Republicans Explained

An interesting pundit analysis of why Republicans are so crazy over Obamacare, which makes very little sense to Democrats, is available via Sean Carroll's blog.

The core insight is that Republicans think that Obamacare will create a permanent majority for Democrats by establishing the uninsured as a new government dependent minority added to many existing ones dependent on welfare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and illegal immigrants; as a final lynch pin in a socialist big government edifice.  As he explains:

A lot of the people described here are poor or at best middle-class, but their cultural identity and self-image is derived in large part from race/nation/religion/lifestyle categories that they see as under attack. The dominant emotions here are fearful ones. (I don’t mean to be condescending by talking about “these people”; this is the environment that I grew up in myself.) This kind of analysis helps understand why Obamacare — which, for all its faults, is primarily aimed at providing health insurance to more people, many of whom are squarely in the Republican base — is such a hot-button issue. It’s not that they don’t want health insurance; it’s not even that they don’t want the government involved (since they love Medicare and Social Security). It’s that they see Obamacare as a craven ploy to get more people (people not like them) dependent on the government, establishing a permanent Democratic majority, and therefore easing the way for more power going to immigrants, gays, and so on.

Carroll's source is conservative pundit Rod Dreher, writing for "The American Conservative," who is in turn evaluating results from a poll conducted by a pair of Democratic pollsters.