The birthers are only the easiest example. Look at the health care debate. I am sympathetic to a capitalist-based reform, but the fundamental problem is that even the moderately informed had difficulties following the real issues because the media failed to actually tell people what the public option was!
I've heard multiple anecdotes (I know, not a representative sample) where someone "came up with" the public option but didn't explain it with those words, and their friends thought it was a good idea, but the "public option" was "government intervention and death panels."
The problem isn't the competing ideas -- the problem is the level of the debate.
On the other hand it's not like the Democrats were going out of their way to explain what was in the bill either. Instead, they spent most of their time talking about how "reform" is "necessary" (without acknowledging that many types of reform are possible) and even more time demonizing any opposition as either ignorant hicks or shills paid by the insurance industry.
You won't find any disagreement from me if you say that the level of political discourse is too low. You will find disagreement if you try to claim that Barack Obama has a genuine desire for it to be higher.
well, the president had what i think was at least a couple dozen speeches on why it was important, and in many of them he was quite detailed. and the kind of reform that republicans were proposing was in the opposite direction... towards deregulation
but as i said elsewhere, when you have one side poisoning the well and otherwise completely pulling shit out of their ass, the other side doesn't have many easy options. the negativity drowned out the actual info
also keep in mind Fox is a propaganda network that many people take seriously
To be fair, however, many things sound like "good ideas" until you try and implement them... It's difficult for people to consider all the long-term implications of such a change in health system, and dangerously easy to gloss over what may seem like small minutiae, but ends up meaning the difference between life and death for people. In the end, "public option" is just a set of words that could be used to describe any number of systems ranging from ideal to unbearable, and so it is not of any positive or negative value in itself. The devil is in the details.
you really couldn't expect anything different considering how all-out the opposition went, combined with the fact that people respond to negative statements easier than positive statements. it's never a good combination for the people trying to Change things
i noticed some lessons have been learned, though. you can see this learnination in how the financial reform has played out, with the president full stop calling out the opposition's assertions as false
I've heard multiple anecdotes (I know, not a representative sample) where someone "came up with" the public option but didn't explain it with those words, and their friends thought it was a good idea, but the "public option" was "government intervention and death panels."
The problem isn't the competing ideas -- the problem is the level of the debate.