{"id":2420,"date":"2014-10-30T13:35:21","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T18:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2014-10-30T13:35:21","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T18:35:21","slug":"the-costly-anti-obamacare-propaganda-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/the-costly-anti-obamacare-propaganda-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"The Costly Anti-Obamacare Propaganda Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had lost track of this<\/a>. \u00a0I knew that visible GOP faces were fond of throwing shade at\u00a0Obamacare (yes, I learned a new phrase<\/a>), and I was more or less\u00a0aware that public opinion hasn’t really been coming around as it should, given the reality.<\/p>\n

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The Reality of Obamacare: More Americans have Quality, Affordable Health Coverage<\/p><\/div>\n

But I was not aware how much the anti forces have invested in creating this negative opinion profile.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0now recall\u00a0referencing a piece by EJ Dionne<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year\u00a0about the Koch brothers’ determination to undermine the very idea of the social safety net. \u00a0I followed up a few days later with an acknowledgement of some of the good work being done<\/a> to combat their propaganda campaign. \u00a0In the second piece I asked what kind of budget was behind the good guys \u00a0I guess now we have a measure of\u00a0how lopsided the money is: of the $445 million spent on advertising around the ACA through the beginning of 2014, 94% of it was anti<\/strong>. \u00a0That’s a 15-to-1 ratio. \u00a0As Paul Waldman says<\/a>\u00a0(emphasis mine),<\/p>\n

This has been a truly spectacular propaganda campaign, full of lies and fear-mongering, meant to fill Americans with fear and hatred of this law. In fact, unless somebody can correct me, I don’t think there’s ever been a campaign against a piece of legislation that even approaches this magnitude. I suppose that the fact that in the face of all that the law still retains significant support is something to be thankful for<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The other point of Waldman’s piece dovetails with EJ’s piece from this spring: The Koch campaign to undermine support for the social safety net is taking its toll, at least among self-identified Republicans:<\/p>\n

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Prior to Barack Obama’s election, the idea that the government shouldn’t bother making sure all people have health coverage is something that most Republicans believed. But now it’s something that nearly all<\/em> Republicans believe. There has been a significant movement among independents, but given that there are very few “true” independents, I’m guessing that most of that comes from the Republican-leaning independents.<\/p>\n

That monumental propaganda campaign may not have killed the law, but it bought this: the GOP is now, more emphatically than ever, the party of “I got mine, and the rest of you can go to hell.” Ayn Rand is smiling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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