Don't Freak Out Anyway

I was wrong about the Obama administration being eggheaded Jedis of the nth degree. They placed too much faith in the Grassley-Baucus negotiations, and too little faith in their own base, and that's where they got in trouble. I placed too much faith in them. They weren't that smart or that wise, but this time it worked out for them.

What were they smoking!?

Wrong as I was, the improved prognosis for reform is unchanged. Stirring up the Left netroots and getting GOP leadership to admit that there's no deal changes the entire dynamic. The GOP's PR offensive was at its shrillest when no one was looking and no one was cutting any real deals in Congress. That kind of wave is high amplitude, but low frequency. They put all their energies towards sinking the effort in August, and now they will struggle to keep up that level of panic. Now only 21 percent of the public has any trust in them as health reformers, and many see them as liars and fearmongers. They have said themselves that this is about politics, not compromise.

After so much rancor on all sides, the public is now watching this debate with a level of critical thinking and intensity I've never seen.

This is far from over, but we're closer than ever to a decent set of reforms that put the country in the right direction. Let's hope they play a smart game in the weeks and months between now and a bill on the President's desk.

Health Reformers: Don't Freak Out!

... don't do it!

Everywhere I turn on the left side of the blogosphere I hear cries of betrayal, disillusionment, anger and frustration with the health reform process. Everywhere on the right I hear triumphalism, and a cloying sense that defeating this initiative is both possible, and the key to their rightful, unapologetic return next year.

We know that both sides hold few traits in common. One thing I think they share is the reading of statements and the events that surround them at face value, and on an ever-shortening time horizon.

But take a step back and ask yourself:

• Does it really make sense for the president to just plain give up on central elements of policy because of bad vibes coming from congressional districts? Without any indication of a good faith effort from the other side?
  
• Did it really make sense for the Senate Finance committee to take end-of-life language out of their bill because of some irrational agitation?
• Are these guys really so cravenly stupid as to be so subject to shifts in media coverage and public opinion?

I'd bet my IRA that the answer's no to all three. The name of the game is surviving an August recess where all the cards are stacked against them. Reformers, take heart of the facts on your side, and don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when you don't have to.

Consider these truths:

• The 'public option' is alive and well in three House committees, and one Senate committee. All the capitulation is contained in one fifth of the legislative effort. You're still batting .800
• The end-of-life language was taken out of the Senate Finance bill... that's it. Once the whole matter cools down, I can guarantee that it'll end up in the bill that comes out of conference committee.
• The House and Senate are dominated by Democrats, and the leadership in both chambers is on board with the left-leaning approaches. They get to decide who goes to committee to negotiate a final bill, and they place the pressure on members to hold the party line.

Consider this possibility:

Why in hell would the president and the senate give up the farm when they're not even in session, and knowing that they'd never get anything out of the deal? My view is that they've calculated a decent win-win proposition.

The best-case scenario is that the opposition overplays their hand, showing that there is not deal on Earth or in Heaven that would satisfy them, despite widespread public demand for one. The liberal base is enraged by all of this, and puts immense pressure on the handful of senators holding this thing up. When the legislation goes to conference committee, and the GOP has nothing, they'll be left with an unpopular opposing view and nothing else.

The worst-case scenario is that the opposition galvanizes around defeat, and liberal activists cower in submission, or make non-negotiable claims, all the while knowing that their entire political ascendancy depends on passing something, anything, so long as it works. For that, they certainly have the votes, and a chance to fight another day. The softer message works to lower expectations for activists and the public-- a tactic that the Bush administration was masterful at pulling off.

In a monologue, Jon Stewart asked whether the Obama administration was staffed by a bunch of Jedis who were ten steps ahead of everyone else. I have to assume this is true because the alternative seems so implausible. On all sides, a game is being played by a competent, savvy and tough set of players. Expect a little subterfuge from them. They're politicians.

The Executive and Legislative leadership is not as weak or as stupid as the conventional wisdom on both sides seems so ready to believe. They just see no point in fighting when there is nothing to win right now. The real wins and losses happen when people come back from vacation, not now.

Have a little faith in September, and show your support today!

James's Carville's Ten Rules For Progressives to Live By

Pass it on!

