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| Matthew Vadum with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Awesome) |
It Doesn't Matter If the Obamacare Defunding Gambit Fails
By Matthew Vadum
The current campaign to deprive President Obama's health care leviathan of the life-sustaining tax dollars it needs for full bureaucratic metastasis is what left-wingers call a consciousness-raising exercise.
It matters next to nothing if current Republican efforts succeed in immediately defunding Obamacare. That's because this is just the opening round of what promises to be a protracted struggle to restore sanity to the American health care system. A temporary defeat at one juncture on the road to repeal isn't really a defeat at all, provided that it serves a larger purpose. Obamacare, after all, wasn't enacted in a day and it won't be repealed in a day.
Both the Ted Cruz talkathon and the brinksmanship over the stop-gap government funding measure (called a "continuing resolution") epitomize purposeful political theater.
Ignore the blatherskite spewing from GOP establishment talking heads like Karl Rove: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing political things strictly for public consumption even when there is a less-than-direct or less-than-obvious relationship between the things done and the desired results. It's not somehow dishonest or dishonorable to do this, contrary to the protestations of the pompous pundits who suck up air in the Washington echo chamber.
In this age of instant everything, we tend to forget that politics isn't always about concrete, instantaneous results. It's about symbolism. It's about focusing the attention of people in order to educate them. It's about framing the issues properly, telling stories, and planting memes in public spaces, allowing them to spread like dandelion seeds on a passing breeze. That's how Americans were brainwashed into believing that Republicans are the "party of the rich" and gazillionaire George Soros's Democrats are the caring party of compassion.
But intellect by itself doesn't always serve champions of limited government well. Sometimes showmanship and connecting with people on an emotional level is required to make good things happen. All good salespeople understand this.
