In a decade or two, we'll look back on the conflagration that's currently passing for healthcare debate with the softening of years. These events will no doubt look different depending on one's political proclivities. That's always somewhat true—even now, the New Deal is the bane of civilization to the right, the blueprint for civilization to the left—but the extent of the present divergence is remarkable. There are moderate voices, even in the GOP, of course, but all of us are being drowned out by a chorus of crazies.
It's easy to forget that the nation already boasts a long history of singularly American believers that the liberal-driven political apocalypse is nigh. In a recent Washington Post piece, Rick Perlstein offered some intriguing highlights of past encampments of crazy: "In the early 1950s, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as '20 years of treason' and accused the men who led the fight against fascism of deliberately surrendering the free world to communism&. Vice President Richard Nixon claimed that the new Republicans arriving in the White House 'found in the files a blueprint for socializing America.' …When John F. Kennedy entered the White House, his proposals to anchor America's nuclear defense in intercontinental ballistic missiles—instead of long-range bombers—and form closer ties with Eastern Bloc outliers such as Yugoslavia were taken as evidence that the young president was secretly disarming the United States. … When the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced, one frequently read in the South that it would 'enslave' whites."
To the often-unaware soldiers of that extremist brigade, looking back to the healthcare debate of 2009 will be an unambiguous affair. Remember, they can say, remember when the Obama Nazis tried to take away our for-profit healthcare system? Remember when they threatened to euthanize the crippled and the old? Remember when Mike Sola brought his crippled son to a town hall meeting and told Fox News, "We are American citizens who want one thing: to be heard before you put us down"?
Remember when people took to the ramparts with assault rifles in Phoenix and one brave Arizonan patriot told them, "We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote"? We skated so close then, they can say, so close to representative democracy. We were on the brink of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and that B. Hussein Obama guy judging whether our lives were worthy, laughing as they sent us away to Democratic death camps.
Not in America, they can say. Perhaps tears will roll down their cheeks like the amber waves of a field of wheat as they gaze upon a faded picture of Obama with a Hitler 'stache, the last remnant of battles past. Then, one imagines, they can wander out to the mailbox to send their last $10,000 in for the month's health insurance premium.
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And the rest of us, we who dwell in the reality-based community? How will we feel? Will we look back on the dream of universal healthcare and curse the names of Blue Dogs?
Will those centrists have sold out the Democratic dream in the age-old fashion of Democrats, fearing the wrath of conservatives who would never vote for them anyway? Will they have reasoned with the unreasonable until reform becomes "reform"?
Will we look back, like so many times before, and be astounded that rationality was supplanted, this time by Sarah Palinites who believed things so outlandish that PR firms working for health insurers chuckled in awed wonder? Will it be like 1912, when Republican Theodore Roosevelt lost his re-election in part on the promise of healthcare reform? Like 1948, when Republicans called Truman a commmunist for proposing reform? Or maybe like 1993, when health insurance advertising creations Harry and Louise filled the airwaves lamenting the loss of their doctors and the American way? Will we say, yet again, "Why do Republicans oppose reform and get away with it when almost everyone wants better healthcare?"
Well, yes, we probably will say all that. Just before we, too, head out to the mailbox to ship off the last of the bullion to the health insurer of our employer's choice.
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But, at the risk of being Charlie Brown rapidly approaching Lucy's football, maybe not. Just maybe we'll look back and say, "What a glorious moment, when Obama herded the Democratic cats into line to vote for universal healthcare and didn't care what the crazies said."
There are glimmers as of this writing of such an approach—rumors that the Democrats might do this reform thing without the mirage of GOP aid that won't ever materialize anyway.
Could it really happen? And if it does, will the conspiratorial set notice that grandma has not been euthanized, their doctor is still their doctor, and their premiums don't have to be delivered via a wheelbarrow? It seems more likely that they will decide the whole thing is part of a grander plot to surrender to communist China, but here's hoping.
If we get to look back with pride at the time when the Democrats grabbed the far-right Republicans by the nose and dosed them with castor oil for their own good, we can expect that a new system will not function perfectly, that it will need work and yet more reform. But at least that battle will be on different ground.
And maybe, just maybe, the new system will have provided enough therapy that the conversation about exactly how best to improve healthcare can happen without a dozen crazies bringing assault rifles to intimidate their fellow citizens.
