The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

#ObamaCare’s Past Schadenfreude, But The Democrat Wreckage Is Still Good

Posted on | December 14, 2014 | 20 Comments

by Smitty

The cumulative damage the Democratic Party has suffered, as well as the casualty rate — half of the 60 senators who supported the bill are since deceased, defeated or retired — has brought its leaders to an unhappy inflection and reflection point. Two years ago, President Obama was reelected to the surprise and delight of Democrats who believed that, not only would his unique coalition provide them with dominance in presidential cycles for the foreseeable future, but that perhaps the ACA backlash had passed. After losing their Senate majority and watching the GOP cement gains across federal offices, statehouses and regions Democrats might have lost for generations, however, buyer’s remorse on healthcare reform has led to angry division inside the party.

The long term economic and societal damage from ObamaCare remains to be seen. It’s too grim and widespread for schadenfreude to be appropriate. Careers have been ended, but the worst perpetrators are still around.

And the fundamental behavior pattern of having legislation move through Congress with the suddenness and subtlety of a mudslide is still prevalent, as the CROmnibus showed.

The sad part is that the conceptual flaw of Progressivism–that any of this federal over-reach was a good idea in the first place–remains unquestioned. Maybe when he’s the last Dem standing, Chuck Schumer will reflect that maybe modeling the American people as a flock of sheep for planning purposes was too simplistic.

via Hot Air

Comments

20 Responses to “#ObamaCare’s Past Schadenfreude, But The Democrat Wreckage Is Still Good”

  1. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 14th, 2014 @ 10:12 am

    The GOP thought the same thing when George W. Bush got re-elected. It did not turn out that way. The Bush Administration was certainly not as bad as Barack Obama’s, but it veered from good leadership enough to drag down the GOP brand that we ended up giving the Democrats the ability to vote in Obamacare without a single GOP supporter.

  2. Quartermaster
    December 14th, 2014 @ 10:29 am

    Many of those sorry leaders are still around in Congress.

  3. Quartermaster
    December 14th, 2014 @ 10:30 am

    Most of the damage Zer0care will do is still in the future, and will be far, far worse than what we are already seeing. If a GOP POTUS is elected in 2016, they had better repeal it and burn it with fire as their first act of Congress, or the GOP will be painted with that brush as well.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 14th, 2014 @ 10:45 am

    Many of us probably would not have supported the Iraq War (at least not how it was fought for the initial occupation). Some of that was tragic some of it avoidable. But you remember Karl Rove pushing expansion of medicare drugs entitlements to supposedly backstop any losses in Florida again?

  5. Adobe_Walls
    December 14th, 2014 @ 12:56 pm

    Attempts to defund will produce some drama and perhaps some entertainment, but without the will to force Obama to shutdown the government by attaching a poison pill to some must pass legislation, nothing much will be done to undo the damage. Repealing the device tax, like repealing the 1099 provision, are tactical errors as those actions only serve to make the law slightly more palatable. Further more, I doubt Obama would mind repealing the employer mandate. His repeated delaying of the implementation indicates he sees significant political and or functional downsides to enforcing it.
    One would never go broke betting on SCOTUS to reach the wrong decision, however the letter of the law plainly reads that subsidies from the Federal Exchanges are illegal. If/when the high court strikes down that illegal practice the ACA starts falling apart. The administration will no doubt try an end around such as declaring the fed exchanges to be state exchanges. Obviously this would generate yet another series of lawsuits. The administration could try simply decreeing that all states must set up their own exchanges, once again more lawsuits. Ultimately Obama will have to go to congress, they should at that point pass repeal and replace legislation but refuse to make any attempt to salvage the ruins of Obamacare. Any legislation meant to work within the framework of the ASA is unacceptable.

  6. Matthew W
    December 14th, 2014 @ 1:52 pm

    “We had the collapse of the subprime mortgages”

    Not to be a conspiracy type of nut, but I still have a problem believing that an incredibly small amount of bad mortgages caused the market crash

  7. Daniel Freeman
    December 14th, 2014 @ 4:30 pm

    Believe it. They were leveraged through derivatives, and caused a loss of confidence in entire asset classes.

