Ezra Klein: Republicans on ‘Kamikaze Mission’ Against Obamacare
“This is a weird thing that’s happened to the campaign against Obamacare,” he remarked. “It began as most campaigns do, as a campaign for self-interest. Obamacare, conservatives said, will raise your taxes, take away your doctors and possibly put you in front of a death panel. The fight to keep it from passing was a fight to keep bad things from happening to you.”
“But it’s become something weirder: A campaign of self-sacrifice,” Klein continued. “The current crop of Republican strategies ask conservative congressmen to hurt their constituents, governors to hurt their states and conservative activists to hurt themselves. It is a kamikaze mission to stop Obamamcare, a campaign against your own self-interest.”
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“Republicans have responded to minority status by adopting more extreme political tactics. Chief among them is hostage taking, threatening to shut down the government or breach the debt ceiling if they don’t get their way,” Klein said. “But now Republicans have done something truly new, they have taken themselves hostage. They’re threatening to hurt themselves and their states and their voters and their most committed activists if Democrats don’t give them their way on Obamacare.”
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