It’s depressing that so many red state citizens tell pollsters that they oppose ObamaCare even as they report liking their state’s health exchanges. I suppose, however, that this is an area ripe for investigation by social scientists. They can discover exactly what the effect of the Republicans’ disinformation effort is on the populace by comparing those who oppose ObamaCare to those who support what ObamaCare actually does. It has long been noticed that most of the individual components of ObamaCare poll significantly better than the law as a whole, but this phenomenon of people liking ObamaCare unless you call it ObamaCare is somewhat new. It’s not quite the same as the deranged tendency of Tea Partiers to ask the government to keep its paws off their Medicare, but it’s similar in kind.
I can understand that hostility to the president translates to hostility to a law bearing his name, but there is something fundamentally ridiculous about the disconnect people are demonstrating between support for the law’s provisions and opposition to the law itself.
dare I say it..
Yes, I will..
CLINGING TO THAT WHITENESS
Blazing Saddles syndrome.
That stupid, offensive “clinging” is a sick joke.
I saw that speech, and it was beautiful: Obama made it clear that he saw how huge swaths of America had been left behind by the globalized economy, left with nothing – aka clinging to their guns and clinging to their Bibles – and that he as President was going to make sure these neglected parts of the country got a fair deal.
Then the master propagandists of the GOP got their slimy little hands on that snippet of a sound bite and stood the whole speech on its head. In an instant it became a snooty Harvard elitist looking down his blueblood nose and sneering at the good, decent folk of middle America. Jesus fuck, what a lie that became.
As Comrade Rove teaches, Reality may be created by the endless repetition of a Lie.
If I had the money, I’d be putting up billboards all over these states:
________ IS OBAMACARE.
Thank President Obama for your new health insurance.
It’s a real quandary about how much information should be given to the public, and when. This story was particularly illustrative:
“A middle-aged man in a red golf shirt shuffles up to a small folding table with gold trim, in a booth adorned with a flotilla of helium balloons, where government workers at the Kentucky State Fair are hawking the virtues of Kynect, the state’s health benefit exchange established by Obamacare.
The man is impressed. “This beats Obamacare I hope,” he mutters to one of the workers.
“Do I burst his bubble?” wonders Reina Diaz-Dempsey, overseeing the operation. She doesn’t. If he signs up, it’s a win-win, whether he knows he’s been ensnared by Obamacare or not.
…Diaz-Dempsey has managed to distill it all down to three sentences.
We are Kynect — part of the new health care law.
Do you know anyone who doesn’t have health insurance?
You may qualify for Medicaid or a tax credit based on your income.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/kentucky-obamacare_n_3801054.html
Entering this first year of the health insurance exchange, the challenge was that it was crucial that enough people signed up for private insurance to make the plans affordable. If too few had refused to accept the government’s help in gaining private health insurance, premiums would have shot sharply upwards in future years, which would have made the law unpopular for an additional, real reason. So, I came to the reluctant conclusion that the Kynect staffer was executing the best strategy here.
However, at some point we need to make certain the public is educated enough so that they can make educated choices not only about their health care, but their politics as well. Otherwise, we have the possibility that McConnell might win with this week’s desperate, despicable lie that he wants to repeal Obamacare but allow Kynect to continue.
I’d go back and do what the first commenter said.
Right about now, most people are signed up and paying premiums. Buy billboard space and then just put that one simple sentence on it.
X is Obamacare.
If nothing else, a bunch of conservatives who are really fucking stupid and thought it was something else will be pissed. Maybe enough of them will throw a valve in the process.
Win win.
There’s this odd assertion which is expressed over and over again that “all you have to do is put x statement on a billboard/on a TV ad and then everyone will know it and internalize it.” That isn’t the way things work.
Paid media only makes a difference on the far margins. Relentless programmatic media makes more of a difference (hello, Fox News and hate radio). After interpretations of their personal experiences, the most effective way people learn information and develop points of view is from face-to-face conversations, one person to another.
There’s no easy way to claw back the damage from all the misinformation. It’s going to take some time. It’s a pain in the ass, but we’ve just got to do it.
There’s this odd assertion which is expressed over and over again that “all you have to do is put x statement on a billboard/on a TV ad and then everyone will know it and internalize it.” That isn’t the way things work.
