Obama should have started with the climate crisis, not the healthcare crisis

The U.S. healthcare insanity is running into social reality, meaning that it is much less costly and much more humane to have everyone covered under a European-style healthcare system. There are some people lying through their teeth to fool others, and perhaps themselves, in order to evade the reality that the European systems are better than the American one.

However, it is much easier to dodge a social crisis than it is one in physical reality.

The climate crisis is visibly more real every day, and the evidence is there to destroy the deniers should this ever go to trial. They would rapidly be shown to be paid liars, modern snake oil salesmen, con men. Nothing more.

But even without a trial, the climate crisis is becoming simply undeniable. Forest fires, higher temperatures, melting ice caps and glaciers, Pine Beetles, California running out of water – the list goes on. We are just starting to become aware of the dangers: Steven Chu, Obama’s Energy Secretary, flat-out stated: ”We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California,” and “I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going.”

That’s hard, in-your-face, undeniable reality. Had Obama led with this, he could easily have exposed the oil and coal linkage, could have appealed to patriotism to get America off oil, could have cited national security as a reason to make America more self-reliant for energy – and he would have prevailed in the court of public opinion by a landslide.

He could have gone right for the throat of the paid deniers, exposing them as unprincipled fools who have sold all of us out. There is plenty of evidence, and in a court of law you actually need a degree to propound on climate science.

Many Americans are bound to be enraged when they realize just how badly they’ve been duped. Many are good-hearted people who got suckered by con men who knew how to tell them what they wanted to hear. There will be hell to pay when those people wake up and discover the guys they trusted not only led them astray, but robbed them blind along the way.

Many Americans could quite easily come to see those who deceived them about climate change as traitors; American citizens who sold out millions of other Americans for bit of money.

Given this anger and desire for justice, Obama would have been kickstarting a green economy right now, could be leading the world on getting off oil. Success breeds success, and healthcare would have been an easier sell. People would be less susceptible to propaganda from corporations and their shills.

Now he has a harder road; with healthcare turning into a massive bonus for the insurance companies and no reduction in cost-per-person, it is inadequate at best. Those screaming that government can’t do anything right – are right. Their government, the United States government, cannot be trusted to run healthcare properly.

It may cost less and work equally well (or better in some ways) in every other developed country, but the sad reality is that the United States government is too corrupt to be trusted with health care. Look at the bill it is turning into: it will be more costly and a boondoggle.

Obama first needed a win on something significant, and climate change is the most significant issue facing us. He could have used momentum from exposing real American enemies while showing the way to a more secure future – to gain some trust that he could be trusted to do healthcare right.

Now, however, he risks being a one-term President, and deservedly so.