Propagandizing Public Education

Across the U.S., conservative-dominated school boards have sought to manipulate public education curricula by overruling relevant experts in subjects such as history, economics, and science, establishing requirements to teach subjects through a conservative lens, and via outright censorship. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education approved a social studies curriculum that questioned the Founding Fathers’ commitment to secular government and presented conservative political philosophies in a positive light. Astonishingly, the school board cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions across the world in the 18th and 19th centuries and replaced him with religious figures such as St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin because the board members disliked Jefferson’s support for separation between church and state.

What do Stalin, Mao and Obama Have in Common? Nothing.

Over the past several years, as President Barack Obama has occupied the White House, his detractors have ceaselessly labeled his policies as communist or socialist. Pundits like Glenn Beck often carefully choreographed imagery of the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle flag, or the Nazi’s swastika when referring to Mr. Obama and his policies. The notion that Democrats support socialism has become a foregone conclusion in conservative communities. As one who formally studied economics and political science at BYU, hearing these terms twisted far from their actual meaning, and observing the comparison of programs like Medicare and the Affordable Care Act to Stalinist Russia, make me cringe. For Republican strategists, the purpose in making such comparisons to the genocidal regimes of Stalin, Mao, or Hitler are obvious- striking fear in their largely uninformed constituents. This messaging strategy has worked marvelously as more and more Americans now simply refuse to even consider the merits of any policy proposal that the GOP punditry has labeled “socialist” or “communist.”

Vigilantism's Return to America

Several weeks ago, George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of murder in the shooting death of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, made an appearance at a Florida gun show as the guest of honor. Zimmerman was invited by the gun show’s organizer, who had supported Zimmerman at his trial, to help promote the event by signing autographs. The appalling reaction of several of my right-wing acquaintances after I complained on Facebook about the celebration of Zimmerman as a hero prompted me to write this post.

State Capitals are Key to 2014 Election

Most Americans claim they are tired of bitter partisanship and Congressional gridlock in Washington. The non-stop manufactured crises, including the show-downs over the federal budget and debt ceiling, the more than 40 House votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and the unprecedented use of the filibuster in the Senate to block even routine executive and judicial appointments, are just some of the ways politicians have log-jammed our democracy. Last October’s unpopular government shut down led to the furlough of nearly 1 million workers, while another million were compelled to work without pay. Any astute observer of American politics knows that one of the primary reasons for this Congressional dissonance is hyper-partisan redistricting, or gerrymandering.

Church Leader Speaks of Reason

I came across the following great quote on reason by Elder James E. Talmage from the January 1920 Improvement Era magazine. I think this statement is needed now more than ever in an era of unprecedented partisanship.

The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only half of any question is worse off than the man who knows nothing of it. He is not only one-sided but his partisanship soon turns him into an intolerant and a fanatic. In general it is true that nothing which cannot stand up under discussion or criticism is worth defending.

Reagan a Supporter of Collective Bargaining Rights

It has seemed apparent for some time that Ronald Reagan, the greatest icon of the conservative movement, would not be conservative enough for today's Republican Party. Attempts by Republicans in several state legislatures across the country to eliminate collective bargaining rights of public employee unions has truly been explosive-- the equivalent of the "nuclear option" in politics. Contrary to claims by Republicans such as Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, that these moves were made simply to help fight budget deficits, these attempts are nothing more than a power grab.

In Wisconsin, public employee unions had already agreed to cuts in pay and benefits amounting to 8 percent, doing more than their fair share in helping solve the budget crisis. However, for Walker and his party, that was not enough. He wanted to entirely prevent public employees from participating in negotiations regarding their pay, benefits, and work conditions. Demonstrating the blatant partisan nature of the move, Walker exempted some public employees from the collective bargaining ban, particularly those professions that tended to be Republican-leaning.

Princeton economist Paul Krugman points out, "you don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy."

Krugman also states,

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers [have done] is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

The video clip above, which shows Ronald Reagan referencing the struggles of workers in Poland who wanted to organize into unions, demonstrates that even the Great Conservative Icon, who fired thousands of members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization when their union violated the law, recognized the important role that unions play in a free society. It's too bad we don't have any more semi-moderate Republicans like Reagan in contemporary politics.

