Byron York talked to Michele Bachmann on Friday Night:
I talked with one of the most vocal of the defund/delay advocates, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, on Friday night, as she waited to hear what path the House Republican leadership would take. It’s safe to say her views reflected those of many of her conservative colleagues, and her reasoning was this: One, Obamacare as a policy is so far-reaching, so consequential, and so damaging that members of Congress should do everything they can — everything — to stop it before it fully goes into effect. Two, lesser measures to fight Obamacare — repealing the medical device tax or making Congress purchase coverage through the exchanges without special subsidies — are just not big enough to address the problem. And three, there have been government shutdowns in the past over far less urgent reasons that did not result in doom for Republicans.
“There is a very large group of us who believe that this is it, this isn’t just another year, this isn’t just another CR fight,” Bachmann told me. “This is historic, and it’s a historic shift that’s about to happen, and if we’re going to fight, we need to fight now.”
“This isn’t just another bill,” Bachmann continued. “This isn’t load limits on turnip trucks that we’re talking about. This is consequential. And I think the reason why you’ve come to this flash point is that this is an extremely consequential bill that will impact every American, and that’s why you have such passionate opinions. And we’re not giving up and we’re not caving in that easily.”
Well, when the president signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Joe Biden told him that it was a “big effing deal.” And it was. So, I don’t disagree with Rep. Bachmann about that. Who is going to vote for people who want to make their health insurance more expensive and less comprehensive, or who simply want to take their insurance away?
So, yeah, the law is extremely consequential, and conservatives don’t want to live in a country where they are on the losing side of the national debate over health care every single time. But they already do live in that country. What they are engaged in now is just a mass hallucination. It’s just massive denial.
And the rest of us are losing our patience.