The Democrats’ Dumb “Un-American” Strategy
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Health Care, Republicans
Once again we’re seeing Democrats trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi, two of the least liked Democrats in the free world, decided to pen an editorial today characterizing the folks at these recent town halls as being somehow Un-American.
These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.
Afraid of differing views? Hmmm, you mean like those who are unwilling to explore plans that don’t have a public option?
Also, does anybody remember a similar refrain back around the 2002 – 2003 time frame when openly questioning the war was considered Un-American too?
Listen, are Republicans astroturfing some of these events? Sure. And the practice is just as intellectually dishonest as it has always been. But as mw pointed out yesterday, astroturfing is a political strategy, not a Republican strategy. And for Dems to co-op a strategy that was employed by one of the most reviled administrations in modern times is insanity.
There are so many different ways to counter misinfo, but this is what we get? Lazy agit-prop?
Steny, Nancy…do know this…if health care passes it’s in spite of you, not because of you. At nearly every turn you’ve chosen to take a hacky, partisan road and it’s simply maddening to watch. You could have been the better people in this debate, but you apparently either don’t know how or don’t care.
I am officially embarrassed by and for my party today.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 10th, 2009 and is filed under Democrats, Health Care, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Pelosi and Hoyer do not say it is un-American to have differeing points of view. They said it is un-American to shout down/drown out opposing points of view–which is exactly the strategy being employed by the opponants of healthcare reform.
That is a very clear–and very different–thing.
Being the better person in this debate is not going to work when the conservatives are employing a campaign of lies and disruption, rather than debate and discussion.
You can not have a careful, reasoned debate with a screaming moron.
You say the progressives are unwilling to discuss a plan does not include a public option. Nonsense. They have already dropped the goal of single payer. They have compromised with Big Pharmaceutical. And now you want to gut the one thing that will make the private healthcare industry actually compete?
The healthcare reform opposition wouldn’t even consider there was a problem when they were in charge for much of the last 30 years and are only now willing even say that everything is not perfect.
There have been enough compromises–the Right’s healthcare reform plan is this: “Here are two aspirin, call me in the morning. That will be $1013.12. Stop complaining, I could have charged you $1015.”
There are many different ways to counter the lies and sheer stupidity of the anti-healthcare reform and all of them are being deployed this time.
Given my druthers, I would prefer a rational, careful examination of the healthcare and ways to fix the problem, but since the opposition has taken the stance that nothing is wrong it’s kind of pointless.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I have to agree with Gerryf.
Though it is sad for Pelosi to pull out the term Un-American since the other side used it so often in the past, using the term to refer to an attempt to drown out any discussion of an issue is a better definition than the claim that having an opposing view is Un-American.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Health care does not lend itself to an intellectual sound bite debate. One side says I want to make sure Americans have health care and the other side is stuck trying to explain why people having health care is a bad thing. It is not that there are not good arguments against the proposals of the Obama admin. it is just that those arguments don’t look good in short clips on TV news. So if you can’t win intellectually, you look to win emotionally or at least stall the process long enough that it dies under its own weight. So you start talking about Death Commissions and have people shout at town halls. So far it has been effectively politics. So the Dems will need to either increase the effectiveness intellectually or attack with something along the lines of “The Republicans want to make their friends rich while tons of people die every day due to lack of health care”.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Justin,
Apparently you have not been to any of these forums.
The protesters scream constantly. Literally scream. You can’t hear anybody, on either side.
Lots of the clips you can see online have been edited for sound, but listen to these ones:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MrPolitics101
If you’re channel 4, you have great mikes, and audio technicians waiting you can understand what they are saying. Ordinary people OTOH…
August 10th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
[...] “UnAmerican” A move that has many Republicans and Conservatives; and yes, even some Democrats quite [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
So, Steny and Nancy are saying that Democrats were being un-american in 2005. I’d say the opponents of this verison of Health Care Reform learned from the best.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
From mw’s link:
I don’t know exactly what went on in these 2005 town-hall meetings, but the above description sounds more like having discussions that the speakers didn’t want to have rather than shutting down debate. If anything, this makes republicans, as in office-holding party members, look more like they didn’t want to have an open discussion. They wanted planned friendly events for themselves lacking in oppositional discourse. The same goes for the attacks on war opposition. Those opposing the war were trying to have a debate, not shut one down. And that’s what’s now being called “un-American,” the shutting down of debate. If we’re going to simply make this a right-versus-left or republican-versus-democrat scenario, then the “republicans” would have to be the ones shutting down debate in all three cases (i.e. the war, SS reform, health-care reform).