1. Stop Apologizing for Everything. You are a member of the party that beat the Depression, won two world wars, cut elderly poverty by two-thirds, and is responsible for the greatest period of economic growth since World War II. Democrats wake up and start looking for someone to apologize to. Stop It. You've got nothing to apologize for.

2. Quit Conceding That The Other Side Has A Point. I taught school for a little while, and guess what? There is such a thing as a stupid question. The same goes for opinions. Not everyone has a valid point. The next time a right-wing nut tells you that the Bush plan gives the poor a lot of incentive to get rich don't say, 'Well, you've got a point." They don't have a point. What they are saying is stupid. Sometimes a mind is like a mouth; you just have to shut it.

3. Be Big: Think only of, and talk only about big things. When I advise candidates, I tell them it is okay to have an opinion on everything, it is just not okay to render said opinion on everything. I may favor a trans-gender amendment. But if I were running for president, I would not make that part of my core platform of ideas.

4. Be Positive. I grew up in the town of Carville, Louisiana-so named because my family provided the town with its most indispensable federal employee, its postmaster. When I was growing up, my daddy convinced me that I was living in the best place in the world. He always made sure I remembered that we had the best climate, the best people, the best family, the best soil, the best peaches-the best of everything. "Of any place that you could live in the world, " he'd tell me, "you're living right here in Carville, Louisiana." Man, I thought it was the garden spot of the universe. Did I know that there was a Broadway or a Michigan Avenue or a Rodeo Drive? No. And I didn't give a damn. Progressives are genetically inclined to talk about how bad things are. We'd rather be the skunk than enjoy the garden party. We need to be able to see the good-and make a case for making it better. In short, we need more of my daddy's Carville attitude in Washington and less of our liberal activist carping one.

5. Use Their Weapons Against Them Republicans love to talk about the right and wrong. They do so with an absolutely religious fevor-and that makes sense because more than a small number of them use their religion as a justification for their policies. If they're going to do that, it's fair for us to ask questions like "Is cutting funds for the schools that educate the kids of the people fighting for us in Iraq a bad, stupid right-wing policy, or is it an affront to God?" "Is rolling back clean water protections so your rich contributors can blight the environment bad policy, or is it a sin for which you can burn in hell?"

6. Attack Their Lack Of True Patriotism There are actually some people who will buy a used car from the dealer with the biggest flag. He's usually the guy with the biggest mouth, too. The same goes for politics. We shouldn't look for the biggest flag or listen to the biggest mouth-we should look for the real patriots, the ones who are willing to tell the truth and make America stronger. It is completely antithetical to the American ideal of generational promise to burden future generations with a massive amount of debt. Every American child has heard the story from his or her parents or grandparents about how they worked hard to make things better for the next generation. They struggled to be the first in their family to finish high school, so that the next generation could be the first in their family to finish college, so that the next could be the first to finish graduate school. And whether your family came here on the Mayflower in 1620 or from Manila in 2003, we all share the belief that America is not just a good place today, but is going to be a better place tomorrow. Republicans have destroyed that. Being an American, honoring the flag, is much more than some trumped-up staged landing on an aircraft carrier. Just having a lot of red, white, and blue bunting at your convention isn't patriotic. Their lack of understanding of what this country is really about demonstrates a total lack of patriotism. We need to call them on it.

7. Never Just Oppose, Always Propose. I can tell you with absolute certainty that back in 680 B.C., the first sentence for the first speech in the first campaign of the first Athenian running for City-State Council was this: This election presents a choice. Every election is a choice, and as progressives, our goal must be to ensure that the choice isn't between bad and nothing; the choice needs to be between good and bad. We progressives need to define our visions of American, not just react to the right wings vision of America. We don't like the America they want to build, we need to show Americans something better.

8. Don't Let the Little Crap Get in the Way of the Big Shit. You have to pardon my language, but I just don't know a better way of saying it. As progressives we need to do more than fight symbolic battles, we need to be driving toward a larger goal. For example, the big shit is energy independence. The little crap is drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. I once asked a friend of mine who was very active in the environmental movement, "Would you trade off a fuel standard that freed us from Middle Eastern oil for drilling in ANWAR?" He said no. To me that's an example of the little crap getting in the way of the big shit. Would you trade off late-term abortions for unversal health care? To me, the great gain of universal health care is far more importane than the largely symbolic battle over a little-used procedure. Don't get me wrong; symbolic fights are periodically worth fighting. I have nothing against them, and I'm not saying we should abandon our principles. What I'm saying is that we should be willing to make a trade-off to advance them.

