In the 1936 election, one year after President Roosevelt signed the law creating Social Security, his Republican opponent Alf Landon called it a “cruel hoax” and promised to repeal it. Landon won just two states—and, four years later, Republican nominee Wendell Willkie ran on expanding Social Security. …
Although the skirmishing around Social Security offers some parallel, the struggle over health reform is burning longer and hotter than the scuffling over any previous expansion of America’s safety net. …
Factors from increased polarization in Congress to the widening racial, generational, and geographic divergence in each party’s coalition explain this persistence. More important are the consequences. This elongated conflict is exposing each side to unpredictable political risks and denying the country a meaningful debate over addressing the law’s inevitable flaws and miscalculations. CONT.
Ron Brownstein, National Journal