What’s going on now are planned unfriendly events for democrats, not involving open discussion or discourse, but shout-downs preventing any discussion at all. I personally wouldn’t simply characterize those doing the shouting as “republicans,” since I doubt these people were sent by the GOP, at least not directly.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
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August 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
[...] Pontifications, Political Byline, Below The Beltway, Politics Daily, Balloon Juice, YID With LID, Donklephant, Blue Crab Boulevard, Macsmind, Founding Bloggers, Scared Monkeys, Right Wing News, Think Progress, [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Oh boy, another. “I know what you are but what are you” rebuttal from MW.
Dead straight, WHQ–there is a difference between debate and stopping debate.
If anyone Democrat, Progressive, Conservative, Republican, Libertarian or whatever was involved in 2005 in trying to stop the debate and discussng, they were wrong and they were un-American.
So MW, sorry to disappoint your “gotcha”.
Here’s a gotcha for you–are the people you seem to be supporting who are attending these meetings for the sole purpose of obstructing/shutting off debate right or wrong?
If you are really outraged at what you perceive as that behavior from 4 years ago, you should be outraged now.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I didn’t like it when the GOP would call people un-American for opposing Iraq and I don’t like the Democrats calling people un-American now. Pelosi and Hoyer decide who is American and who isn’t? Give me a break
August 10th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
mw, I appreciated the article, but mostly for the deliciousness of Rick Santorum using the word erudite in a sentence, a term which is expressly forbidden to people who can’t tell the difference between homosexuality and bestiality.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I don’t doubt that some of the folks coming to these town halls have been loud and rowdy. But where I come from, every time (i.e., every coiple of years) that the New York City Rent Guidelines Board holds a hearing the purpose of which is to “discuss” whether to allow rent stabilized landlards an increase, tenant and neighborhood groups and local political clubs turn out hundreds of people who shout and scream, stamp their feet, wave signs, and denounce the Board anf landlords in extravagent terms. And every time the Metropolitan Transportation Authority holds a hearig on increasing fares, hundreds of “straphangers” turn out to holler and shout. And whenever some knucklehead school board in the suburbs does some dumb thing, gangs of parents turn out to take turns shouting for the TV cameras.
Democracy can be a rough business. Apparently, some of our House members have been isolated from it. It will do them all some good.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Let’s be clear about the quote: Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.
This specifically regarding a discussion that is described as follows: Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.
To compare this to rents or fares going up or a school board doing something that everyone already knows is stupid (your example, John Burke) is false equivalence. Public hearings on fare increases and such are BS from Jump Street and everyone knows it. And what’s the opposing viewpoint – “I want to pay more”?
The problem isn’t that people are opposed to the proposed health-care legislation. It’s that there is a concerted effort both to mislead and to shut down debate on an important and complex issue. It ain’t fares or rents or dopey school boards.
And if people went beyond asking pointed questions and expressing opposition to SS reform in 2005 to the point of lying and shutting down the discussions, shame on them, too.
August 10th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
@whq
Apparently you missed this sentence in the article…
Happy to help.
These town halls are political theater, not a vehicle for shaping policy. No town hall discussion was going to change Santorum’s vote on SS. No town hall discussion was going to change Dingell’s vote on Healthcare Reform. In both cases you have frustrated constituents who feel, quite rightly, their voice is not being heard by their representative and they get loud. It’s certainly not productive, but it’s not un-American. Quite the contrary.
So Gerry, surprisingly we disagree again. I was not outraged in 2005 and and I am not outraged now. The 2005 protesters were not un-American. Neither are the protesters last week.
