Et Tu Obama?
Why the Right Will Never Go Away!


Watching politics in this country, it is often said, is like watching a good tennis match between two excellent servers. We wait for the serve that can’t be returned to know who won. But some of the more astute have a different opinion. It’s more like the scene after the “Et tu Brute” moment in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. You keep waiting for Mark Antony to appear and rile up the mob to turn on its hero, Brutus. Those who studied the play in school will note that the fatal error Brutus makes is believing that the mob will have enough intelligence to see the assassination of Caesar as a virtuous thing. After all, after he explains the rationale for the deed, they cheer him as the true patriot of Rome. But almost as fatal as Brutus’ overestimation of the crowd’s intelligence and sophistication is the decision to leave it in the hands of Antony. Nature abhors a vacuum and will look to fill it anyway it can. Within a few short minutes, Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech turns the crowd decidedly against Brutus and the rest of the assassins. Soon it is Brutus who is on the run for his life. The irony is that Brutus uses rational logic to make his point to the people, while Antony resorts to emotional manipulation. Guess which tactic works in the end. I’ll give you a hint for those who never read the play: it doesn’t end up well for Brutus.

Now look at the current debate on health care and tell me if you don’t see this scene playing out. Bill Maher said on his Real Time program last week that “Democrats never learn.” The Swiftboat campaign against John Kerry in 2004 was thought to be juvenile and was never taken seriously. Kerry was quoted as saying that the American people would see through the lies. He was wrong. Like Brutus, he gave the mob a bit too much credit and paid for his overconfidence. By the time Kerry woke up and fought back, it was too late. The mob had turned on him. The lead over Bush evaporated and he lost the election.

Now enter Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States. He swept into the White House with about as decisive a victory as any Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election. Opinion polls were decisively in his favor. He enjoyed a honeymoon unlike any President in almost a century. The Republican Party, by contrast, was in retreat and when it did occasionally voice an opinion, it sounded lame and irrelevant by comparison. Brutus stood over the dead body of Caesar and had made his case; Romans everywhere rejoiced that the tyrant had met the fate he deserved. Hail Brutus!

But Mark Antony was waiting in the wings for his opportunity. In deed, you could say he was there from the very beginning, chirping and chirping and chirping away, undaunted by anyone’s opinion of him, relentless in his onslaught. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” he kept repeating over and over. Soon the silliness and irrelevance began to take hold. “I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator, as Brutus is; but, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, that loves my friend and that they know full well that gave me public leave to speak of him --- for I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men's blood.” Does that not sound like something the GOP could’ve written? In deed did we not hear all throughout the 2008 campaign shouts of elitist whenever Obama would speak out against the policies of his opponent? Weren’t the Joe Sixpack and terrorist sympathizer comments made by Sarah Palin nothing more than attempts to win over by subterfuge an audience that had grown weary of the status quo? Was not Bush Caesar?

That the attempts failed was fortuitous for the country, mainly because, like Mark Antony, the enemy was never vanquished. He kept at it. The DOW was plummeting throughout December and January. It was Obama’s fault, even though he not yet been sworn into office. The stimulus package was runaway spending without accountability, even though Bush had signed off on it back in September. The budget was evidence of a government hell bent on the ruination of free-market capitalism that would lead to record deficits, even though the last two two-term Republican presidents had more than doubled the debt during their time in office. And now the health care bill is socialized medicine that will lead to rationing, old people being killed off and the end of life as we know it. Even Mark Antony would choke on some of the rhetoric being used.

It is often said that all glory is fleeting. Sadly, the rhetoric of the Right appears to be working and it is working for two main reasons that owe their genesis to that famous play. The first is that at their core people have very short memories. They are easily manipulated. Look at how quickly Antony turns the mood of the people against Brutus. Within a few minutes, the crowd goes from hailing Brutus as an honorable man who liberated Rome from the would-be imperialist to wanting to hunt him down and murder him. History is replete with similar examples, though not filled with nearly as much alacrity. But the main reason that Antony is able to turn the crowd so effectively is that Brutus hands him the stage. It is Brutus’ naiveté, his over confidence in the population to have the capacity to understand his motives and see beyond mere emotion, that affords Antony his opportunity and would eventually lead to his demise. It was the same error John Kerry made in 2004, and Barack Obama is making it again five years later.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Facts are not driving this debate, anymore than they did in ’04. Every thinking, rational human being knew there was no truth to the Swiftboat claims, and yet the GOP kept repeating them over and over and over and over again. Say something often enough and it becomes fact, no matter how ludicrous. Health care reform is no different. So far, the only legitimate criticism that responsible conservatives like David Brooks have been able to make is the issue of costs. No matter which plan emerges from Washington, unless it can deal effectively with bringing down the spiraling costs of treatment, it will ultimately fail. On that, everyone seems in agreement. But that argument, alone, is insufficient to stop the reform legislation from being passed, and the Right knows it. Hence, the town hall meetings over the last few weeks and the “outrage” of “ordinary” citizens who show up and shout down elected members of Congress and the Administration.

Shouts of socialism, fascism, euthanasia, fill every town hall meeting. Throw in a few birthers for good measure and you have an insane asylum. Inaccuracies are given legitimacy by conservative talk-show hosts. Seeds are planted, given fertilizer and spring up as full-bodied weeds intent on devouring all living plants that get in their way. The truth is buried alive amidst the distortions and deceptions. And, all the while, proponents of real change sit by and naively believe that in the end reason will win out and the people will come to their senses and reject the lies. Truth will vanquish fear, and all will be well with the universe. Brutus has left the building and Mark Antony is preparing his eulogy. Oh, death where is thy sting?

When will they ever learn? You do not lie down in the middle of a busy intersection and not expect to get run over. The idea that because the Republicans got routed in last year’s election that they would go quietly into the night is arrogant to say the least and incompetent to say the worst. It is one thing to be mugged in the middle of the night; it is quite another to hand over to the mugger the gun and wallet before hand and then have the temerity to claim you are a victim of some foul mischief.

If universal health care meets its death this fall it will not be because the Republicans killed it; it will be because a Democratic president and a Democratic congress left the building, took a long stroll down a short peer and gave the murder weapon over to the very foes they should’ve known could not be trusted with it in the first place. They will have no moral high ground from which to shout foul from, for they ceded the very debate they had hoped to wage. No matter how rational and logical your argument is, if you cannot defend it against all manner of criticism and do whatever is needed to protect it from harm, in the end you will be vanquished. It is that simple. The sad truth is that American politics is not about separating truth from fiction; if it were that easy, we would’ve had universal health care in this country decades ago. It is about winning and losing. Those who are resourceful enough to do whatever it takes to make their point often win; those who don’t lose.

And all we are left with are two telling, yet ominous, quotes to sum up what this might well be about in the end.

“Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow'd to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.”

"Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot.
Take thou what course thou wilt."

History is cruelest of all, is it not?