It seems that the passage of the Senate HCR bill has brought about one of the sharpest turns in the prevailing sentiment expressed in the diaries and comments on dKos I have observed in the five years I've been an active user. This sea change began when news of the White House-orchestrated Lieberman appeasement hit the wires and culminated with the passage of the bill. Prior to this turn, the general mood seemed to be that a bill without a public option or at least medicare buy-ins is unacceptable. Now, those people who voice an opinion mostly pronounce themselves strongly in favor of the Senate bill - without a public option or medicare buy-ins, and even with the provisions added to secure Senator Nelson's vote, which among other things significantly undermine Roe v. Wade. Critics seem to have largely fallen silent - in no small part due to exhaustion, no doubt, but likely also because by voicing their opinion they now run the risk of getting flamed as purity trolls. The Jane Hamsher/FDL brouhaha hasn't helped - it has generated a tremendous pressure on people on the left who don't agree with the FDL tactics to either denounce them or remain silent. So here's a poll, because I'd like to know what the sentiment is really like out there is Kosland. Below the flip a few more thoughts on the apparent shift on the board.
The poll options are labeled based on quotes from Jonathan Chait, Paul Krugman, Howard Dean, Jon Walker, and Howard Dean again, in this order.
One thing I'd like to be clear about: what I've called a turn in the prevailing mood on this forum does not necessarily involve a change of any individual Kossack's position. For many people, the public option or the Medicare buy-ins were an important line of defense. That doesn't mean that they won't support the Senate bill now that that defense has been abandoned by the White House and the Senate leadership. There is no contradiction there.
What has changed most noticeably is that the chorus of those whose attitude towards Obama, the administration, and the Democratic Party establishment (or towards a subset thereof) is predominantly affirmative has grown much louder and seems to be drowning out the voices of those who are in opposition to the status quo.
I think the most important reason for this (admittedly subjective) change is that dKos as a community is much closer to the Democratic Party, and identifying much more with its establishment and Obama, than many of the smaller blogs on the left. This is not so much a matter of the spectrum of voices represented on this blog. I think the editors' views, which range from centrist all the way to socialist, are quite representative of the ideological spectrum of dKos - it's a big tent blog. But a certain amount of loyalty to the party, and therefore to its president, are built into the mission and self-identification of this blog. In a moment of true crisis, the prevailing sentiment will always move wherever the party establishment moves. I think we've seen this time and again, although there may not ever have been a clearer example than the outcome of the HCR fight in the Senate.
To put this another way, I think most Kossacks agree that failure for the new Dem majority and the new Dem president is not an option. Therefore, many, many people here are not prepared to accept that the outcome of the Senate process represents a historic failure on the most important policy issue the Dems have had since the Truman administration - health care reform. So they are forced to declare victory and clap harder.