The GOP-encouraged, right wing media-inflamed, health care industry-funded mobs engaged in shouting down Democratic congressmen and Senators at town hall meetings presents us with a new low from a party I thought couldn’t sink any deeper. The goal, of course, is to defeat health care reform by drowning out the support with a wall of noise.

It’s hard to understand exactly what enrages these people. Yes, they’ve been fed a steady diet of misinformation about the proposed reform–told that this is a government takeover of health care (it’s not), that it’s socialism (no), that it’s a step toward single payer (not even close), that people will lose their ability to choose their own doctor (as if they actually had that)– but something else is stoking the fury. Some of it, I suspect, is lingering resentment over losing the election, some of it is fueled by the covert racism underlying the Birther movement, and much of it is fear of change fed by Republicans who simply wish to hand Obama a defeat and by the insurance and drug industries that don’t want any change in their cash flow. As usual, they’ve managed to persuade a lot of people to oppose their own self interest

The unholy alliance of the health care industry and their Republican enablers offer nothing but a return to the status quo that has shut tens of millions out of access to health care. And they’re doing it with a disgusting return to the ugly, divisive politics that were so thoroughly repudiated by the Obama election.

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