There is quite a bit of exasperation going around, right now--understandably. We are at that point in the political season when politics is starting to look like a dead-stop traffic jam on 405 South. Somebody honks and the first thing we think is "I'm gonna kill that motherf***r!" instead of how we would normally respond (e.g., ignore it).
Now we have the leader of our movement (Dean) calling for the current health care bill to be ditched in favor of a new bill in reconciliation--which might be legal, but may not be politically possible in the current environment. Whatever the case, this latest development will cause even more road rage here and elsewhere.
With that in mind, take a minute to consider this distinction: symbols vs. policy.
It is important because we have a long road ahead of us on health care, the environment, jobs, banking, real estate, education--you name it, we have a long way to go before we get what we want. And so we would be wise to keep the distinction between symbols and policy in our heads, as part of a larger plan not to lose our heads.
Symbols vs. Policy
What we need to keep in mind is that political debate is largely a fight over symbols. The better we are at controlling the symbols that dominate debate, the more successful we will be politically.
The legislative process, by contrast, is largely a about negotiating the details of policy, most of which in any given bill will be far too numerous and complicated for anyone who is not an expert to understand.
And so we have these two very distinct paths in our process: debate over symbols and negotiation over policy details.
Why is this important?
Well, it is important one drives the other. Without the debate over symbols, there would be no means to generate public understanding and acceptance for the kinds of changes that new laws bring. On the other hand, without the negotiation of policy details, nothing would ever happen in our legislative system.
The Symbols of the Health Care Debate: "Government" vs. "The Public"
No matter what the details of the health care reform bill, the most important part of the politics has been a symbolic debate between left and right.
The right has tried to make "government" the dominant symbol in the debate. Government, as they define it, is what will cause all kinds of harm in our lives if the Democratic health care plan (any one) is signed into law. The peak of their success at establishing this dominant symbol was last summer during the town hall meetings, where conservative agitators were standing up and shouting about government taking over their lives (e.g., comparing the health care bill to totalitarianism).
The left, largely in response to this moment last summer, has tried to make "The Public" the dominant symbol in the debate. The way this was done was by looking at every aspect of the bill--a flawed bill in so many ways--and then arguing that the "public option" within the insurance exchange was in fact the most important aspect of the entire insurance bill. The peak of the left's success at establishing this dominant symbol was about a month ago when large numbers of elected Democrats agreed that a health care bill without a public option would not, in essence, be health care reform (e.g., it would not be worth supporting).
Thus far, the symbolic debate.
Symbols are not Policy--Even If They Are Vitally Important
Now, it is easy to see how the right's emphasis on government had absolutely nothing to do with actual policy. Not only do we have two functioning public plans under the names "Medicare" and "Medicaid," but both of those plans have been up and running for decades without triggering any totalitarian rule in the U.S. or elsewhere. When we respond to the right, we often start out by thinking--either explicitly or implicitly, "This whole demonizing of 'government' is just the way they are trying to win the debate."
We know that if the right wins the debate, they are not going to abandon government, but will use government to advance the policy they want--which they withheld. In fact, the reality that the right never even bothered to put forward an actual health care policy until it was too late to be meaningful, was part of how we understood that they saw the symbolic debate as the beginning, middle, and end of health care reform. Either they won the symbolic debate or they lost.
By contrast, it has not been easy at all for the left to see its own debate tactics as distinct from the details of policy in the bill.
Instead, when the debate over "government" vs. "The Public" began to shift our way, we became so dedicated to winning the symbolic debate that we forgot to keep in mind that even at the end of it we would need to complete the other side of the equation--we would need to negotiate the policy details.
Why We Feel Like Giving Up: We Forget Symbols are Only Half the Fight
So, at this point, I would say there are two states of mind on the health care debate--and on every other policy issue down the line.
There are people who throw themselves so passionately into the symbolic debate that they forget that there is a second half of the fight (the legislative negotiation), and there are people who are more reserved in the symbolism and more engaged in the policy detail negotiation.
We need both kinds to win--however: Those who throw themselves passionately into the first part of the debate have, lately, begun to reach a tipping point where their enthusiasm turns to cynicism, anger, and rage. They are forgetting that every political fight has two aspects, and that no matter how much we win the symbolic fight, we must still find a way to win the policy negotiation and--most importantly--pick ourselves up and keep fighting.
The Public Option as Symbol vs. Policy Detail
Specifically with the Public Option in mind, a good chunk of us have forgotten that even with a strong public option, we would not have the health care reform that we need or want. A Public Option would just be a first policy step made possible by victory in the symbolic debate.
I am not trying to diminish the fact that if we had a public option, we'd have a better bill. We would. But more than a legislative ideal, the public option was a symbolic step towards the real goal of those who support a public option: medicare for all. And that is why the right was so against it, because they were 100% concerned about symbolism.
When I say 'symbolic,' I don't mean 'not real' or 'not valuable.' I just mean that we are in that aspect of our politics that in large part is detached from the real policy discussion. And are in a tail spin--or, many of us around here are in a tail spin--because we have convinced ourselves that the fight for the public option is ipso facto the fight for health care reform. It never was.
It is the fight that allows us to begin the policy negotiations and it is a fight that we must remain focused enough to hold over the long road ahead if we want to keep pushing health care or any reform agenda forward.
We must win the symbolic debate on every issue area--and keep winning--in order for ongoing policy negotiations to keep moving forward. If we convince ourselves that the fight begins and ends with symbols, then we will soon be overwhelmed by disappointment.
The Long Road
Like everybody else, I have people in my life who will be directly impacted by what happens in this health care bill--people I care about deeply who are living with chronic illness, insufficient insurance, and fear for the future. I want real reform right now.
But I am also aware that we have a long, ong road ahead of us if we are serious about health care reform, and we cannot afford to flare out into road rage just because the symbolic part of the debate did not translate word for word into the policy negotiations. There are many miles to go. More than we can even conceive right now. We must stay in the debate in order to keep things moving forward. Our future depends on it.
Do I support Howard Dean's position on killing the Senate bill in favor of an entirely new bill conceived in reconciliation? Absolutely.
But only if we regain our footing as leaders of the debate who understand the full process and do not throw our hands up when there is still a long, long way to go.