Let's Tone it Down Several Knotches

So far, it appears that the person who targeted Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona for assassination, in Saturday's shooting rampage that left 6 people dead and many others seriously wounded, was not directly inspired by the virulent and violent political rhetoric that has been dominating the public discourse over the past 2 years and beyond. And in this post, I am not trying to assign blame for the shooting rampage to anyone aside from the deranged, homicidal gunman, Jared Lee Loughner. But this national tragedy has provided an opportunity for us to reflect on the type of political conversation we engage in both in public and in private. Last March, I posted about some of the recent violence and violent rhetoric. In the aftermath of the passage of the health care reform bill, many prominent opponents of the bill used inappropriate and irresponsible rhetoric that included implicit violent and hateful messages.

In "Before Shooting, A Campaign Season Rife With Gun Rhetoric," Rachel Slajda points to some other perhaps even more disturbing examples of irresponsible speech used by mostly conservative politicians during the recent campaign season:

Rep. Giffords' own opponent, Republican Jesse Kelly, had a gun-themed fund-raiser in June in which supporters could come and shoot an M-16 rifle with Kelly. It was promoted thusly: Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.

Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it.

Stephen Broden, a Republican challenger to Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), in late October said that violent revolution is "on the table."

"People are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out," said Sharon Angle, the GOP's candidate for Harry Reid's Senate seat.

From 2009: Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) told Politico that he hunts Democrats. Asked about the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, he said, "We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition."

New Rep. Allen West (R-FL) almost hired a Florida talk-radio host, Joyce Kaufman, as his chief of staff. But Kaufman withdrew after media coverage of some of her more fiery statements, such as: "I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment rights was they gave a Second Amendment," she told a tea party crowd last summer. "And if ballots don't work, bullets will."

Slajda has more disturbing examples. I'm not implying here that these politicians intended to promote violence. I do not have any reason to think that is the case. But by using this kind of violent rhetoric, they are playing with fire. Lest you think that such speech is harmless, here is an actual example of where a deranged man shot a politician after receiving encouragement on the radio to "take her out":

Mary Rose Wilcox, a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona, was shot in 1997, while walking out of a board meeting, by a man who later said he was angry at her support for a baseball stadium tax. The first Hispanic woman elected to the board, Wilcox, a Democrat, had been the target of talk-radio tirades telling Maricopa County residents to "take her out." "I knew at the time that the hate had been caused by a lot of the rhetoric that had gone on," Wilcox said. "At the trial, the man actually said, 'I shot her because the radio said I should take her out.'"

So while Sarah Palin's infamous "crosshairs" map that targeted Rep. Giffords, and her rhetoric of "reload" and "lock and load," may not have led to Saturday's shooting rampage, they could have. There is a difference between freedom of speech and using responsible speech. We all probably recall the international outcry about the Florida pastor who announced he was going to burn Korans on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Many political leaders from both parties as well as military leaders warned that this man's actions would endanger lives of American soldiers and innocent civilians across the Middle East. While the pastor had the freedom of speech to do so, such an action would have been incredibly reckless and irresponsible. The same goes for the violent rhetoric in contemporary politics. While I know there are examples of this on both sides of the spectrum, it is overwhelmingly a problem of the political right. Freedom of speech does not absolve us of personal responsibility. In addition to moderating our own rhetoric, let's also hold our elected leaders responsible for their speech and not patronize the talk show hosts who employ such divisive and evil language.

In another earlier post, I described how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints recently issued a renewed call for civility in our public discourse. Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recently stated,

Many in this world are afraid and angry with one another. While we understand these feelings, we need to be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions. This is especially true when we disagree. The Savior taught us to love even our enemies. The vast majority of our members heed this counsel. Yet there are some who feel that venting their personal anger or deeply held opinions is more important than conducting themselves as Jesus Christ lived and taught. I invite each one of us individually to recognize that how we disagree is a real measure of who we are and whether we truly follow the Savior. It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable. Violence and vandalism are not the answer to our disagreements.

