So often we hear Democrats demand Republican capitulation on a host of issues -- some social, some economic -- because Republicans are on "the wrong side of history."
That argument was made, in highly perjorative,
eliminationist ways during the epic struggle of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others to stop Obamacare before it inflicted more pain.
That effort to stop Obamacare prior to the failed rollout of healthcare.gov was belittled by people like Timothy Egan in The New York Times as being on the
Wrong Side of History, writing on October 3, 2013:
They are not righteous rebels or principled provocateurs. They are not constitutionalists, using the ruling framework built by the founders. Just the opposite: they are a militant fringe of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government trying to nullify an established law by extortion. This is not the design of the Constitution.
Nor are they Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks or Winston Churchill — preposterous comparisons made on the floor of Congress by those whose only real fight is with progress....
We know now why Senator Ted Cruz, the most hated man in Washington, said he fears that once Obamacare is up and running people will like it — and then it will be too late for the obstructionists....
They wrecked the car, dug their own grave; no matter what you call it, history’s verdict came early.
Little did Egan or the others belittling the warnings about Obamacare realize that history's verdict would be against them; that Obamacare was it was not as it was sold and would cause Democrats to scramble for distance; that the Tea Party would be viewed as
more in touch with American values than the ideology behind Obamacare; that big government would become the most hated thing
outside Washington, even if Ted Cruz remained "the most hated man in Washington."
The sweep of history is upon us, and it is not with the bigger government Democratic Party.
Ron Coleman