Concrete verses Abstract

My optimism as a progressive rests on a single undeniable truth; progressive policies are popular. Conservative policies are unpopular.

I’m not talking about “conservatism” or “liberalism” as abstract philosophies of governance. In the abstract, far more Americans identify themselves as conservatives. But with respect to concrete domestic policies, except perhaps on law and order issues, Americans love liberal policies. They love Medicare, Social Security, and public education, each of which is deeply progressive, if not socialistic. Americans are pro-choice by a two to one margin. And a steadily growing majority of Americans now favor allowing same sex couples to marry.

Considered in the concrete, Americans favor liberal policies and reject conservative policies. Conservatives can sometimes win elections by effective rhetoric and demagoguery - “death panels,” “government takeover of health care” – both of which were lies. But when the truth comes out, Americans will embrace the Affordable Health Care Act’s regulations on health insurance companies and the individual mandate, both of which are, again, socialist in nature. These regulations will never be repealed.

This means that conservatives, for all their corporate money and religious right support, are always fighting at a disadvantage. They frequently win elections, but rarely get anything done. The one exception is tax cuts. But even here, most of their success is achieved by telling lies about who will benefit, or by championing fanciful (and demonstrably false) theories that tax cuts increase tax revenues.

When I say conservatives don’t get anything done, I mean things like privatizing Social Security and Medicare, or turning our public school system into a voucher system. Conservatives would love to do these things, but as soon as they are honest about their intentions, the public turns on them with a fury.

Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is the perfect example. The basic fact is that Ryan’s plan would abolish Medicare as we know it – i.e., as a government run (collectivist) insurance program covering all seniors - and replace it with a government “subsidy” for seniors to purchase health insurance from private insurers. Ryan’s plan saves money by indexing the proposed subsidies to the rate of inflation - which is very low - instead of the rate of rising medical costs - which is very high. In other words, the plan holds down the rising costs of providing healthcare to seniors for the government – or for all working non-seniors - by shifting those costs onto seniors themselves. By design, the value of the subsidies would diminish over time, and Medicare would ultimately “wither on the vine.”

Ryan’s plan is the epitome of anti-socialist, free market policy making. It relies on individual responsibility and the free market. The vast majority of Americans identify themselves as strong advocates of individual responsibility and the free market system. These are deeply conservative virtues which are widely embraced in the abstract.

Yet Ryan’s concrete proposal is extremely unpopular.

Case in point.

Joe H.