Seven Percent of Republicans Are Not Completely Out of Their Minds

A recent nationwide survey found that a majority of Republicans believe that Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world."

According to the poll, 14 percent of Republicans said that from what they knew of Obama, they thought such allegations were "definitely true"; 38 percent thought the allegations were "probably true." Meanwhile, 33 percent of Republicans thought they were "probably not true" and 7 percent thought they were "definitely not true."

Never mind the legitimate ideological differences over economic, education, immigration, and health care policy between conservatives and liberals. This polling, along with the whole right-wing narrative of President Barack Obama being a closet Islamic extremist (who wasn't born in the U.S.), who wants to destroy the U.S. from the inside out, goes a long way in showing that in much of today's electorate, there really is no basis for rational debate of the current issues. How can you hold a calm, rational, fact-based discussion about Obama's policies with someone who believes that Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists (and for many Republicans, this term is synonymous with al-Qaeda)? The answer is you can't.

And the crazed theories do not stop with Islamic extremism. A few minutes of FOX News will often teach you that Obama is a blood-thirsty communist-socialist whose policies are equal to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. No one on FOX News has been more diligent in making those comparisons to Obama than Glenn Beck. (Anyone who has studied political science and understands the actual definition of socialism realizes the vast differences between Obama's policies and socialism. That's a long story and perhaps will be the subject of another post. Nonetheless, in making these socialism comparisons, I love how the most brutal dictators of the last century are invoked. FOX News pundits would not arouse the conservative base if they compared Obama to say, Chancellor Merkel, Former Prime Minister Brown, or President Berlusconi, whose countries' policies are much closer to the true definition of socialism (but still not that close) than the U.S.)

The 93 percent of Republicans who believe that it is "definitely true," "probably true," or even "probably not true" (meaning there is still a chance) that President Obama sympathizes with Muslim extremists who want to impose Shari'a law globally, need to find a way to connect with reality, or they are guilty of some severe intellectual dishonesty.

It is one thing to question the President's policies based on one's political ideals. We all should be encouraged to develop our own informed view of our President's policies. And contrary to what I was told by many conservatives during the Bush years, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with our President (they always invoked "Commander-in-Chief" in explaining why it was inappropriate to disagree with Bush). It is an entirely different thing to question his loyalty to and love of our country. There is absolutely no basis for these kinds of crazed theories being attached to President Obama. In many cases, it is nothing more than veiled bigotry or racism.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently stated that the best way to understand President Obama, as the president “is so outside our comprehension” that you can only understand him “if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior.” Gingrich was commenting on an article written by right-wing extremist Dinesh D’Souza, who compared Obama to his Kenyan father in an article in Forbes Magazine, stating, “incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son.” Never mind that Obama never really knew his father as his father left him and his mother when Obama was age two. Gingrich and D'Souza have descended into baseless, deceitful, fear-mongering.

A recent article in the New York Times, which explored conservatives' ongoing efforts to create and define Obama's "otherness," pointed out that, per these efforts, "Mr. Obama’s alleged sympathy for so-called Muslim extremists who would desecrate the World Trade Center site, his socialist African ancestry and his early years in Indonesia — all of this creates a shadowy archetype that every conservative enclave, fiscal, foreign policy and religious, can find a reason to fear."

So in considering all of this, it is no wonder why only 7% of Republicans believe it is definitely not true that Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law throughout the world. This kind narrative of President Obama's "otherness" is being supported by some of the most prominent conservatives politicians and has the backing of many conservative special interest groups. From the accusations that Obama was not born in the U.S., and the assertions that he is (or was) secretly a Muslim, to Gingrich's latest pontification about Obama's "Kenyan anticolonial behavior," conservatives are doing anything but focusing on the issues that matter most to Americans. So if you are part of that 7%, I urge you to help ground the other 93% in some semblance of reality when it comes to these attacks. Teach them the difference between attacking the dignity of our President through the spread of these rumors (which is an unpatriotic thing to do) verses critiquing his policies.