Yeah, I think I covered that when I said:
If nothing else, a bunch of conservatives who are really fucking stupid and thought it was something else will be pissed.
I’m not saying that everyone will know and internalize it.
But, believe it or not, there are brand “conservatives” who are reachable.
No billboard is going to change the mind of a dyed-in-the-wool fascist-enabler.
But, someone, somewhere will see that billboard and have an epiphany. Or, a stroke. Electorally, that is about the same thing.
I meant nothing personal in my comment. Just noticed that I’ve seen this on lots of comments threads: “The DCCC should just run ads on x and we’d win, but they’re incompetents/sellouts/Republican Lite/etc., so they won’t.” It’s a common belief, and usually off base. Sure, there are some ads which are particularly lethal, but the “silver bullet” ad/billboard is usually unachievable in our polarized political culture. Sure, persuasion through ad media has its place. It’s just more limited than most think.
Thanks for that last paragraph; made me laugh in rueful recognition.
Not a problem, and I’m not trying to come across as confrontational.
I don’t believe that the general public is ready to go socialist anytime soon, and I don’t believe a billboard campaign is going to convince a bunch of pigfuckers to stop enabling fascist bigots.
But sometimes I just want to throw that shit right into their face. Get some hardcore fascist worshiper to realize that when he signed up for Kynect or whatever exchange name he signed up for, that he is in fact getting Obamacare.
I agree with your sentiment here. It’s emotionally satisfying to imagine Obamacare opponents/Kynect fans at the moment when they’re forced to flick the lightbulb on. I’m glad you recognize that a lot of people when confronted with factual evidence will choose to believe lies instead. Billboards and TV/radio ads are expensive- it’s wise to pick the message which will be most likely to win your campaign.
How ’bout we don’t call it that because it’s racist.
It is the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. That other label was coined by racist assholes to demean and denigrate the AC&PPA, racist assholes continue to use the label to demean and denigrate not only the AC&PPA but the patients it provides care and protection for, and when you use the label in reference to the AC&PPA the racist assholes win by default. It is racist in application.
Just don’t use it.
No fear.
Obama
Care
s
This is just one more example of how the Republicans have beaten themselves. The law has only really been out in the open and operating for about 6 months now.
The Republicans don’t win using that term.
They’ve already lost, man. It’s the law. And more people are going to sign up for it.
And they’ll keep calling it Obamacare.
The Republicans are very, very fucking stupid. They lost when they coined the term, and they’re losing every time someone uses it.
Obamacare.
The so called Conservatives that only watch,read and listen to RW GOP productions. Do not realize just how brainwashed they are. This is why they fight so hard against anyone or anything that shows the GOP as nothing more then a Propaganda machine. These people for the most part are scared all the time. The propaganda keeps them in what they feel is a safe zone. The longer they are in the GOP the more they become dependent upon it’s dogma. Sad to say most have lost ant ability to think in an independent way and recognize when something in the message of the GOP is not right. They are for the most part in a hypnotic trans.
Recall that a huge majority of USians believed that Saddam was involved in 9/11. Propaganda works so well on USians because they favor war, are racists/bigots, and are too ignorant to pass a US citizen test. Oh, and arrogantly stupid.
fuck ’em all and start our own country! right?!
I think we call it something else in places where they will not accept Obamacare no matter how much they need it. We can tell them what it truly is after they become enamored of its benefits. Everywhere else, I want the President’s name attached to this important and amazing improvement now.
Americans have terrible memories. They generally have no idea which party brought them Medicare, Social Security, civil rights, or any other benefit. But they’re going to have a difficult time forgetting which president brought them Obamacare.
“Government, keep your hands off my Medicare!”
Depressingly, decades after medicare and social security have been in effect, most americans really don’t understand they wouldn’t exist without the democratic party. So I suppose we can expect the same of obamacare.
But they might have a better understanding of these things if they were referred to as Johnsoncare and FDR Security. It won’t work on all of them–some people are just stubbornly stupid–but for the majority, it could help.
Mitt Romney’s part as Governor was to veto legislation whilly-nilly, sending it back to be over-ridden by Democratic supermajorities.
The fact that he gets any credit for the reforms demanded by the good people of Massachusetts is an offense that stinks in the nostrils of the Lord.