but when congress debated and passed the patient protection and affordable care act in 2009 and 2010, opponents were nearly unified in offering grim keech-like predictions. with obamacare now in full effect, and the economy on a decided upswing, the dour prognostications are starting to look like keech's flying saucers. at least if you believe the data. a look at festinger's theories, though, can explain why that won't matter, and why americans can expect a continued drumbeat of doom, even as the prophecies fail.









<u+201c>it certainly has not had the baleful effects the critics were predicting,<u+201d> said paul van de water, a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities who supports the law, but never thought it would have much economic impact. <u+201c>on balance it may be a modest plus, to the extent that it has contributed to the slowdown of growth in health care costs.<u+201d>









but that's not how capitol hill<u+2019>s gloomsday cult sees it. indeed, try getting any of them to admit the affordable care act jobs slaughter has not happened, and they sound like the punchline to the old joke where a spouse gets caught in the act cheating: <u+201c>who are you going to believe -- me, or your lying eyes?<u+201d>









"with politicians, you can<u+2019>t be sure that what comes out of their mouths is really what<u+2019>s in their head," said elliot aronson, one of festinger<u+2019>s former students who is regarded as the foremost expert on cognitive dissonance alive today. "when it comes to politics, we have to really look closely."









the way cognitive dissonance works is that when people are confronted with information that contradicts either their beliefs or actions, they feel discomfort. to feel better, they either have to modify their beliefs and actions, or find some way to discount the disconfirming information. and the more effort someone invests in a particular action or idea, the greater the lengths they will go in crafting justifications to ease their discomfort.









aronson and co-author carol tavris looked closely at that phenomenon in their 2007 book, mistakes were made (but not by me). among the examples are prosecutors who insist that people cleared by dna evidence are still guilty; scientists who insist results that agree with funders<u+2019> interests could not have been swayed, and people who like an idea from their political party, but dislike the same idea if told it came from the opposition party.









indeed, committing to a specific ideology can make it much harder to see facts clearly, let alone acknowledge them. aronson noted that it<u+2019>s especially hard for people who spent the last five years opposing a specific policy. <u+201c>these guys are so committed to the belief that obama can<u+2019>t do anything right, and that obamacare is socialism, that it would be very, very difficult for them to examine the data objectively," he said. "i think that<u+2019>s what<u+2019>s wrong with politics, that<u+2019>s what<u+2019>s wrong with ideology, that<u+2019>s what<u+2019>s wrong with politics that are ideologically driven.<u+201d>









<u+201c>one could create some line of argument that the economy would be much, much stronger without the aca, but that really seems to be a stretch,<u+201d> said van de water, the economist. <u+201c>we have a very large economy. even as important as the affordable care act is, it<u+2019>s working on a major sector of the economy, but only at the margins. even in advance, one would have thought it wasn<u+2019>t going to have a huge effect.<u+201d>
why the obamacare doomsday cult can't admit it's wrong
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