In an earlier post, while criticizing Nader for a racist comment (a criticism I agree with), Jeff wrote:
… if I was someone who was instrumental in ensuring the election of George W. Bush to the White House, I’d hide my head in shame. […] I will note that Nader is a big Kill the Bill guy. Now, I know that in and of itself doesn’t prove that killing the bill would be a disaster of Brobdingnagian proportions for the Democrats, one that would cause the party to spiral out of control for years.
Jeff, would you say Al Gore and Bill Clinton should hide their heads in shame?
After all, it was Gore and Clinton — along with the other “third way” leaders of the Democratic party in the 1990s — who chose to marginalize progressives. And once progressives realized they were being totally ignored, their predictable frustration created space for Nader’s 2000 candidacy.
But we’ve all learned our lesson, and will never take a chance on that happening again, right?
Cue Barack Obama’s presidency.
The White House does not view progressives as equal partners, as people who have legitimate concerns and priorities that need to be included in any deal. They still take the Clintonian view that the “left” can be appeased either through a few nice words in a speech, and if that fails, can be crammed down by being told they’re wreckers, being told this is the best progressives can get, being told that progressives are irrelevant (even while the WH’s defensive actions show they’re anything but irrelevant).
The White House hasn’t yet grasped that some basic and timeless rules of politics still apply: that you have to deliver something to your supporters to keep them on board.
I’m not a “kill the bill” person; I think we’re better off passing the bill and trying to improve on it. Nonetheless, it’s likely that kill the bill activists have made the bill marginally better than it would otherwise be (as Nate Silver argues). There’s an important lesson in that. The Obama administration expects progressives to meekly compromise our goals and priorities, over and over, while Obama and Reid rush to proffer a hanky every time Lieberman/Nelson/Snowe has a sniffle.
Elections aren’t won by the best policy ideas — if they were, there wouldn’t be a Republican in congress. Elections are won, by and large, by the side that works harder. In 2008, an angry and passionate left kicked the ass of a demoralized Republican party. We’re in danger of seeing that dynamic in reverse in 2010. Obama and the Democrats, by giving virtually nothing to progressives — not even a good fight — have demoralized the left. So who’s going to make the phone calls and knock on the doors in 2010, and in 2012?
Nader is a jerk, but the 2000 Nader campaign was a perfectly ordinary response by progressive Democrats to Clintonism. Lacking a home within the Democratic party, progressives looked elsewhere. I think the pain of George W. is too fresh in everyone’s minds for progressives to look for a new political home — yet. But if progressives are too dispirited to campaign for the Democrats in 2010, it’ll have the same effect.
And without Nader to scapegoat, who will Democrats blame if they get their asses kicked in 2010?
I’ve been meaning to write a post about this for a while, but I think in a first-past-the-gate system like ours, third party candidacies will only very rarely do anything other than ensure the loss of whichever candidate they’re closest to ideologically.
Now it may be that pushing the Democratic party a little farther to the left is worth that. That’s a calculus I can understand … but it does rely on claiming that the fallout of the Bush years was okay, as long as it put the Dems a little closer to where we’d like them to be.
—Myca
I think Bush’s election was a case of brinkmanship gone horribly wrong; neither the mainstream Democrats nor the progressive Greens flinched. (Of course, that was only one of several factors that lost the election — but it was one factor.) In retrospect — especially in light of 9/11, something no one could have known about in the 2000 election — at least one of the two should have flinched.
So yes, I blame Nader (and myself, since I was an eager Nader volunteer) for what happened in 2000.
But I also blame Gore, Clinton and the other leading democrats of the time. Maintaining a winning political coalition is part of their job. If they aren’t able to keep progressives within their coalition, then they’re doing their job badly.
Additionally, there’s something I’ve been wanting to work out for a while about the modern Democratic party as essentially pragmatic and the modern Republican party as essentially idealistic that I think contributes a lot to the conflict you’re discussing.
That is, I think that the way that folks who would like to ‘get something done’ as opposed to adhering to ‘basic conservative principles’ have a hard time in the modern Republican party is closely related to the way folks who would rather adhere to ‘basic progressive principles’ than ‘get something done’ have a hard time in the modern Democratic party.
—Myca
I just think that the middle of a presidential election is the wrong time to try to push a party farther left (or right, for that matter). There are ways to move a party effectively, but they’re much harder, slower, and less dramatic than voting for a third party candidate … they involve volunteering for, and donating money to, the most progressive candidates in the primary regularly.
