After reading about Josh Marshall’s journey into the Truther’s Jungle, I don’t think it’s overly optimistic to see ObamaCare as analogous to “skewed” polls and the collective right as analogous to Karl Rove on Election Night in November 2012. What seems to be going on is something more than just epistemic closure. An entire political party (excepting their few actual health care experts) is convinced that they’re winning a political argument based on facts that are completely absent.
Perhaps they can still point to polls that say that the law is unpopular, and they have some talking points about the bungled roll-out and canceled plans that people were promised they could keep. But, other than that thin gruel, the totality of everything else they think about the Affordable Care Act is just as delusional as Dick Morris’s polling analysis.
What’s interesting is that the Republicans’ are so dependent on ObamaCare being unpopular that they have to try to convince people it is failing even though it certainly is not. It’s not enough to point at polls about the law because those polls will change over time. They have to try to keep the polls low any way they can. One way to do that is to keep the myth alive among their base. Another way is to misinform as many people outside their circle as possible. Finally, they can work the refs in the media to the best of their ability, but that isn’t going to work anymore for media that aren’t formally or informally working for the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, Senator Mark Begich of Alaska is leading the way, showing how red state Democrats can play offense on ObamaCare:
With Medicaid sign-ups continuing through to Election Day, I am excited to go to war with the GOP over health care. Every day that goes by, more people are covered and we gain a bigger advantage.
