Playing right into GOP’s hands: How Democrats could blow it BIG TIME on Obamacare

[DonViejo]

The right's Obamacare horror stories may often be false, but here's why they'll stick if the left doesn't change

BRIAN BEUTLER

Of all the decontextualized things President Obama has ever said that have featured prominently in conservative talking points — “you didn’t build that!”; his putative desire to “fundamentally transform” America — none has generated as much fake outrage on the right as this decontextualized Nancy Pelosi quote from 2010: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

That was four years ago this month, during an otherwise unremarkable speech about the Affordable Care Act before the Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties. Stripped from context it reads like a condescending and unusually callous commandment from a scheming elitist. Run along, little people, so we can seed our devious plans in a giant bill and pass it into law, at which point it’ll be too late for you to stop them.

In reality, she was explaining something very basic about the timeline of the reforms themselves — they were going to roll out slowly, and it would take some time before people actually began to enjoy the benefits. Here’s the full context:

You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention — it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/19/playing_right_into_gops_hands_how_democrats_could_blow_it_big_time_on_obamacare/

[earthside]

1. Democrats are blowing it.

Maybe a special PAC or 501 needs to be set-up and raise a lot of money from the Democratic millionaires, etc.

But people in this country ought to be turning on the TV and radio and hearing a pro-ACA ad every fifteen minutes or so.

They ought to be hearing and seeing rebuttals of the Koch-Repuglican lies about the ACA.

Frankly, if I didn't listen to liberal talk radio and watch MSNBC, I wouldn't even know about the lies the so-called 'Americans for Prosperity' are broadcasting about 'Obamacare'.

I know it is only March, but things happen in politics ... like the Ukraine crisis that alters the clock. It seems to me that there isn't time to waste in defining the Repuglicans as too extreme for America.

But I'm not hearing that in an articulate, thematic way from the Democrats right now and personally, I think it is already getting too late to have the time for the 'reasonable and principled Democrats' meme to sink in.

[Scuba]

2. Democrats are blowing it by failing to appeal to the progressive attitude of rank-and-file Dems.

The Third Way is working hard to make sure Dems don't appeal to the masses, and that if any Dems do get elected, they will continue to support the corporate agenda.

If we stay on this path, the Republicans will hold the House and take over the Senate this fall. Count on it.

[djean111]

3. You got that right.

[Blue Idaho]

5. Exactly!

Democrats will get no where by acting like the republican-light party. America is further left than any corporate media would like you to believe...

[Loudly]

4. Jujitsu is the martial art of re-directing an opponent's own force against himself.

Democrats do that in 2014 by harnessing all anti-ACA sentiment and campaigning on Medicare for All.

Failure to do so will be worse than a lost opportunity. It will mean electoral disaster.

[Whisp]

6. Timely posting in light of some *ahem, right here on DU. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

7. 11-Dimensional Rope-A-Dope: Win By Losing.

[seabeckind]

8. It's a media and framing problem

And the democrats have neither.

I check the local newspaper site everyday and try to keep up with the goings on. I usually follow the LTE and comments.

Just about 5 or 6 times a week there's some LTE complaining about some Obama issue andeven if there isn't directly a story of how the ACA is failing, it's brought up in some false equivalency.

Sometimes these "letters" are written by somebody from AEI or the Hoover Inst or the Indiana Policy Group. IOW, pure gop propaganda.

And guess what? Not ONE rebuttal by an spokesperson from the Democratic party. In fact, because of the comment policy, the TPers could delete the comment anyway. And have I ever seen a complaint of bias by any dem spokesperson? No.

When I turn on the teevee I see nothing but right wing bullshit -- particularly on the CBS national and local news but even on the other channels the report is slanted. There's some gop guy usually shoving his nose at a microphone every time I look up.

So where is our presence on the stage? Gonna wake up sometime along August and start looking for somebody to print flyers? Oh yah, we get somebody to appear on MSNBC -- that nobody but us ever sees.

Local liberal station? Not around here.

And it'll be my fault?