Andrew Sullivan: GOP’s Mass. ‘Nihilist’ Movement Will Kill HCR

by Glynnis MacNicol | 8:33 am, January 19th, 2010

» 3 comments

The special election today in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat has taken on epic proportions over the last week or so. And not just because the headlines have become increasingly dirty. The election is being viewed by many as a one year referendum on the Obama administration (he was inaugurated a year ago tomorrow) but most importantly if Martha Coakley loses today it will shift the balance in the Senate and ostensibly put health care reform in jeopardy. Or kill it altogether, depending. Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, thinks a Coakley loss (of which he is certain) portends to bigger and darker things.

They [the FNC/RNC machine] have successfully channeled all the rage at the massive debt and recession the president inherited on Obama after just one year. If they can do that already, against the massive evidence against them, they have the power to wield populism to destroy any attempt by government to address any actual problems.

This is a nihilist moment, built from a nihilist strategy in order to regain power … to do nothing but wage war against enemies at home and abroad.

What comes next will be a real test for Obama. I suspect serious health insurance reform is over for yet another generation.

Even if Coakley wins – and my guess is she’ll lose by a double digit margin – the bill is dead.

Yes, I’m gloomy. Not because I was so wedded to this bill, although I think it’s a decent enough start. But because if America cannot grapple with its deep and real problems after electing a new president with two majorities, then America’s problems are too great for Americans to tackle.

Dramatic yes. But likely, too, that today’s vote may see the end of health care reform and a new tenor for Obama going forward. Painfully ironic that it’s Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat that may be that last unpassable hurdle for national health care reform. Of course, we won’t know that until sometime later tonight because there are no exit polls in Mass. today.

Andrew Sullivan, barack obama, fox news, GOP, Health Care Reform, Martha Coakley, Scott Brown

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Callan/100000200979966 Joe Callan

The line that “America’s problems are too great for Americans to tackle,” is a great admission.

Maybe instead of trying to federally mandate the consumption of private insurance (effectively subsidizing private insurance companies by legislatively forcing every citizen to buy in,) the Democrats should have focused on helping the people who NEED help.

The idea that the GOP is entirely to blame for the failure of this bill’s passage is absolutely asinine when–even at this moment–plenty of progressive Democrats are extremely unhappy with the bill as it stands.

Instead of trying to force blanket legislation on 300 million people who are clear in their vehement disagreement on a solution, maybe the states should start putting their own plans forward instead of flicking a penny into the wishing well with the hopes that our intense ideological divisions in this country are magically going to disappear.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

Anyone want to still try to forward the theory that Sullivan is a Republican blogger?

…all the rage at the massive debt and recession the president inherited on Obama after just one year…

How on Earth can you listen to someone oblivious to, or denying, all the debt accrued by spending that Obama has passed himself his first year?
J Baustian

I find it amusing when Andrew Sullivan misuses terminology because he does not understand its meaning. It seems like a writer really ought to know the meaning of the words he uses.

Last week it was fascism — he forgot that The New Republic, the magazine he has been associated with for his entire adult life, was an enthusiastic supporter of Mussolini and the fascist movement all through the 1920s and up until Italy invaded Ethiopia.

Now he has discovered the word “nihilism” — “This is a nihilist moment, built from a nihilist strategy…” Progressivism is based entirely on a destruction of the system, in this case on a destruction of the health care system and a bankrupting of the federal government — creating new crises which only more government intervention and regulation can remedy.

For a few months following September 11 2001, Sullivan seemed to have ideas worth hearing. That was so, so long ago.