The Tyranny of the Minority Will Kill Healthcare Reform

It wasn't hard to predict that when the voters put a brilliant African-American with a "funny name" in the White House that a certain small percentage of the American people would lose their minds. Pastor Wiley Drake, for instance, prays for the president's death. Jon Voight called the president a false prophet. Newt Gingrich is already calling Obama's presidency a failure. Station nation, we are only four and half months in.

I'm sure a lot of conservatives think they're just reacting to Obama the way progressives reacted to Bush. That's not even close to being true. In December of 2000, after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush in the case of Bush v. Gore, Gore made a concession speech in which he said, "I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country."

I didn't like it that Bush was the President, but in 2001, I gave the spirit of Gore's speech a chance. The country moved on from the election, 9/11 happened, and even the minimal dissent Bush faced vanished for years.

If the GOP propagandists think they can pin the Bush failure, which is still slopping over this country in waves, on President Obama, they're... probably right. The independents in this country are suceptible to propaganda and there will be a lot of it targeted at this president. Lies about health care are flying. The establishment that owns the media is going to kill even a public option. Forget about single payer. The latest lie is that the health industry will reform itself. And if it doesn't? Well then in four years a trigger will go into effect and we'll get a public option then. And I got an auto industry to sell you. The trigger option means we lose. Not getting at least a real public option in 2009, means we lose.

So having the White House and the Congress doesn't mean shit if the minority party is willing to call you names around the clock and the people covering politics in this country are willing to pretend that they don't know wether the president is or is not a socialist. If you have a job that gives you health benefits, hold on to it. The USA won't be joining the rest of the industrialized world in the 20th century any time soon.

Note: image taken from Swiftspeech.