July 30, 2002
The Nader Issue
Bushwatch's piece Why Every Green Vote is a Bush Vote at Bushwatch.com raises an extremely important point. For the most part Nader's positions are far more populist, anti-corporate, relevant and constructive than any Democratic party office holder. It makes his political cause very appealing. But the seduction can be near fatal in an environment as lethal as the present one. With the lunatics presently in charge in Washington, there is no alternative but to get them out as quickly as possible. Political pragmatism is another field entirely from the one occupied by Nader. As Gloria Steinem said, "He's not running for president, he's running for matching funds." Right now things are too desperate to indulge those efforts.
Below is my response to Politex at Bushwatch about his piece on Nader.
Dear Politex,
Very good points. It's true, the broader picture does matter. There is a difference between Bush and Gore, and keeping Bush and his cronies across the country out of office must be the number one priority for both Gore and Nader supporters. There has to be a way for that majority to get together to prevent the worst from happening again.
I wrote a letter to the Nader people in the last days of last election. I said, essentially, what you should do would be an 11th hour call to the Gore camp. Get him to commit to some things in exchange for your support. You are powerful now. This is your moment of power. It will pass, but now you can use it to save your country. Right now you have the power to swing the election. And right now, keeping Bush out is paramount. You can save your country from Bush. The differences between supporters of Gore and supporters of Nader were minor compared with the differences between Bush and either.
Nader may have been right that Gore was sold out to major corporations in a way that was comparable to Bush. But only comparable. That fact came nowhere near equating the two, which was what Nader tried to do. And that was -- as you point out -- no better than a lie.
It's not really about Gore and Nader, whether they could ever agree. It's about bringing together the supporters of Gore and Nader, who consitute a big majority of Americans. We have to get together to beat Bush. We can, and it's just too stupid not to. There is no justification for people who are supporters of either man to allow relatively small differences to divide us to the benefit of Bush. Republicans are not normally the brightest people, but how stupid are the the rest of us if we let them rule us?
Both Gore and Nader have their points. Nader came much closer to really discussing the real issues that matter to regular Americans. That's a service to us all. But he was essentially outside of the system, which gave him that luxury. He had little to lose because he didn't have a prayer of actually winning. Gore was more compromised, was too careful, went along with the corporate program too much, didn't have the guts to really stand on his convictions. He was compromised by being so entrenched within the system, but because of it, he had a chance to actually win the White House, instead of Der Fuhrer from Texas.
I don't disagree with the Greens on most of the issues, except their politicking. I even agree with most of Nader's criticisms of Gore. But in terms of the realities of politics in the world as it is right now, the Greens are idealistic to a fatal flaw. They act only as a spoiler now, dividing the community that is most sympathetic to their causes. So in the end their ideas on the issues ended up counting for nada. Zilch. Instead they made it possible for their diametric opposite to take power and really shaft all of us. It sucks. You're right.
I doubt if anyone in the Nader camp even read my letter, certainly not Ralph himself. And of course they didn't do what I envisioned. Their big moment of power passed, and they let their power manifest negatively. In the end it was not an affirmation of anything. It was a negative action, the power to withhold. "I'll take my ball and go home." They had a chance to save us from Bush and they didn't. Even if they were right about everything else they said about Gore and the sellout of the political parties to major corporations, they did not have to do that. They accomplished nothing, proved nothing. Or maybe they did prove something, how bad it could get under George W. Bush.
The fact that Nader's adherence to principle was so rigid that he could not bring himself to make a political compromise that would have materially and radically improved our prospects was his downfall as a presidential candidate. He's still very valuable in terms of what he can bring to the dialogue, his knowledge, his ideas, his clear statements of the issues. But in terms of political strategies, he wasn't really ever in the game.At this point what is important is how are we -- the majority -- going to get together to beat George Bush. Who our standard bearer is is less important than the fact that we unite behind someone and don't let our disagreements divide us and give power to the major enemy of both groups. I was never a great fan of Al Gore, but after the Democratic convention, only one fact was relevant. Al Gore was the only man who could stop George Bush from claiming the White House.
My message to the Nader people was not on ideological grounds, but practical. If the common goal is to create a viable opposition to the corporate elite that has largely coopted both parties, we can either start a new party, or take over the Democratic party. As Jim Hightower said, "People talk about creating a third party, I wish we had a second one."In many ways taking over the Democratic party seems better. There is an infrastructure already in place. That way we are not fragmenting our base. We are only really talking about the majority, the working people, claiming one political party for itself. Why not use the Democratic party? It has nothing better to do. All it takes is people becoming activists, instead of sitting on their butts and letting other people do it. If you want to take back the government, a good place to start would be to take over the Democratic Party.
I still love Ralph Nader. I think he is a great American, but I don't care what he says about this stuff, because as a political strategist he has proven himself to be worse than a disaster. When he said it didn't matter whether Bush or Gore was president, he was deadly wrong, and a great many people will die, or will suffer greatly for the difference. When he said it didn't matter if the court struck down Roe vs Wade, it would then only go back to the states to decide, he was being extremely calloused to the women who live in states like Alabama.
The statement "our responsibility is to the Greens, the broader picture doesn't matter," pretty much sums it up. If that's how you feel vote Green and we'll see you in Hell.
David