It's Okay Because They Care

Peggy Noonan once again misses the point of the Town Hall Blitz movement and completely buys into the GOP rhetoric that these are completely spontaneous and massive uprisings against the tyranny of providing affordable health insurance.

What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.

What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed”, that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.

Really, Peggy? I'll tell you why these people are out here protesting government from being in their Medicare, hanging Congressmen in effigy, and making death threats against their elected officials over this. It's not health care supporters doing this to Republicans, folks. They do care, alright. She's actually correct that people are being motivated to show up. But the reasons are not universal. I'm sure there are people who are at these meetings to get questions answered. But for the most part, they've been lied to about this health care program by the Republican Party and the Village, and they're having those fears exploited by the people who refuse to accept the truth about Obama legitimately being their President. It's a potent and nasty combination.

Let's talk about the multiple instances of Republicans lying to their constituents and saying senior citizens will be "forced into euthanasia"under the plan. Let's talk about the lie where tens of millions of Americans "will lose their health insurance" under the plan. Let's talk about the lie where a "government takeover" will lead to "rationed care". Despite the fact that Republicans in Congress are the least trusted group in America on improving health insurance for the country, they've managed to mobilize these small groups of intense protesters very well through these lies.

Now we combine these lies as motivating factor with the most pernicious lie of them all about Obama's birth certificate, and the results are toxic. These GOP mobs like to be called mobs, after all. They are using the health care town halls as an excuse to bully and shout down Democrats, fueled by El Rushbo referring to Democrats as Nazis, Glenn Beck referring to the President as a racist, and Lou Dobbs and the other birthers questioning the legitimacy of Obama's citizenship. The Republicans have planned these uprisings using these people as a base.

Remember, the plan to kill health care reform is really the plan to "break Obama." For the normal people, it may not be about Obama. For the birther whackjobs making up the vast majority of these protests? You're damn well right it's all about "breaking" the first African-American president we've had.

It's not working, Peggy. America can see right through the hate here. The Village Idiots like Nooners here giving them a smokescreen is only going to make this worse, too. You can't play the indignation card when you're too busy playing the racist hatemonger one.