BTW – President Obama agrees and is back-pedaling from Nancy and Steny as fast as he can.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:13 am
mw, what’s at issue here is a coordinated campaign of misinformation coupled with purposeful disruption of public meetings with legislators. I’m sure some people are simply upset and getting loud at the meetings. That’s not what is being called un-American. To be honest, I don’t have a strong feeling either way about that particular characterization, which is not a matter of fact, but opinion. But what is true is that it is not being applied to honest opposition. It’s being applied to people who are sent to these meeting specifically to make sure no one gets to hear from their members of congress. And I’m under no illusion that citizens are going to change their legislators’ minds. It’s about the legislators trying to change the citizens’ minds, or at least let them know where they stand and provide some information, which can be honestly challenged face-to-face, all of which the public can take under consideration when election time comes. There’s always the chance that things might get ugly, but when you know there’s a planned effort for things to get ugly to the point of being useless, there’s no reason to bother. People might think that meeting with their elected representatives is a democratic (not in the party sense) and American thing to do. Thwarting that might be considered otherwise.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:15 am
First point: non-moron politicians should avoid calling constiuents “unamerican.” It’s a dumb thing to do, especially because it makes the story about your dumb your word choice.
2nd point: these town hall meetings are what they are, the only real opportunity for most regular folks to speak to their reps on the issue, to be heard. and to hear their reps talk about what’s going on. Anyone who shows up to do this decently deserves that chance. Anyone who main goal is to prevent such exchanges by acting like a childish, petulant moron should be removed.
Reps should handle such cases by remaining poised and simply asking the rest of the crowd to show, by a vote of hands, whether they want such folks removed for disrupting the meeting and hindering the opportunities of other folks there.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:36 am
First point: non-moron politicians should avoid calling constiuents “unamerican.†It’s a dumb thing to do, especially because it makes the story about your dumb your word choice.
I can agree with all of this. The only problem is that the first sentence doesn’t apply. The article didn’t call anyone un-American. It read: “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” There is a difference. That difference may be lost on many people, and foreseeably so, thus it was still a (politically) stupid (if not necessarily wrong) thing to write.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:38 am
I should add that I completely agree with the rest, kk.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
2nd point: these town hall meetings are what they are, the only real opportunity for most regular folks to speak to their reps on the issue, to be heard. and to hear their reps talk about what’s going on. Anyone who shows up to do this decently deserves that chance. Anyone who main goal is to prevent such exchanges by acting like a childish, petulant moron should be removed.
Hear hear.
Speaking of childish morons you know the guy who got on TV yelling at Dingell? He’s in the Detroit paper today:
http://www.freep.com/article/20090811/COL27/908110332/Man-who-let-Dingell-have-it-is-pushed-into-health-care-spotlight
Apparently he was so incensed that Dingell was taking advantage of an “apparently disabled” woman to push health care reform he simply blew his top. According to this article Dingell refused to even answer his question and just told him to sit down.
For the record Marcia Boehm is actually disabled. She has several graduate degrees, including a Masters in Social Work, and is currently a Profesor at Madonna University in suburban Detroit. You don’t take advantage of Marcia. And if Mr. Mike Sola had been paying attention he would know all this, because it’s part of the health care spiel Marcia gave right before Dingell got up to speak.
I’m not sure calling this guy’s actiuons un-American was a great idea, but I honestly have no idea what the proper response is to a guy like Mike Sola. This guy uses his son as a prop, but a disabled woman who dares to disagree with him is merely being used by the left? What can you say to that guy?
Preferably in terms that are JPG-aproved…
August 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
WHQ seems to be as divorced from the day-in, day-out push and pull of America’s democratic politics at the (pardon me) grassroots (whether natural or astro-turf) level as some clueless members of the House of Representatives. Folks in New York are more easily worked up by rents and subway fares than almost ay other single issue — however complex or economy-driving. And the relevant governmental bodies have a great many options; so naturally, protagonists for one or another option organize to raise hell and get media attention. It’s as American as apple pie, and most people get it. As just one small, current example, look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edkncVniQgA
The guy doing most of the yelling is the Green Party candidate for mayor. I guess he didn’t get the memo either. Members of Congress should quit whining, if for no other reason than that it will turn even more voters against them.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Folks in New York are more easily worked up by rents and subway fares than almost ay other single issue — however complex or economy-driving.
I can’t figure out why you think I’m clueless about this. I don’t deny that people get worked up. I work for a public agency that charges tolls and fares, which were recently raised. What I’m saying is that getting worked up about those things at BS public hearings held by agencies like the one I work for isn’t the same thing as what’s going on at town hall meetings on health-care reform. Those meetings are BS because the organizations holding them are doing it for show and aren’t going to change their course of action no matter what anyone has to say.
Are you even reading my comments?
