Feeding the Right Wing Crocodile

In one fell swoop, the President of the United States revealed himself to be not only a fool, but also a coward.

To conservatives this is hardly news. Their ideological blinders caused them to assume this was the case even before the evidence was there to justify it. But for liberals, moderates and independents the realization represents an unpleasant awakening from the post-election euphoria that promised America would be able to wake up and live again after the dark years of the Bush Administration. Instead of the hope and change that so many of us wanted, we instead find ourselves staring into the abyss yet again.

What the Obama Administration did was to tactlessly give up the centerpiece of healthcare reform by conceding that the final legislation did not necessarily need to include a so-called “public option”, as it’s called. A public option for health insurance is basically a Trojan horse for a true single payer system that guarantees equitable access to all Americans. Once in place it can be expanded gradually until the private insurers cannot compete with the vast resources of the federal government, at which point true universal healthcare can be instituted. Without the public option this process will be stillborn, and any reform will at best temporarily patch up the healthcare system. The right wing knows this and thus has thrown everything they have into the fight.

Conceding the public option was a particularly stupid negotiating tactic due to the fact that the Republicans and their right-wing allies are not actually negotiating with the Democrats. The word negotiate by its very definition implies a give and take process, which is far from what’s actually going on. The Republicans make demands on the Democrats for concessions, which are granted in the hopes that the Republicans will concede ground as well. Instead the Republicans demand even further concessions. The proof can be seen in the extremely tepid reaction of GOP legislators to the administration’s willingness to drop the public option. Even abandoning the centerpiece of the reform plan did not rally moderate Republicans to the cause.

Obama still says that he supports a public option, but now that loose lips have let it be known that he will accept otherwise it will become exceedingly difficult for such a plan to be realized. The Blue Dog conservative Democrats have been given political cover for pulling their support from such a plan and the Republicans know their tactics have scored them an important victory. They will treat this like a shark treats blood in the water, and they won’t stop here. The tactics employed so successfully in this debate will be used on other issues of importance to them. In short, this concession was appeasement of the worst kind and those who allowed it to happen clearly have no understanding of how the modern right wing movement in this country actually works.

What is going on right now with the healthcare debate is not a trivial matter and has more relevance to the mission of this particular blog than one might surmise at first. Unless the problems of right wing militancy are addressed and contained the next three and a half years are likely to look very much like this, with an increasingly aggressive conservative movement nipping at the heels of Barack Obama, slowly wearing him and his administration into a submissive state. It is very likely that the outcome of the healthcare debate will determine whether the United States reclaims its democratic process, or whether it continues down the road to fascism and civil war.

Sara Robinson recently posted an article at the Campaign for America’s Future website that is of particular relevance to this question. The thrust of her argument is that, based on some widely accepted criteria (in this case, the work of historian Robert Paxton), the United States has already passed the first two phases in which industrial nations turn fascist. We are now in the third phase, the point where there is probably no return. The third phase succeeds if the traditional conservative elites form a successful alliance with the rank and file in the burgeoning fascist movement, essentially using them as goon squads to disrupt the democratic process and intimidate the opposition. Which is precisely what is happening with the increasingly raucous town hall events. Concerned citizens my ass. These are not spontaneous demonstrations, they are being organized with the help and financing of corporate America and the right-wing media. And Obama’s concession on the public option has proved to them that their tactics work. He blinked because of artificial pressure created by them.

Winston Churchill once characterized an appeaser as someone “who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” The likely failure of true healthcare reform may save our grandmothers from the “death committees” that will supposedly be created by the legislation, but millions of Americans with inadequate or no insurance coverage have been fed to the right wing crocodile. The beast will digest them and then start hovering at the water’s edge looking for more. The Obama Administration, and in fact progressives everywhere, are now looking down a road where there are only two turns they can take. They can turn right (pardon the pun) and let the conservatives finish steamrolling them on the healthcare issue, in which case the end result will almost certainly be an out and out fascist movement with a strong possibility of civil war. Or they can turn left and fight fervently for the principals they believe in by holding their ground and telling these right wing goons that they are not afraid of them. Such a course of action does not guarantee success and still holds the possibility for civil war, but it is certainly better than the alternative which would guarantee failure of the progressive movement and the American system of governance.