Susan Estrich: On Health Care, Civil Discourse Turns Ugly

We can't let our differences destroy us if we want any kind of meaningful reform

By Susan Estrich | Published on 08.17.2009

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America has two problems to deal with in the health-care debate, and only one of them relates to health care. The other is our increasing inability to have a conversation with one another without screaming, vilifying, threatening and boycotting.

Susan Estrich
Susan Estrich

It’s getting scary out there, and I’m not just talking about death panels or whatever they are.

I’m talking about the civility that is the essence of democracy.

Liberals and conservatives have been busing people to one another’s events since I started working in politics. They’ve been hiring professionals to promote “grassroots” involvement since long before the Internet made it easier. Are the protests at staged events staged? Maybe. Who cares?

Nancy Pelosi was plainly wrong to attack the protesters as “un-American.” The White House strategy of dismissing them has long since been proved unwise.

But that’s no excuse for turning civil discourse into something ugly.

Increasingly, I find myself hearing from people who say they hate President Barack Obama. And Pelosi.

Not disagree with them. Not plan to vote against them.

Hate them.

There are serious and credible stories about the increased threats to the president’s safety.

Of course, it’s not just the right doing this. Just the other day, a friend asked me whether I had read the disgraceful op-ed by the founder of Whole Foods in The Washington Post. Actually, it was in The Wall Street Journal, and I had read it. While I took issue with a number of points in it, I was actually pretty interested in how he manages to provide health insurance for his workers.

Then I read that because of the article, his stores are being boycotted. How dare he offend his liberal customer base? Hello? Liberals should boycott a business that provides health insurance to its workers because its founder doesn’t agree with the Obama health-care plan? And then maybe conservatives should boycott businesses run by Obama supporters. And then what? Warring grocery stores? It would be silly if it weren’t so serious.

Obviously, there are town meetings where no one screams, and they don’t get covered on television. You can always blame the media for covering us when we’re at our worst, but that’s the nature of the beast.

It’s a reason for everyone to lower their voices, lower the temperature and resolve that, one way or another, our differences will not destroy us. It’s also the only way we stand a chance of working through any kind of reform effort that will be acceptable in the long run.

— Best-selling author Susan Estrich is the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the USC Law Center and was campaign manager for 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Click here to contact her.

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» The shoe's on the other foot on 08.17.09 @ 07:58 PM

“Increasingly, I find myself hearing from people who say they hate President Barack Obama. And Pelosi.
Not disagree with them. Not plan to vote against them. Hate them.”
GASP! Is this supposed to be shocking? Umm where were you during the Bush years Susan? So full of love and respect for the president. So void of “screaming, vilifying, threatening and boycotting.” Give me a break.

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» John Locke on 08.18.09 @ 07:36 AM

Yep, the hate is justified if the target is Bush.  Can you spell HYPOCRITE?

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» tn on 08.18.09 @ 08:44 AM

big government is bad for our health!

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» AN50 on 08.18.09 @ 11:56 AM

Why now I know where Marcel gets this inane pot calling the kettle black attitude. Yep Suzi-Q you have a real good case here.

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» When you wish upon a star on 08.18.09 @ 12:49 PM

I wish Noozhawk would publish local columnists or commentators instead of national syndicated writers.

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» kat on 08.18.09 @ 01:54 PM

So, AN50, John Locke, and ...shoe…, can you present any evidence of S. Estrich saying she hated Bush? Or do you simply assume that since she represents a generally liberal point of view that she must automatically hate him? You seem awfully defensive and ready to sling pejoratives, even though I’m sure you would agree with the author’s point that civil discourse is preferable to screaming and chaos.
The fact is that at Bush’s public meetings the crowd was nearly always screened so that different opinions were never voiced. Now when the general public is allowed we have conservatives shilling for corporate elite, many unknowingly, and shouting lies and wild hyperbole with the sole purpose of preventing the dissemination of information. Anyone who wanted to learn something at these townhall meetings would have been thoroughly disgusted. Do you guys think you could actually address the point of the piece, or are you of the same mind as these birther/deather/screamers?

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» morningwood on 08.18.09 @ 04:01 PM

Great post, Kat!  Everything you wrote is accurate.

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» sbnative on 08.18.09 @ 04:28 PM

Oh here we go, playing the “race” card in yet another iteration. I’m going to a town hall meeting and I won’t be packing a gun, or a sign, for that matter. I’ll be packing informed questions.

THAT is what the liberal left is really afraid of. But go ahead, keep trying to distract folks from the REAL ISSUES. Heck, it worked before…

And yeah, what about the movie about assasinating Bush? That was just all fun and games, huh? Hypocrites!

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» John Locke on 08.18.09 @ 05:46 PM

Kat, I think you missed my point.  Why was this column not written when the “hate Bush” loudmouths were everywhere?  Why only now when Obama is the target?  Hmmmm?

