The Sunshine Empire

Now that the health care reform bill has become law, the radical right is reacting with the appropriate level of respectability and civility that we’ve come to know them for. The fight against the movement to reform our health insurance system in this country was played as an all or nothing political gambit by the right. This was always about defeating Obama and not anything to do with the actual reforms in the bill. The most egregious feature of the bill to most congressional republicans, the individual mandate, was itself first proposed by congressional republicans. Yet since the reforms being proposed by the President and congressional democrats were cast as nothing less than an imposition of Stalinist dictatorship, the Tea Party #tcot crowd is reacting as if they are preparing for the tribulation. The violent undertones that the Tea Party insisted were innocent during the protests of the bill have come to fruition and both sides are looking to blame the other for it.

Most republicans have either said that the violent episodes, like bricks through windows and family members of democratic members of congress having their gas lines cut, are overblown or nothing unusual. Others like Rep. Eric Cantor have both claimed to be victims themselves and blamed the democratic party for the violence occurring. Yet the most prevalent excuse for the anger ginned up by those looking to defeat the health care reform bill at all costs, is that it’s comparable to the level of absurd anger during the Bush administration. Republicans are telling us that the hyper-partisan, sky is falling end of the world conspiracy attitude may be ridiculous, but come-on fair is fair. But if you follow this line of logic it invariably leads back to childish republican tactics yet again. Those who feel that Bush was mistreated tend to ignore the rank paranoia of the Clinton years.

Republicans have a deep seeded belief that the executive branch is their birthright. When they lost control of the White House in 1992 after 12 years the radical right decided that delusional rhetoric was now fair game. They accused claimed his 1993 budget would result in another great depression, and that he and his wife had murdered Vince Foster. They claimed he assassinated his rivals and ran a drug ring for the CIA while Governor of Arkansas. Today, as I hear those same republicans claim that the health care reform bill will be the undoing of the republic, I think of how that 1993 budget set the stage for an economic boom.