Typical wingnut reaction to last night:
One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi's skill as a legislator. But it's also pretty worrying. Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn't want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don't find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances. Farewell, Social Security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected. If they didn't--if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission--then the legislative lock-in you're counting on wouldn't exist.
Please! Let the Republicans explicitly campaign on eliminating Social Security and Medicare! But Republicans don't make head-on assaults on Medicare of Social Security because they know they'd get crushed if they did. That's why they tried their backdoor attempt to subvert Social Security by privatizing it. Anything more explicit would mean instant electoral death.
Democrats, on the other hand, were explicit with their agenda: They campaigned on a platform of health care reform. The voters responded with two successive wave elections and a landslide White House victory.
14 months later, after hundreds of millions of dollars spent against the reform effort and the never-ending stream of bullshit scare attacks (death panels!), the overall public still didn't buy conservative anti-reform arguments. Indeed, a significant portion of opposition to HCR came from disaffected liberals who wanted more out of our big majorities. For example, look at CNN's latest:
Do you oppose that legislation because you think its approach toward health care is too liberal, or because you think it is not liberal enough?
39 % Favor (from previous question)
43% Oppose, too liberal
13% Oppose, not liberal enough
Sorry, but 43 percent isn't persuading the country that "they didn't want this bill."
So let's recap.
- The American people gave Democrats huge electoral victories, as Democrats explicitly campaigned on health care reform.
- The American people didn't turn against the legislation based on conservative arguments.
- Congress delivered on campaign promises.
- ...
- Tyranny!
Conservatives are funny, funny people. Perhaps a few days in North Korea would teach them what "tyranny" looks like. Hint, it looks nothing like democracy.
Indeed, the problem with our system is actually the tyranny of the MINORITY, and filibuster reform should be key for the Democratic Senate leadership when they lay out the rules for the next Senate in 2011.