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» VOTE BOXER OUT on 08.18.09 @ 11:02 PM

THE LIBERALS ARE IN BIG TROUBLE, AND OUR TERRIBLE SENATOR BOXER IS GOING TO GO BACK HOME TO N.Y SOON. THE TAX AND SPEND ANTI BUSINESS BOXER HAS WORN OUR HER WELCOME IN CALIF. GOOD BY WE WONT MISS YOU.

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» Allow me to rewrite that for you on 08.19.09 @ 07:00 AM

“The fact is that at Bush’s public meetings the crowd was nearly always screened so that different opinions were never voiced.”

How about:
“The fact is that at Obama’s public meetings the crowd was nearly always screened so that different opinions were never voiced.”

There is no screaming at Obama’s screened meetings with prepped audience questions, only at the town halls. sans Obama. I don’t recall any screaming at town halls during the Bush years. What does that tell ya?

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» publius on 08.19.09 @ 09:53 AM

Well, if the Revolutionary Youth Brigade devoted to Maoist/Marxist thought had showed up with guns to a Bush event, you bet we would have heard about it, and they’d have been locked up quicker than you can snap your fingers.

Now that good old boys are showing up with guns to Obama events, the police just say `its legal’.

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» bob on 08.19.09 @ 07:20 PM

the point of the article seemed to be that instead of having discussions with each other about how to resolve our differences on serious issues—.e.g. health care—we’re now just yelling at each other.

and the comments seem to prove her correct. 

so we get further and further into a mess we may not be able to dig ourselves out of.

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» kat on 08.19.09 @ 09:28 PM

Mr. Locke, et al I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree about the journalistic coverage of public discourse over the last decade. In any event, Bob, point well taken. We won’t get anywhere trying to rewrite history with histrionics, at least not in brief forum posts.
The underlying reason for Estrich’s piece was of course the ongoing health care debate, and imho the thing that’s most missing from it is facts. When people don’t have facts but instead have wildly inflammatory speculations, it’s no wonder civility is scarce. Democrats have done an abyssmal job of spreading information, and the conservative talk industry has done a spectacular job of spreading lies and distortions. I don’t shirk from saying “lies” because that’s exactly what they are. Things like the “death panel” myth are complete fabrications created knowingly and maliciously to shock, frighten and distract people from the more banal but substantive features of health care reform. They’ve taken advantage of the ‘tabula rasa’ (I had to throw that one in there for you Mr. Locke) of the general public re: health insurance costs, benefits, et boring cetera, and mixed it with the outrage certain segments of our populace feel towards Mr Obama being our new president. In a way it’s pretty impressive how the hard-core right-wing media have gotten so many people so rabid with so few actual facts. Unfortunately, like many of their products, it’s really bad for America.

Opinion: If wethepeople don’t do something to bring down the cost of health care in this country our economy will wither and die, plain and simple.
Fact: since 2002 US health insurance companies have raised their premiums by 87%, and in the same period their profits have increased a whopping 428%. Try to balance those two.
Fact: Every year since 1981 the percentage of personal bankruptcies due to a medical problem has risen. In 2006 it was 62%, and over 60% of those who filed had personal, private health insurance at the start of their illness.
Fact: Most Americans only have health insurance provided by their employer, and we all know what’s happened to jobs in this country. You lose you job, you lose your health insurance.
Fact-supported opinion: Health insurance companies stand between a patient and their doctor, and demand a hell of a lot of money while doing it. They need to be held in check by the government ie wethepeople, because they’re too drunk with profits to do it themselves. We need a single-payer type public option to have meaningful reform.
Fact: there are 5 (five) health insurance reform plans currently being examined, and none have been approved.
Fact: Few human beings have read any of them start to finish, far fewer have read all of them.
Fact-supported opinion: Someone going to a townhall meeting should assume that the presenter knows more about these complex bills than they do and go with an open mind and try to learn something. They shouldn’t go there to disrupt and spread the lies of the RW talk industry. This is a critically important issue and we can’t let the partisan politics of a proven minority screw it up for the rest of us.

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» Marsan on 09.12.09 @ 12:18 PM

Susan, today everyone is reacting to Glenn Beck’s call to Americans in Washington, D.C. while POTUS in Minneapolis “campaigns” for Health Reform; I see you on Fox, just as angry and defiant at fed up Americans with the current Congress and their antics; it seems you speak to the angry loud defiance of the American people having lost their ability to communicate without yelling!  For the record, are you aware that you can scream and never make a noise?  You, yes, Susan Estrich, comes on Fox with a body language of loud condescending disgust at what you hear a pundit and host describe as points of misinformation from Obama himself! Your body language and condescending facial expressions bounds out in din of hugh noise polarizing the air waves.  Who made you sacrosant and Obama so inviolable that main street media demonizes those standing up and willing to be counted such as Beck, Hannity, and Fox News?

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