A Renewed Call for Civility from LDS Church Leadership

During the most recent LDS General Conference, we heard yet another call for civility in our public dialogue. Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stated, “many in this world are afraid and angry with one another. While we understand these feelings, we need to be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions. This is especially true when we disagree. The Savior taught us to love even our enemies. The vast majority of our members heed this counsel. Yet there are some who feel that venting their personal anger or deeply held opinions is more important than conducting themselves as Jesus Christ lived and taught. I invite each one of us individually to recognize that how we disagree is a real measure of who we are and whether we truly follow the Savior. It is appropriate to disagree, but it is not appropriate to be disagreeable. Violence and vandalism are not the answer to our disagreements.” (emphasis added)

This renewed call for civility is, in my view, very timely, given the current deluge of violence and angry rhetoric. In a previous post, I explored some of the recent violence and threatening language that came to a boiling point with the passage of the health care reform bill. In a response to a reader comment, I highlighted some of the specific incidents of inappropriate, violence-inciting rhetoric coming from prominent conservative leaders and conservative media:

When you have people like Glenn Beck and GOP Rep. Ron Paul going on national TV and starting rumors that Democrats are creating FEMA concentration camps for conservatives, you are inciting violence. When on FOX news, you regularly compare Obama to Stalin and Hitler, you are inciting hatred. When you have prominent conservative Christian preachers pray for Obama's death and then have one of their congregants show up at an Obama rally with an assault rifle, you are inciting violence. When the core leadership of your grass roots organization (the Tea Party) is comprised of "birthers" and individuals who believe that Obama is the Muslim anti-Christ, you are inciting fear and hatred. When you have the House Minority Leader warn that a Democratic Congressman "may be a dead man" if he voted for the health care bill, he is using violent rhetoric, even if he was only speaking metaphorically. When Michelle Bachman, GOP Rep from MN says she wants her constituents "armed and dangerous," in their opposition to the health care bill, she is encouraging violence, regardless of her true intent, which was likely metaphorical. When GOP Rep. George Peterson, in quoting a fellow activist, states that their movement is calling for a "complete and forceable overthrow" of Congress, during a anti-health care bill rally, he is inciting violence. The examples go on and on.

To me, it seemed like Elder Cook was speaking directly to those who have been using the type of violence-inciting, angry rhetoric we’ve seen and heard over the past year. We’ve see them at town hall meetings last summer where their shouts drowned out the ability of others to engage in a respectful dialogue with their elected representatives. We’ve heard them at Tea Party protests. We’ve heard them on the television and on the radio, where talk show hosts and pundits, as former Bush speechwriter David Frum noted, whipped their base into “a frenzy.” Though I think the recent widespread violence and threats of violence have been a much bigger phenomenon on the right than on the left, in part because conservatives are in the minority in our government, this call for civility applies to everyone regardless of political ideology or affiliation. Some day, as during the Bush Presidency, moderates and progressives will be in the minority again and they also must be a respectful, loyal opposition.

"The Rage is Not About Health Care"

Frank Rich stated what I was trying to point out in my previous post, "Right-Wing Terrorism," in a much more eloquent and straightforward fashion than I did. (That's probably why he's a NYT columnist and I'm not.) Here are some of the best parts:

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot... If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory.

...As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

Texas Textbooks- Don't Let Your Kids Read 'Em!

Recently the Texas Board of Education undertook efforts to significantly revise Texas' history, social studies, and economics curriculum along unapologetically ideological lines. No historians, sociologists, economists, or other experts were consulted at the meetings in which the revisions were debated and approved. Here's a humorous look at the way the changes were made.

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Right-Wing Terrorism

The news over the past few days has demonstrated that elements of the Tea Party and others on the far right have resorted to blatant bigotry and threats of violence in the run up to and in the aftermath of Sunday's House vote on the landmark heath care reform bill. As some Democratic lawmakers were making their way up to Capital Hill on Sunday, Tea Party protesters hurled racial and other epithets, like ni***r and fa***t to a few black congressman and one gay congressman. One black congressman was even spat upon.