There’s no significant organized effort involved in the disruptions of school board or MTA meetings. It’s just a bunch of pissed-off people, pissed off about an easily understood issue that almost no one would be happy about. Who’s not getting their say, anyway? The “please rase my rent” or “please charge me higher fares” coalitions? Try responding to what I’ve actually written and not something else that comes from I don’t know where.
That, or show me where I’ve denied that people get worked up at public meetings in New York, with direct quotes from my comments.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
To be clear “Those meetings…” in “Those meetings are BS because the organizations holding them are doing it for show and aren’t going to change their course of action no matter what anyone has to say” refers not to the health-care town halls, but to hearings on rents or fares.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
[...] if health care reform fails I’m laying the responsibility for that right on the doorsteps of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. This systematic demonization of protesters is ridiculous as they had absolutely no problem with [...]
August 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
WHQ — The recent MTA saga of budget shortfalls and potential massive fare and toll increases was a huge issue — debated intensely for weeks in the editorial and op-ed pages, at forums and “astro-turfed” events. It envolved the Governor and Legislature, the Mayor and City Council, the transit unions, powerful business groups, and scores of political, local and neighborhood groups, both established and ad hoc. The outcome was the result of pressures brought on the state, the city and suburban counties, as well as the MTA. The mix of subsidies, fare hikes and service cuts were a highly emotional topic affecting the interests of scores of groups and millions of people. It was a top story in the TV and print news for weeks. All these forces were ultimately centered on the MTA hearings, out of which a final plan would come. These were hardly “BS” hearings, a prelude to a foregone conclusion. You might get either a doubling of fares or a modest increase; the elimination of your bus service or not; big cuts in transit employees or modest trims; big state subsidies or none at all.
Groups of all kinds “astro-turfed” the turnout at the hearings — for the same reason that interested parties often do — not just to apply face-to-face pressure on public officials, but more importantly to make news — big news if possible, and TV news in particular, the better to pressure wavering officials.
The turnout at Congressional “town halls” is much the same thing. In a quiet summer, these events would be populated by handfuls of mostly reliable people sympathetic to the Members and “astro-turfed” by his/her office through friendly senior groups, local political committees and what not in order to produce a crowd that would not be embarassingly small. Plus a few easilt managed cranks, who get kicks out of saying whacky things at public meetings. Most would wind up with 50-100 people and scant news coverage except what the member’s office could scrounge up.
This time, there being a big and divisive issue, some opposition groups have “astro-turfed” bigger turnouts. For all that, most haven’t been all that much bigger. If August ends with 20,000 out of 300 million people having attended one, I’ll be surprised. But that’s not the point. The point is — and this is why I brought up the analogy to other, similar public events — to make news that will multiply may times the impact of the turnout. And this has been wildly successful, with meetings generating massive local and national coverage and igniting a furious debate about some aspects of the proposed reforms.
The notion that a handful of people asking polite questions at these events to House members who each represent 600,000 people and accepting the talking point answers give out would help generate much in the way of enlightenment or true debate about the ever-changing five or six bils under consideration is, at best, naive. Frankly, such “civil discussion” would be ignored — by the press, Congress and the White House.
In a continental nation of 300 million people, “debate” to have any meaning must reach a large number of those folks through the media — old and new. Thats why demonstrations and protests have long been commonplace — even deliberately provocations to cause arrests in the interest of attracting more TV cameras.
This is part of American politics, too. Meanwhile in news reports, op-eds and editorials, TV specials, thousands of blog posts, and so one, there has been a lively discussion about every aspect of the proposed plans. And now, there will be $150 million in TV ads paid for by Big Pharma boosting reform because the drug companies already have their deal to make even more money (how that “bends the cost curve” is a mystery). And they’ll be joined by others, pro and con.
The bottom line is this: a handful of noisy protesting constituents have put this issue and all the questions surrounding it front and center in the minds of tens of millions of Americans, when it was by no means certain that that would be the case in August before Congress returns to act.
Our right to petition our government doesn’t end with sending emails to our Representatives, which they mainly ignore (I’ve sent three waves of eails to my Rep. and two Senators and have yet toi receive a reply from any). If a member of the supposedly “popular” house can’t suffer through being berated once in a blue moon by some of his/her constituents on an issue that rows them up, they really ought to get real jobs. Believe me, House of Representatives member is hardly hard work — except for the need of the third who represent potential swing districts to campaign all the time.
August 12th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
You make some good points, John Burke. You may change my mind yet.