In recent days there has been quite a bit of media coverage, including a few diaries on DailyKos (see here and here for today’s most prominent offerings) on the topic of the Senate’s rush to push a mystery health care bill through the Senate virtually sight-unseen. And we all know what that means. This piece of legislation is undoubtedly very, very bad. And we also know who gets hurt when legislation is so bad it has to be kept secret. Us. Our families, friends, coworkers, etc.
But it looks like Majority Leader McConnell will get away with this underhanded strategy. Why? Democrats in the Senate are essentially powerless to do more than make a little noise - although that might serve to help purge GOPers in 2018. More importantly, we, the so-called resistance aren’t doing our part. As Paul Waldman writes in The Washington Post:
… while the Democrats can throw up some procedural roadblocks once the bill actually emerges, right now the biggest onus is on grassroots activists to ramp up pressure on the Republican senators who might be persuaded to vote against the bill. And that’s the biggest problem at the moment: the grassroots pressure on Congress has dissipated from where it was when the House bill was first proposed.
Members’ offices aren’t being flooded with the same volume of calls they were a couple of months ago, which means they may feel like they can get away with voting for something as damaging as this bill. If they’re going to be persuaded otherwise, they need to be shown that there will be a high price to pay. Their Democratic colleagues can’t convince them of that; only citizens can.
I know that it’s tempting to take one’s focus off health care; RussiaGate, for instance, is eating up time and energy — and it’s far from a shiny thing meant to distract. It’s the real deal too. There are many legitimate avenues for resistance — Trump and the GOP Congress are just that bad for children and other living things — but doesn’t defending healthcare take pride of place since it’s the most imminent, a bona fide disaster facing so many of us? Waldman suggests what we stand to lose, both politically and morally:
Stopping this bill is a practical challenge that must be undertaken on a very short timeline — McConnell is hoping to have his secret bill passed before July 4th. It doesn’t matter whether anyone looks heroic fighting it or alienates Democratic primary voters; if the bill passes, it will be a failure on the part of every Democrat, politician or activist. There’s no moral victory to be found in a noble defeat here. Lives are literally at stake.
I’ve seen exhortations here on DailyKos to keep the pressure up on our Democratic Senators — tell them how much we need them to fight to the last ditch. And that’s true. And important. Do it.
But we’ve got to contact Republicans as well — especially those who might be inclined to waver in the wake of The Donald’s trash talk about the House bill today — there’s nothing like being marooned at sea by your own leadership after all, and the Orange Menace put Republicans on notice that they can’t count on him for cover. However, if your Republican Senator is one of the standard issue Republican lickspittles, he or she needs to hear from you too. We need to remind them that there’s a righteous revolution taking shape out in constituentland; if they ignore us, there will sooner or later be hob to pay.
Go ahead, remember give ‘em Hell, Harry Truman, and get back to giving ‘em Hell!