Topic: Liberal Fascism
More than once I’ve opined that progressivism’s devotion to democracy is more rhetorical than real. Democratic accountability is well and good as long as it aligns with progressive preferences—but whenever the proles veer off the straight and narrow path of ideological righteousness it’s time to call in the judge, the bureaucrat and the expert with his studies.
This authoritarian twitch produces some comical effects. Progressives have been known to sigh over the efficiency of tyranny, e.g. the Chinese oligarchy—which need not consult majority opinion. On the other hand, in their defense of climate change alarmism they constantly point to that ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundredths percent “scientific consensus”—a touching appeal to the majoritarian principle! But in their most candid moments progressives do not blush to proclaim their contempt for the doofus heads, hicks and rednecks of Flyover Country USA. Nor do they demonstrate much respect for honesty and fair dealing. I’m thinking here of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber. Back in October of last year, while participating in a conference at the University of Pennsylvania, he said the following (emphasis added):
This bill [Obamacare] was written in a tortured way to make sure that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay. So it was written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law that said healthy people are going to pay in—if you made it explicit that healthy people pay in, sick people get money, it would not have passed. Okay.
Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical in getting the thing to pass, and, you know, it’s the second best argument. And I wish Mark was right, we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not. So there are things I’d wish I could change, but I’d rather have this law than not.
Allow me to translate: (1) We the people are stupid and (2) it’s okay to lie to us when the end justifies the means and besides it’s what Jonathan Gruber wants!
Unfortunately for him, Gruber’s comments were recorded and the video has gone viral. So has he apologized? Nah. The most he would say was that his comments were “inappropriate”—meaning, probably, that he regrets being outed as an insufferable elitist jerk. Because he was just being honest, right? He was reminding his peers, in a meeting not intended to be eavesdropped upon by the bitter clingers, what progressives are up against.
But I must say that Gruber has done conservatism a good turn. For after all, Obamacare is a perfect little artifact of leftie dishonesty, condescension and snobbery. Right from the start, Obama and his cabal lied to the American people about what it was and what it would do. Even the law’s title—the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act—is a lie. Whatever! The Prez and his pals knew that the rubes would swallow whatever they spooned up. And they weren’t entirely wrong. People still trusted and believed in Barack Obama back then and why he promised that folks could keep your doctor, keep your insurance and save money, lots of them believed him. It was a precious gift, that trust, not to mention a big political asset.
But Obama’s gift of trust turned out to be like that leftover chicken salad in the fridge—it didn’t keep forever. As the debacle that is Obamacare gradually unfolded, the man whose name it bore was exposed as a scurvy little liar. So now, today, people just don’t believe what he says, insofar as they bother to listen to him at all. If he’d been doing a generally good job as president this might not matter so much—but to mendacity Barack Obama adds incompetence. And in this he typifies the faculty-lounge wing of progressivism: people for whom ideological purity trumps both efficiency and truth.
So thank you, Mr. Obamacare Architect, for demonstrating the validity of the hypothesis I set forth at the beginning of this little essay. First you played a leading role in the creation of a law so crazily complicated that it can never possibly work as advertised (incompetence). Then you lied about its features and benefits (mendacity). And you did all this in the service of an ideology that preaches the superiority of expertise—like yours!—over the dim-bulb know-nothingism of the masses. Honest to God, if you didn’t exist, conservatism would have to invent you…
