The Weekly Screed (#589)

Little Johnny Roberts “keeks a touchdown”
by David Benjamin

PARIS — Watching, from here, the Supreme Court’s decision this week on President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, was refreshingly serene. While America fumed and fretted, the rest of the world shipped goods, washed laundry and watched soccer. The only post-mortem I heard from a French person was the next morning, over coffee. Our server, Patrick, who bears the muscles and tattoos of his other profession in the merchant navy, shouted, “Bravo! Congratulations. America has joined the civilized world!”

Patrick conveyed a sense of finality that has yet to penetrate the punditocracy in America, who continue to parse the 16 words in the Commerce Clause and dissect the political distinctions between a “penalty” or a “tax.” I’ll be surprised, however, if most Americans keep up the Obamacare spat for even two more weeks. Why keep talking? The game’s over.

When I heard that Chief Justice John G. Roberts had joined four liberals to tip the decision in the president’s favor, I pictured a football game, tied at, say 13-13 with three seconds left. On the ravaged field, 21 gasping giants stand muddy and bloodstained. Onto the field runs a 150-pound weenie in a spotless uniform, with a name that sounds vaguely Yugoslavian, O’Mleivobyschtilecxz or something like that. The interloper lines himself up diagonally to a spot on the grass, a whistle blows, the ball is hiked, the final gun goes off, and little “Mlievo” splits the uprights with a 56-yard field goal. Game over: 16-13. Fans on the losing side feel cheated to see the game decided by a little “I-keek-a-touchdown” shrimp who barely speaks English. The losing players — although they have a field-goal dwarf on their own roster — seethe with resentment over this abrupt and anticlimactic end.

But, there’s no riot in the stands. The players don’t mob the referees demanding reconsideration, an official investigation and a re-write of all the rules of football. Everybody agrees: you score any way you can within the rules, and the team with the most points wins. And if the other team tries to appeal, or legislate, or litigate or bellyache their way out of defeat, they’re just sore losers. There’s no crying in football.

If the losers persist in trying to wheedle their way out of defeat, they receive scant sympathy, and risk the disgust of even their own fans. Americans, after all, are a nation of fans. We know how the game is played — fair and square. We take pride in accepting the outcome, win or lose. Afterwards, you gotta move on. There’s always another game.

Moreso than I think they ought to, Americans tend to apply this “game over” sports-oriented approach to elections. This instinctive perception is reinforced by the structure of U.S. elections — which are usually one-off, two-sided only and winner-take-all, unlike the parliamentary free-for-alls and run-offs that tend to occur elsewhere.

Early June in Wisconsin provided a classic case. There, despite policies that were widely unpopular, personal approval ratings in decline and a series of grass-roots protests against his programs that attained historic dimensions, Governor Scott Walker survived a recall election. He won although a remarkable mid-winter petition campaign had gathered almost a million signatures against him. What happened?

What I saw was a majority whose judgment was this: Whether they liked or disliked Governor Walker, the game had ended long before June 5. Scott Walker had kicked his field goal on November 2, 2010, when he won the election. Maybe he did that by lying about his plans and spending a lot of secret cash from out-of-state lobbyists. But in football terms, those were just trick plays— they weren’t “illegal.” Voters would not fault Walker for playing as dirty as the rules allow. That’s the game.

Walker won the June recall because he had won the “real election” in 2010 and people figured he’s entitled to his full four years in office, even if he’s a rotten governor. Rules are rules. There’s no crying in politics.

I’m curious to see if the same rules apply to the Affordable Care decision. President Obama, by squeezing out 60 Senate votes and then maneuvering Obamacare through the House of Representatives without amendments, “keeked his touchdown” on March 23, 2010. In the months since, the “sore losers” who oppose the law have tried to litigate, legislate and shout their way to a referee’s decision. Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling was the latest and — I think — the last serious attempt to change the end of the game. A New York Times article, discussing continued pressure by opposing politicians to repeal Obamacare, cited “an element of fatigue” among the public.

We’re tired of this game. Let’s move on.

Currently, the outcome isn’t popular. A plurality of Americans still have doubts about the Affordable Care Act. However, these same Americans — like those recall voters in Wisconsin — understand that, having been played into overtime and concluded, then replayed in at least four federal courts, and in the attorney general’s offices of 26 states, and re-replayed one last time at the Supreme Court, this is a long, boring, confusing and bloody game that’s finally, definitely over.

It’s instructive to remember that Social Security, a law of comparable sweep, did not enjoy substantial public approval when FDR signed it in 1935. It also faced court challenges and repeal efforts. But time passed. The effects of the law became clear. Most Americans came to accept, and then appreciate the blessings of Social Security. This left only a handful of utopian zealots like Ayn Rand and Congressman Paul Ryan still agitating to drive America’s grandmothers into the streets and back to the poorhouse.

These are the ideologues who’ll continue tilting at Obamacare. They can’t go back to the Supremes for a do-over and they’ll never get 60 votes in the Senate. But they’ll keep humping. The more they try, the sorer they’ll look, the less popular they’ll be. This is partly because Obamacare, like Medicare, is good for most people: we’ll figure it out.

Before that happens, however, most of us will just stop listening. Most of us, thank God, possess a clarity of mind that we share not with petty philosophers, pundits and politicians, but with true, practical wise men — like Mr. Berra of the Yankees.

Yogi knew — and he’d tell the umpire to his face —when the game was over.