Southern Bread

The libertarian cry that there is no difference between the two parties couldn’t be more obvious now. Noam Chomsky famously said that what we have in America isn’t a two party system. It’s one party with two factions. We must keep that in perspective now days. For those that rejoiced when Scott Brown was elected the other day, here is the wakeup call:

This guy voted for state-run healthcare in Mass. and Mitt Romney (another Republican) signed it into law. I’ve been telling people for months that Republicans have no interest in stopping health care legislation. People like Rush Limbaugh have marveled out loud about why Congressional Republicans aren’t being more vocal and active in opposing it. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Because they don’t oppose it, as is evidenced in the above video. The only reason they have given passive resistance to it for the last few months is that it’s good positioning for campaign donations and re-election.

You have to begin looking at all politics from the angle of “who wins? who loses?” So let’s do that. If health care passed right now, would the Republicans lose? No. They’ll just claim that they tried hard to fight it, but didn’t have enough numbers on their side. They will still be re-elected and Democrats will get hammered in November. Plus, now they can enjoy the same benefits the Democrats wanted. Namely, large new campaign contributions from the healthcare lobby. That’s a win for them.

So, what if health care doesn’t pass. Do Republicans lose? No. They still get re-elected in November on the idea that they defeated the bill, and Democrats get hammered. They also still get massive campaign contributions from an energized base. That’s a win for them also.

See what I mean? That’s how politics works. Smart politicians always set themselves up to win on both sides of potential legislation. Values and ideology in Washington are like unicorns and fairies. They don’t exist.