The powerful grassroots strategy that brought Obama to the White House has been difficult to translate into impacts on the formation and passing of specific policies, notably economic. Healthcare has not been an exception, other than in (or especially because of) the counter-strategies Obama opponents are expanding day by day, community by community.
An email from Democratic National Committee Executive Director Jen O'Malley Dillon makes clear the imminent danger mobocracy in America presents to the burgeoning experiments in participatory democracy. The "five facts about the anti-reform mobs" she presents are shocking even with a grain of partisan salt and an understanding that she comp licitly extends the very fears of which she warns, though overlooking the positive role other corporate and social groups are playing in achieving healthcare reform:
1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the "Swiftboat" ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.
2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President's plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no "government takeover" in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.
3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the "SS" symbol to compare President Obama's policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting -- and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President's health insurance reform plans, they are trying to "break" the President himself and ruin his Presidency.
4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to "stand up and shout" and try to "rattle" lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.
5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."
Compounding the dangers on the healthcare front is another kind of mobocracy hitting communities nationwide, oblivious to the reality the organizing for healthcare and other rights is a longstanding American tradition. The Westboro have held threatening demonstrations at gay-friendly places of worship and clinics, and opendly anti-Semitic and anti-Islam protests, pointing to a reactionary renewal of intimidation tactics new to only those with short historical memories.
Mussolini took power in Italy with similar tactics and the KKK held on to it in the same way, and we all know how well they turned out. That these U.S. mobocracies seem to be decentralized organizationally even if centrally funded is cause for more concern, not less. As current events, it is in the world's best interest that mobocracy does not create the future.