After the bill passed, several Democrats received death threats and Democratic congressional offices were vandalized. The campaign office of Rep. Louise Slaughter from Niagara Falls, New York received a call that threatened a sniper attack. And the district congressional offices of Rep. Slaughter and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona were vandalized. Pro-life Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupack received death threats after voting for the bill. A Tea Party activist posted on his blog what he thought was the home address of Virgina Democrat Rep. Tom Perriello and encouraged fellow activists to "drop by" Rep. Perriello's home for a "face to face" chat. It turns out that it was actually the address of Perriello's brother. The Tea Party nut who posted the wrong address refuses to take it down. Now the FBI is investigating a line to a propane tank on a gas grill that was cut at Perriello's brother's house. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House's highest-ranking African-American received a fax with an image of a noose. At least 10 House Democrats have raised concerns about their security since Sunday's vote.

If that isn't enough, the GOP is using provocative imagery in its opposition. For example, Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page, used gun sights to highlight the Democrats her lobbying group is targeting in the next elections. This is the same Palin that incited virulence and threats at her campaign rallies in 2008. The official GOP website has an image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the midst of flames.

A look at actual acts of right-wing violence over the past couple of years shows that there is a body count to all of this. These latest incidents are mostly just words, but extremist movements are capitalizing on anger and despair over a difficult economic situation. Here are a few of the most well-known cases:

* July 27, 2008- Motivated by desire to "kill liberals and Democrats," gunman Jim David Adkisson fired a shotgun at members of the congregation during a youth performance of a musical, killing two people and wounding seven others.
* Two white supremacists planned a murder spree of 88 African Americans in Tennessee, as well as planned to assassinate candidate Obama in October 2008. The Secret Service has investigated a large number of threats against Obama both during and after the campaign.
* January 21, 2009- White supremacist Keith Luke killed 2 people, raped and attempted to kill a 3rd, and planned to continue on a killing spree targeting Jews and non-whites but was thwarted from doing so after he was arrested.
* April 4, 2009- Richard Poplawski, a white supremacist with strong anti-government ideology ambushed and killed 3 Pittsburgh police officers. Poplawski had reportedly posted a link to his website of a YouTube video of Republican Congressman Ron Paul discussing with Fox News host Glenn Beck the rumored existence of FEMA-managed concentration camps.
* May 31, 2009- Scott Roeder murdered an abortion doctor while he was in church in Kansas. Fox News' right-wing commentator Bill O'Reilly helped to incite anger and violence against Dr. George Tiller.
* June 10, 2009- James Von Brunn, an anti-government ideologue, attacked the Holocaust museum in DC, killing a guard before he was wounded.
* February 18, 2010, Joseph Stack III, angry at the IRS, crashed a small airplane into the Austin, Texas IRS building, killing 1 IRS employee. And how is this different from one of the 9/11 hijackers?

The DHS report on the threat of right-wing violence was spot-on correct, despite it being viciously attacked by many conservatives as a political move. Extremists on the right are taking advantage of a severe recession and the election of the nation's first black president to incite hatred and violence.

I hope that in the future, cooler heads will prevail. The GOP leadership and conservative talk show hosts have a moral responsibility to keep the dialogue civil. While they are not necessarily responsible for every lone wolf nut job out there that goes on a killing rampage, GOP leaders and conservative pundits must know that their words are heeded, and when they use the rhetoric of fear, violence, and hatred, those at the fringe of their following will use their words to justify almost anything. Scaring their voting base by claiming that Stalin and Hitler have been resurrected in the form of Obama and his health care bill is simply unethical and untruthful. As I pointed out on my last post regarding conservative pundit David Frum's analysis of the GOP's health care defeat, conservative talkers had "whipped the Republican voting base" into a "frenzy" where calm and rational dialogue was impossible.

Of course there are extremists at both ends of the political spectrum. But we did not see this kind of violence and virulent rhetoric from the far left during the Bush years.

The Conservatives' Waterloo

David Frum, President George W. Bush's former speechwriter and a conservative political pundit posted the following on his website yesterday. I highly recommend the entire article, but here are some key points:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s... A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves. At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994...

But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994...

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat... There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?