After finding out about firedoglake.com’s attacks on the HCR bill and their desire to kill it in league with the likes of Norquist and other right-wingers my thoughts could only harken back to FDR and the passage of Social Security legislation in the 1930s.
At that time Democrats had supermajorities in the House and Senate, well beyond the majorities they have now. Also the filibuster rules were much less stringent then than now. Nevertheless FDR and the progressive Democrats in Congress had to compromise with the Dixiecrats, then a powerful bloc within the Democratic Party to get a pared down Social Security Bill passed.
Back then FDR and the New Deal had many vocal critics on the left, in particular Trotskyites such as "Max Shachtman, James Cannon and their respective Workers Party and Socialist Workers Party, who were or had been followers of Leon Trotsky. They argued that Roosevelt instituted these reforms in order to salvage capitalism, saw World War II as an imperialist war and the Communist Party's Popular Front as a class-collaborative betrayal" (Wikipedia).
Struck by the correspondence between firedoglake’s position on HCR and the "left-wing" Trotskyite criticism of the New Deal I checked out firedoglake.com to see if there was any connection between the two. And low and behold this link came up on Google: Obama, The Nation, WSWS & "What Is To Be Done" in which the blogger lambastes "the Nation" as being a rag that’s sold out to Obama and extols the reportage of the World Socialist Website which is a self-avowedly Trotskyite political formation.
As I stated in a recent comment at Dkos: "I wouldn't be surprised if FDL is in the hands of Trotskyists. Trotskyists have a history of attacking anyone on the left who is for united fronts and coalition building. They always posit themselves as the only ones fighting for purity of vision and they have a history of allying themselves with rabid right-wingers while pretending to represent the left. Many neo-cons came out of the Trotskyist movement."
Other Parties on the left during the 1930s, including the CPUSA, supported Social Security legislation, even though they criticized its deficiencies. They played a positive role then, not the obstructionist role played by the ultra-left Trotskyites of their day or the likes of firedoglake today.