That is, I don’t think of supporting the Kucinich candidacies as political seppuku in the same way as I saw supporting Nader.
Everyone always says, “why not support the person you agree with most politically,” and my answer is, “I’d rather support the person who my support will make it more likely that policies I favor will be enacted.”
If Kucinich had won the primary …. sure it’s unlikely he’d win the presidency … but there was never any chance of Nader winning. There simply weren’t enough people who actually agreed with his policies.
My goal isn’t to support the Democratic party. My goal is to see the best policies available enacted. And yeah, I’d rather take half a loaf than none.
—Myca
Myca, I’m not sure if you’re disagreeing or not with my basic premise.
…which is that if the Democratic party kow-tows to Joe Lieberman while offering a triply-compromised half a loaf to progressives, then that’s a tactical error, because the result is losing some of their coalition — either losing it directly, as in 2000, or losing it indirectly, through loss of enthusiasm.
I kind of feel like none of your comments here have directly addressed that premise.
* * *
I think the “half a loaf or none at all” choice is a false dichotomy. It is certainly possible for progressives to ask for too much; but it’s also possible to ask for too little. And demanding that we get a real place at the table does not automatically mean nothing will get done.
Broadly, I agree with that, but I think the ‘why’ behind it goes back to the pragmatism that I was talking about in comment #3.
That is: universal health care is an essentially progressive thing, and progressives want to see it happen. Lieberman doesn’t particularly care whether it happens.
Therefore, if he holds it hostage and wins, that’s great for him! The bill looks more like what he wants it to look like! If he holds it hostage and loses, great for him! He filibusters and health care goes down in flames! Either way is fine by him.
For progressives, they actually care about it passing. Their bargaining is from a position of weakness. If they hold health care hostage and win, that’s great for them! The bill looks more like what they wants it to look like! If they hold health care hostage and lose, though? That’s an unmitigated disaster, and Universal Health Care is off the table for another 20 years.
In order to credibly have the same strength at the table that Lieberman does, progressives have to actually not give a shit about hundreds of thousands of dying people.
And we do.
So.
I mean, look, I don’t have a solution, but I think that progressives could theoretically exert the same kind of power in a reversed situation, where there’s something that Lieberman cares deeply about that progressives don’t care one way or the other … except that if it’s something Lieberman cares about that progressives don’t, he’s likely to have the backup of the Republican party, and not need progressive votes.
—Myca
Valid points. I missed the whole “Nader saying something racist” thing, I’ll have to go google that. BTW I agree with what I sense is your feeling that a law that can be fixed along the way is better than trying to get it 100% right immediately. A few months ago I was listening to NPR on the history of Social Security, and that took decades of tinkering. And I suspect the British NHS is a lot different now than at the start.
But then again, we’re AMERICA, we’re supposed to learn from the rest of humanity and do it right. That’s the theory anyways.
was a perfectly ordinary response by progressive Democrats
I agree with this. From a sociological perspective it was ordinary, unsurprising, etc.
But it would be a huge mistake to use this observation to exculpate Nader and his supporters. They had critical faculties they could have used to see the danger that confronted them, and they used their (completely justifiable) alienation and frustration as a reason to minimize a very real danger. It would be infantilizing to suggest they shouldn’t be called out for it, or shouldn’t bear a degree of responsibility for what they did.
aaaand now I’ve read the comments, and see this point has been well covered by Myca. Never mind, carry on…
Ah, Naderbashing. The last resort of feckless, gutless, do-nothing cruise missile demotards. That’s right, he’s responsible for everything wrong with the world. You’re fucking murderous party, who just kacked sixty or so Yemeni civilians, is as pure as the driven fucking snow. “IT’S ALL NADER’S FAULT!!!” screams the oh-so progressive pwog blogger, head firmly lodged up your rectum.
How does it feel to have blood on your hands, pwoggie? Feel good? You and God-Emperor Obama ignore the suffering you create and pitch a fit at anyone who dare even criticize your murderous policies. It’s always God’s will or somebody elses fault with you. The day a democrat takes responsibility for ANY-FUCKING-THING is the day they’ll be snowball fights in Hell.
Alan, please remember to keep things civil when posting comments on “Alas.” Thanks.
DJW, I agree, and I do take responsibility for what I and other Naderites did in 2000 (although I continue to think that Gore and the Democrats — and, also, the Supreme Court, and let’s throw in Jed Bush’s people too — bear even more responsibility). With hindsight — especially knowing about 9/11, and about what a jerk Nader turned out to be — I would act differently, if I could do the 2000 campaign over.
