... thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.Last week I posted about the coming electoral disaster facing the Democratic Party: The Democrats are inextricably trapped by Obamacare. A bunch of folks left comments that they were going to blame the Insurance Companies or the Republicans, and the Media will let them get away with it. Essentially, the thrust of this view is that the Big Lie will save the Democrats from their folly. It won't.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
The problem is that the Big Lie requires two things to work:
1. Results cannot directly impact most of the population. Hitler's policy on the Jews only was felt by the Jews; most Germans never felt any change to their lives.The problem is that Obamacare violates Axiom #1 here. Something like five million people (and counting) have lost their current health insurance and are scrambling to use the broken exchanges to get new plans that for many will cost more in monthly premiums, will have higher deductables, and will have higher annual out of pocket limits. You can't hide that signal, because it shows up in a letter from the Insurance Company.
2. A strict control of the information available to most of the population. If something is never reported, nobody will know (or care).
That will get enormously worse next year as Employer-covered plans run into the same regulations that have torpedoed the individual plans. We can expect an order of magnitude more people to be impacted, likely in the run up to the election.
And here's where it won't help for the Democrats and the Media to point the finger at someone else - they lied to pass the law. They lied repeatedly. They promised that you could keep your plan. They said your costs would go down. They said it was going to be great. They said it over and over.
And now people are seeing that it was a lie, and Obama's and the Democratic Party's poll numbers are nose diving. Remember, that's with only 5 million or so people impacted. Just wait until another 50 million get the cancellation noticed in the next Open Enrollment period.
Yes, of course the Democrats will try to blame someone else. Of course the media will try to back them up. The problem here is that between 50 Million and 100 Million people see them as liars. And since their families will be directly impacted they'll be paying a lot of attention. People complain about "low information voters" but the theory of Rational Ignorance explains almost all of that. Rational Ignorance collapses in the face of the family's annual cost having to go up by 10% a year.
That leaves Axiom #1 of the Big Lie in smithereens. People will be looking for someone to blame. The question is who will get the blame. The Democrats think that they can lie their way out of this.
They'll blink their Bambi Eyes at the people who lost their insurance because of "Obamacare". They'll give a million excuses that "Obamacare" isn't their fault. Yup, a real plan for success, given that the poll numbers are tanking because everyone thinks that Obama and the Democrats are liars.
And here's where it falls apart for the Democrats: Axiom #2 requires controlling the information that citizens receive about the Big Lie. The Democrats' lies are all up on Youtube. So riddle me this, Mr. Main Stream Media Man: who they going to believe - you or their lying eyes?
Vanna, why don't you tell the Democrats what their consolation prize is?
Sure, Borepatch! A whole Metric c**pload of Democratic Senators and Representatives have just won a whole lot of time "to pursue personal interests".
Will they try to lie their way out of this? Sure - after all, what choice do they have? Will it work? Good luck with that.
16 comments:
Borepatch,
You do have a lot of valuable points and observations with your post, And I don't find that anyone rational can refute your post in its entirety. The biggest problem I have is that there have been various little lies, IE Benghazi, Fast and Furious, "Immigration reform/control" Energy prices, and many other items out there that have direct ties to the current administration.
Now some of these are not affecting most Americans, a lot such as Energy policies, fuel prices for example are. Today's prices here just dropped under 3.00 a gallon for gasoline for example and it's been this way for most of the administration. Remember how the media screamed bloody murder for the few points doing the Brush administration about this? Yet now everything is just fine. While this could be argued it is a different cost as people will pay for it or its hidden in other costs people did just that, tightened their belts and absorbed it.
Now I will grant that a direct insurance premium increase will be seen and felt more directly the Democrats are counting on having the exchanges fixed so that people can buy insurance. They are also I suspect counting that enough people just pay the fine which "Saves" them money. They are also counting on edicts to delay much of the mandates until -well- after the elections happen. And again the Republicans are happy to delay all that until after the elections.
I predict and feel you are right in the upcoming crippling if not for decade it will be generational devastation for the Democrat party if these mandates and all this pain is actually felt in time for this upcoming election cycle.
If not, then I suspect it will be the continued sinking of the ship because the piecemeal implementation so that only some segments are affected by the insurance cancellations.
