By Joel Thurtell
Have Republicans lost their brains?
President Obama is poised to sign the long-awaited health reform bill into law today, March 23, 2010, and not one single Republican voted for it.
I think I understand their reasoning, such as it is: They were counting on killing health reform, then heading into the November elections as self-styled dragon-slayers.
Big gamble.
They lost.
Through hype and flagrant lies, the GOP (not those outliers in the Tea Party, but the mainline Republican party) tried to brainwash Americans into believing that what would be GOOD for them would instead be BAD for them.
That is an age-old Republican gambit, and it came close to working.
Had health reform been reduced to a shambles, Democrats would have headed into the off-year elections severely embarrassed. Not only would they have failed at achieving health reform, but their failure would have appeared to confirm Republican prognostications that health care was a loser for the American people.
But thanks to the heroic efforts of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and most of all, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we have a health reform law.
Now that the immediate battle is over, Democrats and those proponents of health care reform who championed this cause will have some breathing room to begin explaining its ramifications in a reasoned way.
It is Republicans who are in shambles.
They don’t know it.
Yet.
They invested in tons of negative hype, but now health reform is soon to be law and we can wait and see who is right. The answer won’t come before the elections.
I wonder if Republicans have lost their brains, because now, two days after the big House vote, it’s sinking in that NOT ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR THIS LAW.
Compare that to 1964, when President Johnson and the Democrats pushed through landmark legislation like the Voting Rights Act. It could not have happened without a Republican who had no vested interest in civil rights, but who believed in them nonetheless This was Bill McCulloch of Ohio. The following year, I was a $75-a-week clerk-intern in the U.S. Capitol office of then U.S. Rep. Gerald Ford. Ford, the future President, had just been elected by the Republican House caucus as Minority Leader. I well remember his opposition — and general Republican opposition — to Johnson’s proposal for Medicare.
But in those days, the collective Republican brain was not as lame as it is today. In the 1964 presidential election, their candidate, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, lost to Johnson by a huge margin, in part because Goldwater and his GOP base espoused racist innuendo that alienated black voters, whose ballots until then often were cast for what was perceived as the Party of Lincoln. Goldwater was just too far out for most Americans. Republicans of that era figured it out and backed away from “extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice,” one of Goldwater’s favorite refrains.
In 1965, Republican leaders like Jerry Ford knew that it was not cool to be against civil rights or health care for seniors. Republicans then knew that to win some elections, they needed at least the appearance of sympathy to the have-nots and even the middle class. And some of them, like Bill McCulloch, genuinely believed in the cause of civil rights.
Republicans were loud in condemning Medicare back then, and they predicted the same doomsday scenario they were repeating recently.
I remember hearing then U.S. Rep. Melvin Laird of Wisconsin proclaim that Medicare would be “the death knell of free medicine.” Ronald Reagan in 1961 warned that if Medicare were not stopped, “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” George H. W. Bush called Medicare “socialized medicine” when running for the U.S. Senate in 1964. In 1964, Barry Goldwater said, “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” Bob Dole boasted in 1995 that he was one of a dozen House members who voted against Medicare: “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare … because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” (In fact, 116 House members voted against, with 307 in favor; there were 290 Democrats and 136 Republicans.)
Although he was on board with civil rights, McCulloch opposed Johnson’s Great Society. Still, he became more liberal thereafter. Can you imagine a Bill McCulloch in today’s Republican caucus? He’d be drummed out.
Despite Republican doom-saying in the sixties, the Johnson bills were enacted. Actually, the Medicare law was an amalgam of Republican and Democratic ideas. Republicans voted for it.
At the end, the Johnson-era social reform laws were bi-partisan.
Those days of political arm-twisting to achieve Medicare are a distant glimmer. Who remembers which congresspeople voted for and against it? Enough Republicans voted in favor to give the party cover in future years. Sure, Johnson pushed it through. Sure, it was one of the pillars of his Great Society. But Republicans could share credit, having contributed ideas and cast enough votes in favor to be perceived by future generations as having been on board when legislation fundamental to Americans’ well-being was passed. No matter that they would have killed it if they could.
Not so today.
Republicans chose to cast themselves literally as the Party of No right through the end.
Don’t forget that under President George W. Bush, Republicans tried to eviscerate Social Security. That would have been a treat for their pals on Wall Street and a big kick in the pants for the rest of us.
Republicans are the party of the rich, make no mistake.
This time, there were no last-minute vote switches to make Republicans appear to have the interests of common people in mind.
No, Republicans will be remembered now as the party that thought health reform was a terrible idea.
I depend on my monthly Social Security payment.
I just got it, and I’m relieved to be carrying my Medicare ID card.
Don’t anybody try to water them down or take them away!
I know which party fought to enact those bedrock entitlements.
Democrats.
Republicans hitch-hiked onto those historic bills only when they perceived they were going through. They knew that history would not absolve them if they appeared to oppose what was good for all because they served the wealthy few. In the end, a few at least dropped the sham.
Descendants of those former-day Republicans are not so smart.
As time moves on, as health reform takes root, as people come to depend on their new right to health care as they depend on Social Security and Medicare, they will not take kindly to Republicans raving of repeal.
And they will remember which party tried so hard to kill this good thing.
The Party of No: Republicans.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
