Amazingly, after a year of negotiations and dozens of concessions to Republicans and Democratic moderates, the Republican Obfuscation Machine continues to churn out the same old slogans opposing President Obama's health care reforms.
The main one is still "government takeover of health care," with "ram it down our throats" and "scrap this bill and start over" coming in a close second and third. Of course, it can't hurt to throw in the words "trillion-dollar bill" and "2700 page bill", whenever possible.
The so-called debate over health care reform has never really been between President Obama and the Republican Party. It's been between President Obama and Frank Luntz.
The Republican Party has negotiated in bad faith from the very beginning. They never intended to address health care reform in any serious way.
It never mattered in the slightest to the Republican Party whether any of Obama's - or even their own - proposals would begin to fix our health care system or not. They couldn't have cared less. Their sole purpose in opposing health care reform was to hand the president a crushing political defeat.
So, they turned to Frank Luntz and tasked him with concocting language that would most effectively turn the public against Obama's proposals.
In Frank Luntz, the Republican Party has found its very own Joseph Goebbels.
Goebbels said:
The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.
From the beginning, the Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media relentlessly repeated Luntz's language, drilling it deeper and deeper into the public consciousness, until, lo and behold, public opinion began to turn against Mr. Obama's plan.
The Republicans offer nothing, not anything, substantive beyond the language itself. There are no proposals, ideas or even a coherent philosophy underlying the language. It is pure propaganda.
I think on some level the public understands this. It helps explain the Republican Party's incredibly low approval ratings. But the Republican Party does not care about its approval ratings, or about our health care system, or about the economy, or about individuals who go bankrupt because they do not have insurance, or anything else.
They care about one thing and one thing only: defeating President Obama. Making health care reform his "Waterloo," as Senator Jim DeMint said.
So, the fate of millions of citizens, millions of businesses, hospitals and doctors, the health of our citizens and the stability of the entire economy hinges on this question: who will win, the President or the pollster?
If the pollster wins, we are in serious trouble. A victory for the pollster would lead to even more disturbing questions.
Is it important, or even desirable, for a political party to try to implement solutions to the nation's problems? Or is it only necessary to "project" certain beliefs and convictions so that you can defeat legislation or win an election?
Do ideas and policies matter at all anymore? Or has politics simply become about taking and holding onto power by whatever means necessary?
The Republican Party loves to spread fear about the impending "totalitarianism" that Obama represents. The opposite - of course - is true. The Republicans are the New Totalitarians.
Joseph Goebbels also said this:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Sound familiar?
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