Polarization

This summer we saw a spectacle of ill informed, emotional and uncompromising people take over town halls, talk shows, and all matters of opinion over substance. For a progressive, still basking in the afterglow of an historic victory, it was easy to stand back and be puzzled, smugly secure in the belief that they were now the ones in charge, and all the noise on the other side was of no consequence. The right wing seemed imminently frozen in a set of apocalyptic beliefs about the role of government, and the current administration. For some Americans, health care reform represented the difference between freedom and tyranny.

I was under the impression that any health care victory would ultimately be well-received by anyone identifying as left-of-center. Seeing the reaction to the demise of the public option, I have been struck by just how ill informed, emotional and uncompromising this group has become as well. Like their counterparts on the right, they have convinced themselves that once they got their man in charge, the public would see things their way, and their agenda would pass, one item after another.

There is something in play in today's American politics that threatens our ability to get anything done, left, right or center. On all sides of debate, a growing cadre of people believe that their point of view should be what governs the country-- that compromise is apostasy, and dissent is treachery. Individualism has taken over politics, moving far beyond the binary partisan labels of the past, people settling only for 'designer' candidates for office. This is an exercise in self-indulgence, pure and simple.

I thought somehow that the left was better than all that, but I was wrong. Look at health care: a public option was a plan that promised to offer little, and only to a select sliver of the public who were actually eligible to sign up. It wasn't going to save much money. It wasn't going to make premiums that much cheaper. It wasn't even necessary in the more competitive marketplaces for health insurance. But it became a rallying cry for extremists of all stripes. It was the beginning of the end for some and the end of the beginning for others. Sweating these details makes people angry, neurotic, and self-defeating. It's what losers do. Enough already.

In negotiations, where a win-win is possible for all parties, rule one is to never act desperate, to always at least appear willing to walk away. Another way to say it is that beggars can't be choosers. In the health care debate, this rule was already abrogated by bad faith on behalf of the opposition, and the all-or-nothing dynamic that has taken over the discussion on all sides.

The fact is that liberals are not willing to walk away, and everyone knows it. We shouldn't walk away. We should take the deal. But we should take it with the understanding that it is our side that is desperate to win. The other side can never suffer as great a defeat as we can by taking on this issue. There will be no in-your-face moment, no champagne popping. There will be a vote and a law. We can't pretend that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Barack Obama have sway over those who stand little to gain from their constituents by passing this bill. We should admit that there is a limit to our power, and accept that those limits work for us sometimes, and for the opposition at other times.

The public option is not a big deal. Medicare buy-in for the 55-65 set is not a big deal. Extending coverage to 30 million more people, making it cheaper, and more secure for everyone is a big deal. It's the basis for something that can and will grow as time goes on. It's the fulfillment of one of the central progressive policy goals of the past 100 years. We're closer than ever, and we're desperate to finish this thing, all of us. Let's pass it, sell it to the public as a major victory, and move on.

This is politics, not pizza delivery. No one gets exactly what they want delivered to their door.

Pyrric Victory?

And so it is told. We may be on the cusp of history. The Holy Grail of American liberals may at last be in their grasp. Sir Harry Reid has bravely fought off the infidels and savages, battling ever closer to the siege walls of a new Jerusalem. The winter nights grow long, and the days are short and without comfort. But Sir Harry and his majority are nearly there at long last.

Sir Harry paced back and forth along the line of his counts and dukes who stand in stoic circumspection, their hosts of legislative aides scurrying to claim credit for details and strategic press leaks.

"Now is not the time and turn west to the far hearths of our homes. But the time will soon arrive, brothers. We will know our glory. We will know the veneration of our constituents. We will not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Not exactly.

When written about the present, narratives like the one above are most often meant as sarcastic shots at the day's egoists, opportunists, and petty quibblers. When written a hundred years from now, the same narrative can seem bereft of all irony, pointing to some bygone age when men were men and real laws got passed.

Once those men are dead, their eulogies uttered and transcribed, their gravestones cast with a pall of wear, things always look better than they were. Wars were noble. Leaders were virtuous. Everyday people lived simple, righteous lives. We all know better, but the illusion pervades.

We will pass health care reform and it won't be enough. Leaders will make craven and self-serving decisions. With or without the public option or medicare buy-in, health care will still be expensive, and some people won't be able to afford it. There won't be enough doctors in rural areas, and rates of diabetes and obesity will continue to mushroom. People will die preventable deaths.

Even a perfect bill would not come close to fixing the root causes of poverty and ill health. But progress will be made. Insurance companies will have to rate us on where we live, instead of how sick we are. They won't be able to cap our benefits. They'll have to offer a decent set of care options for people. There will be a national insurance exchange that gets companies competing for our business, harnessing the market to do some good in health care for a change. Life will be marginally better, and we will continue to improve on it as time moves on, unintended consequences crop up, and new problems arise.

Living in any bygone epic was never so good, as the wise among the elderly will attest.

Eddie Vedder sung "The kids of today must defend themselves from the seventies... it's not reality. Just someone else's sentimentality..." I wasn't there in any meaningful way. Does anyone who mothballed their Spirit of '76 varsity jacket think differently than Eddie about that decade? Oil crises? Iran? Nixon? Disco?!

Thomas Hobbes famously described life in the distant past in no uncertain terms: nasty, brutish and short. And right he was. Look only at life spans and the causes of their brevity even 50 years ago (short). Look at the proportions of people who died in war as recently as 75 years ago (brutish). Look at the conditions of daily life 100 years ago (nasty). Be thankful for all the hard work that went into what we have today. Be ready for a struggle with the creation of tomorrow.

We are all victims of the dread beast Nostalgia. The monster's quarry is our realistic appraisal of both past and present. Its lasting wounds fester the promise of our future, that which isn't written. Nostalgia is the covert assassin of optimism.

True optimism allows us to fight for a world in which our descendants live longer, more peaceful and comfortable lives than our own. There is no new Jerusalem, only plodding progress towards somewhere unknown and maybe better than today. Progress is what we're fighting for. And this is what it looks like. This is how it's always looked when people fought to make the world better.