Meanwhile, here’s a liberal article that complains that the Democrats never developed a grand narrative to defend ObamaCare. The demonizing of those evildoing Koch brothers has been effective because it’s been unchallenged.
The indignant author notes, surely correctly, that the last Democratic liberal who had that progressive vision thing going was the late Ted Kennedy, who was also, with all his faults, quite a devoted and skillful lawmaker. Obama’s vision is too amorphous to defend the detailed changes that are real law, and he didn’t attend to the details of the mess that is ObamaCare.
The author adds that the Democrats are just now getting around to defending the legislation by telling people all the benefits they will lose if the Court rules against the law. One problem is that only benefit she can come up with that affects lots of people is kids staying on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. And the insurance companies say they’ll stay with it no matter what the Court rules. As long as they can pass on the fairly minimal cost to the customer, it’s a change they can believe in without a government mandate. Most people ain’t going to lose anything they already have if ObamaCare goes down.
This reporter also calls for campaigning against the Court, reminding voters what’s at stake when it comes to future appointments. Her message: Those Republican justices are activists! They say that the Constitution says that corporations are people too! And they say a policy—the mandate—pushed by the ultraconservative Heritage foundation is now unconstitutional! I think there’s more power in that last point than do the threaders below.