When enough of the most left of his supporters and the Obamacare's supporters are affected though then we will see political bloodshed like we have never seen. You have mentioned in the past that in history and perhaps even in his own administration have to suffer though what they wanted for everyone else then the final veil will be lifted.
Just my thoughts on it.
Hopefully ...
Sadly though ... we still are afflicted by the likes of Melisa Harris-Perry screaching RACIST.
Jester, what I wrote is the *best case* scenario for the Democrats. The worst case scenario is that they're successful in sweeping this under the run until after the elections, saying that it's all Rethuglikkkan lies lies lies, and then 100 million people find out in January 2015 that no, the GOP was exactly right.
People already think that they're liars. Just imagine what people will think then. That kind of impression - "I got MAJORLY screwed by these4 liars" - is not something that anyone is going to forget. They won't forget because they're going to be in a perpetual state of being screwed, with a monthly reminder on just precisely what the dollar amount of that screwage is.
This will not end well for them, and they more successful they are in the short term the bigger the disaster will be for them long term.
The big problem I see at least with the health care issue, is that no matter what happens now the way things were is never going to come back. Even if they come into limitless power because the D's are so broken, I'm not sure that I can see the R's doing a blanket repeal/replace with something better, I see a "try to fix one broken piece at a time" strategy, which won't get us any closer to good.
deadmandance, I'm not so sure that Congress wouldn't repeal if there were 100 M pissed off voters.
IF, the big IF is not when I think the pain is actually felt, it may be more if people care and can actually see it.
And if that makes them mad enough to throw them out of office and make this all go away with holding the Retardagain's feet to the fire.
My concern is still of there will be enough media sob stories about how coverage will not be extended to people that discover they have cancer, damn the facts that the Coastal establishment supporters will just fold over. (On both sides of the isle.)
It will be interesting to watch unfold, who finally opens their eyes and who the most rabid of supporters are that double down on insanity and finally those that go in to survival mode and go invisible for their own future and party future. If it is as bad as you say it is we may see the final break out of the most leftists making their own party, or separating like the Republicans and Whigs had some time ago.
Again my only concern with the scenario that the true costs are hidden (Not unlike Hospital and Insurance costs were before in some ways mind you..) to the point that again Americans just tighten their belts and pay it, and the outrage goes forward in small groups only so that it is a muted grumbling alone, and by the time it hits in 2015 in a bigger way they will have plenty of time until 2016, 18 and beyond to save their pet groups and people will not remember how it used to be before this giant train wreck occurred. The higher payments for far less and far fewer approved plans will be come the new normal, not abnormal.
I still do suspect you are right or at least mostly right simply because of the insane cadre of people at the helm right now that have spent too many decades being told they are right and have not a single clue what the average American thinks/wants/needs.
I sincerely hope that 100 million people voice their displeasure at the polls, because there are two ways to replace a government. The second is not pleasant.
Jester, I don't think that the Left has figured out what they've done to themselves. The least of their problems are that the electorate replaces some of them with Republicans. That's a post coming soon to a blog near you.
juvat, true dat. Right now it's the ballot box.
juvat, I agree because I would prefer to do it that way vs a more violent way.
Borepatch, you are correct just based off what I'm seeing myself that most of our rank and file Left is clueless as to what has happened and what's happening. I just am not sure if that is good or not. I think that as a collective thought that the Left holds they have not realized how fucked they should be. I think some of the more intelligent ones do see how fucked they are and there will be some big names that seem to go invisible for a long time to just survive the fall out. I think we are already seeing it with the big names that are starting to say they will not run for the highest stations of office.
Its either that or what I suspect that the cooler and more long term thinking members of the Left will pull everyone up short and some how survive this in the way's I've pointed out.
Great post at any rate and I look forward to the next one you mention sometime soon.
Borepatch;
I’m not sure that you picked up what I was laying down when I said that they would blame the industry, and then asked what happens any time the government blames industry.
There is a train of thought that goes along the path of this:
None of this was unintentional. None of it was a mistake. They WANT people’s insurance to be canceled or to become prohibitively expensive so that they lose it. They want this because there is a law that says emergency rooms have to treat people regardless of their ability to pay. They want to create a situation that there are so many people going to the emergency room without insurance that the hospitals are going under and cry out to government for help.