9. Sometimes You've Got to Be Willing to Fight. Period. Why is it that Democrats were calling on Al Gore to concede the election when no Republicans called on George Bush to concede? Why didn't we want to fight as badly as they did? Why didn't we call on Bush to concede? Because our nature is not too be tough. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times; America will never trust a party to defend America that fails to defend itself.

10. Stop Brown-nosing the Elites I believe that in the 180 days prior to any election, candidates should be required to stay away from cocktail parties, dinner parties, or any social event that occurs in the following areas: Georgetown, Foxhall, Spring Valley, Bethesda, Old Town Alexandria, McLean, and Chevy Chase....and other bastions of stupidity inside the Washington Beltway. One of the reason Tom Delay is so successful is that he doesn't give a damn what any people in any of these neighborhoods think. Democrats tend to become completely paralyzed by it. I can't tell you the number of times in a Democratic meeting where someone says that such and such was said at so and so's dinner party, and that the deputy assistant to the associate editorial page editor at the Washington Post rolled her eyes. Everybody freaks out. For reasons not completely understandable to me, the effect is far greater on Democrats than Republicans. This is a disease we must cure ourselves of.

The most underestimated parts of American culture

If you've read this, you know that I've been following health reform pretty closely, and that I have wagered many opinions on where I think it is heading, and where it should head. Seeing as it's now the middle of August, they're not coming out with anything new in Washington. Everyone has decamped back to their districts, with news crews, bloggers and trolls patrolling the land like sharks leaving the reef for the barren ocean, floor scoping for that distant whiff of blood.

For the next several weeks, the ether we all breathe in as Americans won't be full of issues related to the merits of one health care bill over another, nor will it be about his committee versus the other guy's. It will most definitely contain little in the way of nominally nonpartisan analysts' takes on the legislation. For true policy wonks, who never wager any serious bets on actual human behavior, this August must be like spending a month floating in a sensory deprivation chamber. For wonks with political proclivities it must be hell to wonder what's really going on out there.

I don't pretend to have a more global view than the next guy, but from where I sit, I do see one thing happening. Justified or not, the guys in charge are coming off as better than everyone else. Forget about sounding like Joe Everyman. Our leaders aren't feeling most people. Democrats haven't done that with great success since Roosevelt, who was not exactly a beer drinker himself.

Looking at the liberal blogosphere, there is no end to cogent, rational arguments on why reform is necessary, and in what ways. There are thousands of sensible voices calling for order and healthy dialectical progress. They busy themselves by calling people 'stupid thugs', all while correcting the spelling and grammar mistakes on the placards held by the people beating down the doors to their 'town meetings.' They try their damndest to live in a rational world, seeking the smartest, most efficient move for our country at any given moment.

Stupid thugs or not, Teabaggers and the rest of them understand one thing that liberals never seem to get. Most people don't think rational things are necessarily good things. Most people don't like to be told what's good by an egghead know-it-all who got beat down every recess as kids. People absolutely detest being talked down to, patronized, or told what to do here. Most people are more superstitious and fearful than you might think. Most people believe in angels and devils. Most people will act on emotion and instinct long before they do the rational thing.

I read many opinions griping about the demagoguery, paranoia and general nastiness emanating out of the Right Wing. The reason why they're spouting delusional interpretations of pretty mainstream proposals, or circulating outright lies (all while winning the news cycle) is that there really isn't anything rational to discuss right now. It is easier to destroy than it is to create, and destruction is an emotional thing. There is nothing pushing back at a Right Wing that trades in the currency of emotion-- the only game in town. Congress is closed. The president is at the beach.

If health reform fans are going to get anything positive out of this month, they need to send the wonks to an all-inclusive resort with CSPAN at the bar and give the English teachers who moonlight as bloggers some 7th grade level essays to correct.

Time for getting back to your roots, lefties. Leave the details for September. Why do you believe in health reform? What do you believe in? What happened to your friend, your sister, a coworker that makes it unacceptable to do nothing about our messed up system? What are you angry about? What are you hopeful for?
Never mind the crackpot stuff they believe in. What about you? Forget about money, public options, exchanges, or anything even remotely related to congress. Don't try to justify it. It's just plain wrong for people to go without health care when they don't have to. You have just as much a right to your emotions and beliefs as Glenn Beck. The Right's been peddling visions of apocalypse. The Left needs to come back with a Garden of Eden. Those are the wages of this battle.