  8. ‘Djobama Unchained’? Barry’s Movie Buddies Punked While Being ‘Racially Insensitive’ | Regular Right Guy
    December 14th, 2014 @ 5:21 pm

    […] #ObamaCare’s Past Schadenfreude, But The Democrat Wreckage Is Still Good […]

  9. Quartermaster
    December 14th, 2014 @ 5:22 pm

    I was against going into Iraq in the first place. A lot of old cold warriors were (you can go back into Jerry Pournelle’s archive and he does a good job of explaining why), and the moron Frum tried to read us out of the party. Saddam was a nasty fella, but the religious minorities were protected, and ISIS had no way to get a foot hold. OTOH, if Bremer, who was incompetent, had not sent the Army home, and kept much of the the regime together, and simply put in place another strongman, things would have been different as well. The US has long been incompetent when it has come to real imperialism. Even if we aren’t trying to set up an empire, the ability to do so can come in handy from time to time. It would have been so in Iraq.

    DimoKKKraps avoid the bullet because the LSM deflects the blame for them with their continuing agitprop. As a consequence, even if the legislation was from the Dim’s pen, they don’t get the blame for it.

  10. Quartermaster
    December 14th, 2014 @ 5:24 pm

    There is still a huge over hang of such things that will have to be dealt with. I see no movement, or even will, when it comes to dealing with them. Greed can have nasty results.

  11. Dana
    December 14th, 2014 @ 6:17 pm

    Mr McCain’s blog sidekick Smitty wrote:

    It’s too grim and widespread for schadenfreude to be appropriate.

    No it isn’t. Schadenfreude is always appropriate! Let’s just call it karmic justice.

  12. WJJ Hoge
    December 14th, 2014 @ 6:55 pm

    And Brett Kimberlin was soooooooo disappointed when Judge Johnson would let him bring up the SPLC and neo-confederatism.

  13. richard mcenroe
    December 14th, 2014 @ 6:57 pm

    Don’t worry, McConnell and Boehner have already apologized to Obama and Reid and are working very hard to put everything back just the way it was…

  14. Adobe_Walls
    December 14th, 2014 @ 7:38 pm

    The rational for not simply going into Iraq and breaking it was the same in both Gulf wars. That being that a relatively strong and stable Iraq was necessary as a counter weight against Iran. Now Iran is ascendant and about to acquire nukes and Iraq is a basket case as well as Syria.

  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 14th, 2014 @ 9:57 pm

    It wasn’t that small. That was the problem. And the Democrats pushed the change to supposedly address redlining and the Republicans never really questioned it because so many made so much on tulips…I mean subdivisions and condos. Till they didn’t.

  16. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 14th, 2014 @ 9:59 pm

    I was wrong. You were right. The hope was Iraq would not become a hole. There was a chance but Obama blew that.

  17. Evan3457
    December 15th, 2014 @ 1:09 am

    I always thought going into Iraq made sense only if we were going to use it as a staging/logistics area to take out Iran.

    I really wish that had been the plan.

  18. Daniel Freeman
    December 15th, 2014 @ 1:44 am

    The SPLC has overreached. They have a quarter of a billion dollars to spend on nothing, and go around making enemies like AVfM for no good reason.

  19. Adobe_Walls
    December 15th, 2014 @ 1:32 pm

    We should have smashed Iraq, then smashed Syria, then turned to Iran with a series of ultimatums. This would have had a salutary effect on other terrorist supporting countries like Libya. Iran would be a tougher nut to crack and invasion would not be a first choice. Drastic sanctions and covert ops to undermine the regime from within with particular emphasis on arming the Kurds. Retaliation via massive airstrikes for any hint of support for terrorism by Iran.

  20. Squid Hunt
    December 15th, 2014 @ 6:13 pm

    Yeah, I can’t believe Boehnor has ridden this wave. Bet he puckered up when Cantor got nailed to the wall, though.