And then the government steps in to help.
What does a government do when it wants to punish or help an industry?
The same thing it always does: it nationalizes it, in part or in its entirety.
Now, I live by a simple rule that tells me that I should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, so I DON’T SUBSCRIBE TO THE TINFOIL HAT THEORY THAT I POSTED ABOVE.
However, I can absolutely foresee things going that way, even if it wasn’t planned to be that way. I can see the democrats thinking this thing out, looking at their options when they’re faced with this total, abject failure of a program, and see this as the light at the end of the tunnel. At some point in time, you mark my words, we’ll see a shift in the Democrat’s stance on this thing that will have them stop worrying about the damage and start trying to create more damage and to displace the blame for it, for one reason and one reason only:
Their only option to pull themselves out of this thing without a total bloodbath at the polls is to sweep in, at the last minute, and save us all from this horrible melt down of our healthcare system by nationalizing the entire goddamned thing. Single payer will be the only fix for this absolute mess that they’ve gotten us into.
I don’t do tinfoil hats. I don’t for a second think that this was intentional, or planned in any way by the dems. There was no grand conspiracy; they had every intention when they passed Obamacare that it would work and function as planned. But looking at it now; reviewing where they stand and what their options are, this, to me, is really the only way they save themselves. Once the hope and anticipation that they have for things straightening themselves out with Obamacare goes away, they will get desperate, and this will be their only option.
Think it through, if you would, and tell me what I’m missing here.
I think that unless we can obtain a non-democrat majority in Congress (I don’t care if it is the Whigs, just as long as they aren’t Dems) this November, we’ll be staring down both barrels of a single payer, national healthcare system before new years day, 2015, or at least before the 4th of July that year, and it will all come in a package with the label “extraordinary measures to save us from extraordinary times” just like the bank bailouts and TARP. Too big to fail, baby.
Can't add much, but that 2014 is CRITICAL... And they will lie their asses off/postpone any big hits until after the election if they can get away with it...
Goober, that comment was pack full of smart.
I hope that it doesn't play out that way. A million people took to the streets to protest Obamacare; it will be 5 million to protest nationalized medicine. That's when things can spin out of control.
The one way ratchet will tighten until something snaps.
Re your re: But at this point, what would a repeal get us? I doubt the insurance companies will just revert everything.
I don’t know, Borepatch. I hope you’re right, but when hospitals are going bankrupt because of the influx of uninsured, the government is bleeding cash wholesale trying to prop them up while subsidizing people that Obamacare can’t afford to subsidize anymore, and people are getting canceled from their insurance or priced out of decent insurance by the requirements of this system, one wonders if single payer won’t look like the heroic savior to the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. This, especially if the dems can sway public opinion and get the media to carry their water for them, by blaming it all on the evil private insurance corporations, who, I might add, are corporations driven by PROFIT!!one!1eleventy!! and don’t care about you at all because PROFIT!!1eleventy!!.
Never let a good crisis go to waste. All they have to do to capitalize on this one is open their eyes, see the option, and then convince the American public that private insurers, not Obamacare, are to blame for the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. If they can pull off that big lie (which they’ve been pretty adept at doing so far: Benghazi, Fast and Furious, IRS Scandal, etc), then they are in like flint. We’ve already got some huge percentage of Americans that think single payer would just be the bees-knees. 100% of the media, other than Fox News, thinks it would be simply grand. Another large percentage of folks are agnostic, either way, as long as they get good healthcare, and as soon as a “private” (yeah, those are scorn quotes) industry fails them, they will be just fine with single payer if it fixes the problem. I’ll bet by then you’ve got a majority of the voting public.
If the democrats keep control of even one house of congress this November, this leads to single payer. Unintentionally, sure, but the path ends there no matter what.
This is not an endorsement of Republicans; it is an indictment of democrats. Since republicans are the only viable alternative right now, I’m voting R across the board. Not because I’ll like it, but because I think it is the only way we avoid turning this mess into complete, world-wide healthcare stagnation.
If the repeal puts them back into a competitive market, then yeah, they will.
Faith I have that a repeal will actually accomplish this?
<5%
Prohibition lasted only 13 years...
Just sayin'
Rich in NC
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