"Health Care Home Stretch: The Base that Roared"

Al Giordano:

When we last weighed in on the Congressional machinations in Washington over health care reform around the new year, there was more heat than light coming not only from the right but from some loud and shrill corners that called themselves “the left,” many even claiming to represent “the base” of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

Two and a half months later, the situation has evolved to a very unique occurrence in progressive American politics: the authentic base rejected those grandstanders who wanted to let the perfect be the enemy of the good (the “bill killers” have pretty much wilted from their 15 minutes of overexposure), and has rallied around the cause of health care.

The US left (if such a thing has even existed in recent decades) for once in a lifetime did not fall for the orgy of petty bickering that led to so many previous epic fails, and what we see now is a convergence of forces, from the grassroots up, that can be defined as A. Pragmatic, in its multiple expressions in favor of advancing the ball down the field, and in rejecting the calls for “all or nothing” that had so defined many squandered US progressive political efforts over the past 30 or 40 years, and, B. Disciplined, including in the miraculous appearance of organizing to insist on discipline in the ranks of anyone who traffics in the term “progressive” to promote themselves.

I don’t know how it came to be, for so many years, that pragmatism and discipline were considered dirty words in many US activist circles. But the truth is, political battles have never been won without pragmatism and discipline.

Perhaps another time we can offer some historical thoughts on how it is that so many activists in the US came to see pragmatism as being “not pure” or not radical enough, and discipline as representing a loss of individuality and autonomy instead of an individual and autonomous choice to work together with others in strategic action.

I’d rather marvel, for now, at what has recently happened North of the Border to bring pragmatism and discipline back in vogue.

First, the evidence:

The national progressive group MoveOn (one that not too long ago would sometimes have the activist vice of allowing the perfect to be enemy of the good) recently polled its members with this question: “Should MoveOn support or oppose the final health care bill if it looks like the plan recently proposed by President Obama?” The result was that 83 percent support the bill to just 17 percent against it.

Among the authentic base, the tide has also turned against the longstanding tendency of holier-than-thou “purity troll” advocacy, as was recently evident in the cases of two Democratic US Representatives that had voted against health care on the first round because, they said, it did not go far enough. US Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) imploded and had to resign (yes, there were other more, ahem, prurient reasons for it, but he himself, at one point, claimed that the root of his meltdown was his vote against health care).

And now it is US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in the hot seat.

You know the earth has shifted under Kucinich – long a proponent of a single payer health care system, for which the votes simply do not exist in Congress at present to achieve – when former supporters like Lisa Baskin of Massachusetts are posting this message on their Facebook pages:

“I have voted for, sent money to and agreed with Dennis Kucinich in the past. Now I want him to vote YES for the healthcare bill, imperfect as it is. Join me, Call Congressman Kucinich. Ask him to vote Yes.
Phone (202) 225-5871”

In this video from last week, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos offered a long pending smackdown of Kucinich’s position (it appears at two-and-a-half minutes into the video, after an entertaining segment about Rush Limbaugh). When asked if Kucinich should be challenged in a Democratic primary if he votes against health care reform this time, Kos said “yes”:

And five hours ago, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile posted a Twitter tweet saying the same thing:

“If a handful of Democrats decide to defeat this bill, they deserve to get a primary challenge to defend the status quo & insurance industry.”

It used to be that any attempt to invoke discipline on behalf of progressive political ventures in the United States would be met by screeching condemnations and accusations of heavy handedness and crushing of dissent. Gawd, that was a boring (and ineffective) era! The truth is that in the big leagues of any contest, no victory is ever achieved without pragmatic discipline.

The base – and by that I mean the authentic base (those that do the leg work and heavy lifting of political organizing, not just mere activism) – has lost its patience with the kooks and the constant complainers.

How and when did that happen? I would posit that it began to happen around last Christmas, when the self-proclaimed “progressive” bill killers overplayed their poutrage hand by calling for health care reform to be defeated. Folks at the grassroots level needed only to compare and contrast the behaviors of the different players on the left side of the dial in the US. Those that kept their eyes and hands on the ball and worked to get the best possible bill (which as with any legislation on any subject involves compromise) to move that ball down the field (especially including the White House) simply earned more respect than those who whined and pouted and offered increasingly shrill demands.

For now, I’ll just say how encouraged I am to see the authentic base asserting itself and adopting the necessary pragmatism and discipline to go out there and win this long political war over health care.

It has been 62 years since President Harry Truman first proposed national health care reform. And if, as momentum seems to be turning, perhaps as soon as this coming weekend the health care bill pushes through to historic triumph, it will be because pragmatism and discipline are no longer considered dirty words on the US left. That would be a miracle, and also harbinger of better days, and more victories, yet to come.