The latest spin coming from the DNC and the White House, that opposition to government takeover of the health care system is little more then "astroturf" funded by K Street lobbyists is without question an unprecedented demonization of the citizenry by the executive and legislative branch and their coterie of spin doctors.
No political opinion or advocacy exists in a vacuum. There are organizations and think tanks whom support citizen activists on both the right and the left. The attempt here, however, is not to engage dissent, or debate the dissent in the marketplace of ideas, but rather to silence it by means of isolation, obfuscation, and ridicule. Yet again, the White House has pulled a play fron Saul Alinsky's playbook "Rules for Radicals". The attempt is to assert that anyone who does not share the same ideas for the best means of reforming health care as the administration is an extremist who merits no attention. This underscores Obama's familiar "straw man" argument that either one supports his plan for government takeover of health care or opposes any reform at all, the logic of which is equally specious.
In essence, the new White House PR policy is McCarthyism, accusation without evidence pursuant to isolation of the opposing view. The administration, however, overreached in their attempts to demonize when the target of their smear was not leadership of the opposition but the populace itself.
The first rule of politics is to isolate your opposition and appeal to the citizenry. The DNC smear camnpaign however attempts to isolate the opposition by means of smearing the citizenry. As a result, they are at risk of opening the floodgates on the grassroots dissent they are tediously attempting to spin as "astroturf", as well as alienate those whom may be persuaded to their side otherwise. Pelosi's outrageous claim today of town hall attendees brandishing swastikas jumped the shark, representing true rhetorical overreach and knee-jerk hyperbole.
The end result of such tactics remain to be seen. However, I surmise that if such tactics persist, the backlash against the administration, government takeover of health care, and congressional leadership will only exacerbate. If that is the case, 2010 could very well be worse for the Democrats then 1994.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "[Our] object is to secure self-government by the republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit. I am not among those who fear the people. They and not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom." The White House and Congressional Democrats would do well to heed those words the next time they have a knee-jerk impulse to lash out at the very constituents they depend on to stay in office.
