care system.
Some health care reform advocates are getting a bit unnerved at some of the loud protests that they are seeing at town halls; e. g., Nate Silver says:
Occam's Razor would suggest that a decent number of Congressmen will be scared sh*tless after seeing some number of their constituents yell at them. Yes, there might be a few who feel greater solidarity for the cause in the face of all the misinformation and screaming. Yes, there might be a few who feel repelled by the incivility of the protests. Yes, there might be a few who recognize that, even if the health care bill is fairly unpopular at the time of its passage, a failure to pass a bill would be worse for both political and policy reasons.
But Congressmen are, by and large, not the deepest people on earth. They like being popular. They don't like getting yelled at. They don't like taking risks. I still think health care reform is more likely than not.
But maybe, just maybe, President Obama knows what he is doing?
Yes, we've seen these sort of scenes on television:
And yes, it is easy to get angry thinking: "our health care reform is going to get up because some of our Representatives and Senators are too chicken to stand up to these morons and too unethical to stand up to the health care insurance industry".
But you know what? We've seen this degree ugliness before...not just during the anti-integration protest days but also much more recently....
Now let me ask you: how did this work out for them? I wonder what the idiot with the "Little Hussein" monkey was doing election night?
I am not saying that we ought not to fight and fight hard; the big money interests will not give up easily.
For the record I've given money for ads, visited my Representatives office and will write a letter to the editor.
But don't despair...we've seen public temper tantrums like this before..
remember that the President is smarter and more savvy than our opponents.
That is one reason that they are so afraid.