Obamacare as Political Rorschach Test: End of History or End of the World?

We have reached a point in the development of the ideology that characterizes the Democratic-Republican two-party state, in which virtually every event – from the most trivial to the most significant – produces a bifurcated response that demonstrates the abject absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy of the politics to which we are subjected by Democratic-Republican Party government. The passage of Obamacare, for instance, was triumphantly lauded as the "end of history" by liberal Democrats and hysterically denounced as the "end of the world" by conservative Republicans. Let's begin with the liberal Democrat's declaration of the "end of history." On March 22nd, Kevin Drum wrote at Mother Jones:

There's plenty of work left to be done, but when it comes to the big ticket items we've gotten about 80% of what we set out to get over the past century. The one major item missing has been national healthcare. And now, finally, we're on the road to getting it . . . So over the next couple of decades we'll finish the job on healthcare, make continuing progress on gay rights, hopefully address climate change in an incremental way, improve our immigration laws, and so forth. But big ticket items? There probably aren't any.

In a similar vein, Matthew Yglesias declared final victory at Think Progress:

For the past 65-70 years—and especially for the past 30 years since the end of the civil rights argument—American politics has been dominated by controversy over the size and scope of the welfare state. Today, that argument is largely over with liberals having largely won . . . The crux of the matter is that progressive efforts to expand the size of the welfare state are basically done. There are big items still on the progressive agenda. But they don’t really involve substantial new expenditures.

The conservative Republican response to the passage of Obamacare was equally absurd: the event signals the beginning of totalitarianism and the coming of Armageddon. Politico reported Senator Orrin Hatch's articulation of the former talking point:

The health care law’s individual mandate is “what you call totalitarianism,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Wednesday night . . . “They want to force people to do whatever they want them to do. That’s what you call totalitarianism. It is not really good government." . . . “And frankly, it would be the first time that your liberties would be taken away from you where you would be forced to do something you don't want to do.”

This is almost unbelievable. Hatch's assessment that the passage of Obamacare into law represents "the first time" liberties would be "taken away" from people by the federal government, "forcing" them to do something they "don't want to do" is, in its patent falsehood, as ridiculous as the above assertions that the progressive project is finished and Democrats will now cease to oppress us with ever greater demands for the implementation of their neo-liberal, technocratic, utopian agenda. But Rep. John Boehner and Michael Steele did Hatch one better, equating the passage of Obamacare with the end of the world. As TPM reported:

RNC Chairman Michael Steele told Fox News anchor Shepard Smith today that he agreed with House Minority Leader John Boehner's assertion that health care reform is akin to "Armageddon." Smith asked Steele, "Armageddon? Seriously?" Steele: "Yes!"

If only Steele were right, as, one assumes, the end of the world would imply also the end of Democratic-Republican Party government and hence our liberation from the dictatorship of the Democratic-Republican two-party state and the inanity of Democratic-Republican politics.