Public opinion and the public option

By Michael J.W. Stickings

E.J. Dionne makes an excellent point in today's WaPo:

Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

I think that's right, and Dionne goes on to show just how the media created that impression:

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.

It's also clear that the anger that got so much attention largely reflects a fringe right-wing view opposed to all sorts of government programs most Americans support. Much as the far left of the antiwar movement commanded wide coverage during the Vietnam years, so now are extremists on the right hogging the media stage -- with the media's complicity.

This is not to say, of course, that health-care reform with a robust public option commands huge support with the American people. It doesn't -- for three reasons: 1) Republican propaganda has been effective at misrepresenting reform (especially the public option); 2) the media have given credibility to Republican propaganda by positioning it as a legitimate alternative to the truth in their coverage of politics as sport; and 3) Obama and the Democrats in Congress have been unable to get their message out effectively -- in other words, they haven't yet made the case for reform in a way that shifts public opinion in their direction.

Still, what is clear, I think, is that there is much broader support for reform than we are led to believe by a media establishment that has overstated the significance of a few select town halls, playing up the sensationalism of it all while basically ignoring what hasn't fit into its GOP-friendly narrative of conflict and opposition.

For meaningful reform to pass, it is essential that Obama and the Democrats tap into -- and seek the support of, even at this late date -- the vast majority of Americans who aren't on the right-wing fringe and who, much to their credit, don't think that shouting and screaming is the best way to participate in a democracy.