It's time to feel this. The details will be worked out, and they'll be more to the liking of true reformists, if there is an emotional impetus behind them. To be certain, congressmen listen to the guys that pay for their campaigns, but they listen even harder to the people that vote them in.

Thank God, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of 'em.

May the Zeitgeist Be With You

Full attribution: That title came from a friend of mine who used to use it as his signature line in emails.

In War and Peace, one of Leo Tolstoy's central ideas is that no one person is in charge of events. His position is that that battles are won not by generals, but by the lieutenants and the troops they command. Tolstoy says this is because of communication. In Tolstoy's view, Napoleon was nowhere near as powerful as the unwieldy, unpredictable force he stood behind. In Tolstoy's time, a general could lay out a brilliant strategy, but would have very limited to make changes once the battle began; the lines stretched for miles in all directions, and the chaos of armed crowds took over.

In a very real sense, Tolstoy's principle of communication no longer applies. Generals can see not only what is occurring in the theaters of war, but they can also react to changes, take advantages of openings, and control the outcomes of events with a degree of precision unimaginable even a few decades ago. The Napoleons of today have the power that their forebears lusted after, claimed to possess, but were always missing.

I've been thinking a lot about the Zeitgeist lately. It used to be a force of nature, like the weather. Ideas would pass through the collective unconscious like so many fronts and squalls. Changes would happen gradually, over a course of days, or weeks, or with the seasons. Depending on where you lived, the climate would be different. No one had any more control over it than anyone else.

Today, the Zeitgeist, a force of human nature in itself, has been harnessed for the express purposes of those with money and influence. Media empires and political movements are build around swaying public opinion on a moment's notice. Marketing shapes and reacts people's views on what is wanted and what is needed to have a full life. Blogs react to events (and one another) in real time. Watching the Iranian protests on people's cell phones, or to reading the thousands of voices commenting on this or that development in the health care reform debate it is impossible not to marvel at the speed with which ideas travel today.

It is so easy to get swept up in the 24-hour news cycle. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by endless, purposeful messaging, control of the narrative, channeling of viewpoints. It is so easy to react to the bluster at town hall meetings, or the latest jobs report, or the newest gadget. It's so easy to lose scope in a sea of infinite typewriters manned by infinite, willful monkeys who all want your things.

So many collective matters, ranging from political debate to fashion trends have have moved from an ostensibly random drift of social phenomena that was beyond comprehension, to the art and science of influencing others, controlling the microphone, shouting louder, using just the right words to evoke an emotional response. Is it socialized medicine or universal health care? Are they terrorists or freedom fighters? Does it make you beautiful, or can you live without it? They know how to issue your marching orders as never before.

Powerful groups have a control over the Zeitgeist almost as might gods over nature. On television and online, they compete with one another for our attentions in proxy wars of necessity, hurtling storms of ideas, cold fronts and warm fronts onto the land, all to elicit the desired reaction, like a bloody argument among magicians.

We are all footsoldiers now, fighting the day's ideological battles, making today's consumer choices based on the direct influences of our generals in politics and business. Cable news, the print media, advertising, and entertainment all wrestle with one another for our attentions, representing events in ways that have a proven, focus group tested track record of influencing our behaviors, stoking our hopes and fears, changing our votes, leveraging our buying power.

In the span of one day, the narrative of an event like health care reform can move from hopelessly improbable, to a clear-cut case of success. We must all take a step back from this war of attention and ask what the true sequence of events is. We must ask who is shaping a given message, and to what end. Turn off the TV and let things happen as they will. Don't let them manipulate your fears and desires. The generals are more powerful than ever. We need to take some of that control back for ourselves. We cannot and should not go back to a state nature, where events unfold without purpose, but we must find a way of controlling our own thoughts.

The 24/7 media coverage of every human detail is a war over ratings and your bank account. It is not an ideological struggle of conservative against liberal any more than it's a real war of Coke over Pepsi. Think through the issues, make your own influence. Be informed but don't be manipulated. May the Zeitgeist Be With You.