Abstract
Introduction
The title of the article is - The Rube Goldberg Democrats. The source is The Wall Street Journal. The author is Daniel Henninger. The argument for the article is that it is against Obama Care. The author emphasizes that this program is characteristic of other failures by the Democrat Government such as social security and admission to colleges. This article stresses that Obama Care will put a blemish on the brand identity of The Democratic Party. There are several elements that I will discuss in this essay. They include, increasing expectations on government, failure of the Democratic Party and impact of poor brand maintenance. My evaluation of the effectiveness of the argument is that it is sound and logical. There are several points cited by the author that have informed my decision. I will be discussing them in the essay. The thesis statement is that Obama Care has impacted negatively on the reputation of the Democratic Party, and it highlights that its performance has been below expectations. This essay will focus on evidence and assumptions. The audience of this article is the US public.
The first point regards increasing expectations on government. According to Henninger (2014), “Today's public won't accept that kind of performance.” The author depicts of a situation where improved quality on government services is expected. Citizens aren’t comfortable with low quality services on the premise that they have been provided by the government (Henninger, 2014). The author adds that big companies and small retail shops are subjected to the high expectations in the modern society. It is becoming difficult to sustain uncompetitive levels of product execution.
The evidence presented by the author is a time when he was seated with some people in a social security office, in Manhattan. He talks of failure to progress in the queue and the discomfort of one lady with the issue. There seemed to be no clerks to serve. The lady complained that the department was worse than that of motor vehicles. In response, the guard said that it was the other way round. The assumption of the guard is that all government offices have a poor customer service and hence the opinion that the social security office was had high quality services.
In the article, the author has criticized the government over its poor quality services against growing expectations by the public. In spite of relative rigidity on the part of government concerning the quality of services, the public has been increasing their demands. Therefore, the public is likely to be uncomfortable over a certain public issue today unlike the situation a number of years ago. This trend has resulted in dissatisfaction over the same services offered in the past. According to Henninger (2014), “Voters have passed this mediocrity” This illustrates that the public had low expectations on quality of services by the government. They considered it normal given the size and complexity of the US. However, with growth in expectations, the word Obama Care resonates of revised rules and policies in the US. The negative aspect is that they have been reborn with high costs for the entire nation.
The other point is the failure of the Democratic Party. The author says that Obama Care is doing some substantial collateral damage to the Democratic Party. He considers that Obama Care may turn into a ‘metaphor’ for the Democratic Party. Since it has the power, it is responsible for any decisions that it makes. Therefore, any failures of Obama Care are attributed to this party. The author says “they won't even apologize!” This illustrates how the author is disappointed at the policies of the Democratic Party. Despite their failures in the eyes of the public, they have not owned up to their mistakes, and they are going on with their efforts (Henninger, 2014). The advocates and makers of Obama Care have failed Americans by failing to explain the full benefits of this program. Therefore, they are making the public feel as if they are uneducated enough to “comprehend the law's inevitable benefits.”
The Democratic Party has failed the state as far as quality is concerned. The author highlights areas such as the work product, admission criteria to colleges and mere standards of personal behavior. Therefore, there has been a general sense of failure within this party. This is the fact that has led to the common usage of the word ‘whatever’. According to the author, the Democratic Party has failed due to defections that have been witnessed in the party. He presents evidence of Liberal Democrats who have chosen to distance from the Democratic Party. Another failure is based on the party’s association with the history of low performance in the public sector. The author alludes to the ‘$824 billion stimuli’. In light of this project, he considers Obama Care as another program with similar characteristics. The author holds the assumption that the Democratic Party is a party of ‘rotating pinwheels’. This implies that it is an unprogressive party with limits in its performance.
The impact of poor brand maintenance is the other point that follows. The author presents examples of companies that have failed due to poor brand maintenance. They include Sony, Target and BlackBerry. The enthusiasm associated with these brands has evaporated overnight. The author says that it is not possible to argue that a certain product is ‘at least better than nothing.’ Products have to be offered at their best qualities to succeed in today’s competitive markets. The author presents evidence of how the Democratic Party has been demoting performance standards. This has cut across unions and Medicaid’s medicine. For unions, he presents evidence of the Democrat Eric who lost to Wendy in May 2013. This occurred whereby union endorsements were turned into a liability (Henninger, 2014). The author holds the assumption that an incomplete cover up is not a solution. A ‘quick patch’ cannot solve such brand problems. He says that brands collapse due to informed choices of consumers. Therefore, Obama Care has to be improved for it to be attractive to the public. From the thesis statement, it can be seen that Obama Care has a negative impact on the reputation of the Democratic Party. The performance of this party is below expectations.
Reference
Henninger, D., 2014. ObamaCare is the party's unworkable contraption of nonperformance. The Wall Street Journal, II(9), pp. 47-51.
