Reform Opponents Continue To Oppose Health Care Plan That No One Is Proposing

Republicans be warned.

Not content with employing the tried and true strategy of reductio ad Hitlerum in the health care debate, Republicans have rolled out a new tactic that’s absolutely jaw-dropping. Generally, in a rational debate, two or more sides discuss a problem by examining facts and engaging in empirical analysis that draws upon those facts, with each side explaining why its position is the correct or most logical one. That, in one sentence, is what a debate is.

What the Republicans have been doing in the discussion on health care reform, however, is nothing short of remarkable. In this “debate,” opponents of the health care legislation have been alleging that the government will: establish a eugenics program (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh et al.); set up “death panels” (Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich et. al); and euthanize old people (Senator Chuck Grassley, seemingly every anti-reform idiot who attends those town halls, et. al). These are not reality-defying claims made by marginal figures. They are reality-defying claims made by central figures in the GOP. And they have managed to bog down the discussion by requiring Obama to actually have to say that he’s against government-mandated euthanasia. What a country.

This strategy’s success has been as shocking as its premise. Republicans haven’t just misrepresented or mischaracterized the health care reform legislation, they have accused it of containing provisions for the grossest and most egregious violations of human rights and dignity, including but not limited to eugenics and geriatricide. It’s a straw man on steroids. And it’s working.

It’s working because the Republicans understand—much better than the Democrats—H.L. Mencken’s timeless axiom that no one ever went broke underestimating the American public. Indeed, apparently any counterintuitive, crazy-stupid, bogus horseshit can be fed to the manure-hungry American populace. In holding his town hall meetings in New Hampshire and Montana, Obama did what any rational person would do in the face of such insane accusations: explain his position using facts and logic. Unfortunately, this approach is wholly ineffective in communicating with the American public. George W. Bush understood this, which is why his administration never felt constrained by the inconveniences of reality and got away with all kinds of awful stuff. Bush could always insist that up was actually down, right was actually left, and Saddam was actually Osama. For Christ’s sake, in 2004 the Swiftboaters were able to make John Kerry’s military record a constant topic of discussion—John Kerry, who actually went to Vietnam, unlike a certain nincompoop from Texas who was on “guard” here in the states in case the Viet Cong tried to invade the American south.

Clearly, rational discussion in the health care debate is not an option because the Republicans refuse to engage in it. They have been making a unified effort to avoid discussion of actual issues, and have instead decided to debate reality itself. Their attitude is, if the health care legislation doesn’t contain mandates for eugenics and euthanasia, say it does anyway and repeat it ad nauseum. I mean, how the fuck do you debate that? Your opponent accuses you of advocating Position A, and you try to set him straight and say, “No, I don’t advocate Position A,” but the person says, “Oh, but you do.” Discussion is simply not possible. Case in point: Senator Claire McCaskill’s town hall meeting, where she was so dismayed at the obnoxiousness of the unruly Madisonian faction screaming at her, she asked the crowd, “You don’t trust me?” to which the mob yelled, “No.” And there it is. No matter what McCaskill or anyone else tells these ill-mannered ignoramuses, they’re going to believe what they want. They’re going to believe that the Democrats—who routinely count on the elderly vote—want to kill the same old people they need to get reelected, even though the Dems assure them that’s not true. They’re going to believe that Obama is not a citizen, even though his Hawaiian birth certificate has been provided and authenticated, complete with contemporaneous newspaper announcements about it. They’re like the handful of leftwing morons who think Bush either knew about or orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. No matter what you say, no matter what evidence you provide, they’re going to believe whatever the hell they want.

- Max