Gnossis, bi-partisanship and the blindingly obvious

By Dave Anderson

The New York Times is reporting the obvious, Republicans are not interested in any change in the healthcare system that is not exclusively tax cuts aimed at the top 1% of the population or involves bombing 3rd World countries. The Obama Administration is beginning to realize this reality. I am curious as to what took them so long to realize the blindingly obvious.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

I am not a big fan of political gnossis or 11 dimensional chess when far simpler explanations abound. I, and most other liberal analysts, have long thought that healthcare is a high salience issue on the dominant ideological divide in the country. A successful healthcare bill followed up by effective implementation means the Democrats will have built a significant electoral thumb on the scale for the next generation or more.

A defeated or unpopular bill that does nothing allows the Republicans to have a good chance of significant gains in 2010 and a legitimate shot at 2012 of taking at least the House and the White House if not the trifecta. Therefore, I and many others believe, that bi-partisanship and a bill that did anything vaguely threatening to any pre-exisisting interest was impossible. Oxes will be gored in healthcare reform if it is to be effective. And conservatives are defending the current power structure as that is what conservatives do.

We have had plenty of evidence to make the conclusion that whatever emerges or not emerges will be due solely to Democratic machinations and pressure points. We have the stated word of Sen. Grassley that he would only vote for a bill if most of the Republican caucus would vote for it as well. We have the Senate Republican leadership saying hell no. We have the example of the stimulus fight where concessions were made and no Republican House votes were gained despite weakening the bill to woo conservative votes. It has been fairly clear that the Republican Party is actually acting as a reasonably effective opposition party that realizes we are moving towards quasi-parliamentarianism government where the opposition�s greatest role is to provide anti-douchebaggery incentives for the majority party by being ready to gain whenever the majority party screws up.

We have the experience of 1993/1994. We saw William Kristol lay out the political argument that Republicans had nothing to gain by being good faith negoatiating partners. We saw Republican Senate Minority Leader Dole sponsor two bills that were half decent compromises, and then vote against them (this is one of the reasons why I am very skeptical of Republican support for Wyden-Bennett). We have both recent experience, recent statements and a relatively recent analogous situation where this behavioral pattern has occurred to be able to predict that healthcare is a highly divisive issue on clearly identified partisan and ideological lines. It is not 11 dimensional chess or political gnossis to believe that Republicans are not interested in healthcare as a positive issue, so it should not be a surprise that there is no chance of cooperation with a significant faction of the Republican Party.

Let�s trust our eyes and the record before offering complex and self-justifying rationalizations of unproductive Democratic behavioral patterns. The Obama Administration may have thought that this time was different; it seldom is, and when it is not, we get bubbles and a nasty hang-over.