The rapid descent of the nation’s health care debate into charges of manufactured outrage and comparisons with Nazism was a grim reminder of partisan battles over immigration and Social Security.
President Barack Obama is hoping the outcome will be different this time. The efforts to overhaul immigration policy and Social Security foundered after intense public bickering eliminated any chance of compromise or consensus.
“Any time you make references to what happened in Germany, in the ’30s and ’40s, I think you’re talking about an event that has no equivalent,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “And I think any time anyone ventures to compare anything to that, they’re on thin ice. And it’s best not deployed.”
Obama ran for president on a promise to change the tone of political discourse in Washington. But increasingly, as parts of his agenda become mired in partisan politics, he’s been sounding more partisan himself.
“That bank crisis didn’t happen on my watch,” Obama said this week at a rally for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. “Let’s get the history straight.”
Obama has characterized opponents of his health care plan as cynics, nitpickers, and naysayers, and he has accused them of distorting facts and using scare tactics. Lately, he’s stepped up complaints about Republicans who criticize his fiscal policies.
“I don’t want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking,” Obama said. “I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”
It’s a tough choice for Obama — between defending his policies and record or indulging in the kind of rhetoric he previously disavowed.
The town hall flare-ups over health care reform last week also are worrisome for the White House because they represent a backslide in public discourse and threaten to unnerve risk-averse members of Congress.
Republicans and Democrats last week were trading charges over whether interest groups were intentionally disrupting congressional town hall meetings. Both sides also traded accusations of employing Nazilike tactics.
“I think what you have seen for at least the last 15 years is the decline of civility in public life, generally,” said Roger Handberg, political science department chairman at the University of Central Florida.
Handberg said the current debate is more incendiary than earlier ones over immigration and Social Security in part because social media such as Facebook help generate crowds and confrontations that end up on YouTube.
“The instant feedback gives people a chance to stoke their rage,” he said.
John Fortier, a political expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said a key downside to the shouting and shoving at town halls is that it could allow lawmakers to dismiss legitimate public concern over health care reform as part of a larger, “ginned up” outside protest.
“There is a problem in the fact that they didn’t have one kind of plan going into recess,” Fortier said. “It’s kind of a big grab bag now, with five committee bills and side deals.”