But I rarely see Democrats admitting their own culpability for the split on the left in 2000. Democratic party leaders, after all, also have critical faculties they could have used to see the danger that confronted them; they could have, and should have, worked harder to keep progressives within their coalition.
* * *
Myca, I agree with you on health care; this is an issue in which Lieberman and Nelson and Snowe hold a much better hand to play. But it’s far from the only issue that progressive Democrats have been ignored on.
Hey Alan.
I know that you are unaccustomed to treating other people with decency and respect, and that you would rather hurl (ablist) slurs, but I’d really rather try to have a civil conversation.
Let’s assume that our politics in terms of ‘goals’ are identical. I’m sure that there are minor differences, but I’d be honestly surprised if there were very many. If that’s so, then the main debate is about how to accomplish those goals.
I think that pushing the Democratic party to the left is a more achievable goal than achieving national office for the Green party. Moreover, I think that both goals are really dependent on the big one … convincing most of the country to agree with us. Until that happens, neither is really likely.
I’m not anti-Green. I agree with the Green party more often than I agree with the Democratic party. I just know that voting Green has zero chance of getting policies I support enacted, and voting Democratic has some >zero chance.
—Myca
I repeat: In 2000, it was hard to know that Bush’s campaign was a bunch of lies.
The Daily Show: President Bush vs. Governor Bush
I don’t blame anyone for thinking in 2000 that, for example,the Republicans were the party less likely to get involved in foreign wars. In 2004, though, anyone who voted for Bush deserves what they got.
1. When you lose a presidential election by less than 1000 votes, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. I’ll be the first one to say that Al Gore made a huge mistake in trying to run a campaign that was not about who he was. Gore was not Clinton II. He was Al Gore. And he should have run as Al Gore. Also, if not for the existence of Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman would be the wost Veep candidate put forward by either party in my lifetime, based solely on his conduct during the recount. Yes, worse than Dan Quayle.
2. And there’s no law saying that the Green Party can’t run a campaign, even as my experience with third parties (I’ve been a card-carrying member of two) tells me that third parties are generally parties thrown by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Indeed, I think the Greens did some good campaigning in places like Oregon and Minnesota, where the race really wasn’t that close, and where their presence on the ballot could pull things leftward. I’ve voted third-party more than once when I felt that the “mildly acceptable” candidate was either too far ahead or too far behind the “not acceptable” candidate for it to matter. I don’t begrudge others the same choice.
3. That said, nobody forced Ralph Nader to go into Florida and campaign in the waning hours of the campaign. There’s pushing your minor party’s message, and there’s being willingly destructive of the candidate who, while imperfect, is not nearly as imperfect as the worst guy in the race. Nader’s eleventh-hour campaigning was enough to tilt Florida just far enough so that Bush could steal it.
That, to me, is unconscionable. Because damn it, there was more than a dime’s worth of difference between Gore and Bush. As it turns out, there were 4,000 dead soldiers, billions of wasted dollars, at least one ludicrous war, 1,700+ dead Louisianans, and a gutting of environmental and business regulations’ difference worth of difference between the two.
Al Gore ran a bad campaign, but he tried to beat Dubya. Ralph Nader ran a hopeless campaign, and made it his mission to scuttle Gore. I don’t hold a grudge against Nader voters — I’ve voted third party too many times to blame others for doing the same. I do hold a grudge against Nader for choosing Gore as his target in 2000. As should anyone left of Ben Nelson.
4. As for energizing the base, I’m going to bet a mythical sawbuck on the proposition that we will see DADT repealed within six weeks of final passage of the health care bill. We’ll see a hard push on cap-and-trade. We’ll see a number of progressive issues that have been on hold for the past year come up, and most of them will pass through. And I’m willing to guess that in June or July of next year, when unemployment’s edged back under 10%, and the health care debate is in the rear-view mirror, and things seem to be on the upswing again, that the idea of a despondent base will be laughable.
At any rate, I continue to believe that the government is a big thing, and changing it will take a long time. I’m not ready to call Obama a failure after eleven months in office. Indeed, if health care passes by the SOTU, Obama will be the most accomplished Democrat since Johnson. In his first year on the job. That’s kind of the opposite of failure in my book.
You know what my big mistake in 2000 was? Underestimating the congressional Democrats. I figured they’d stand up to the worst of Bush. Holy shit was I ever wrong.
And without Nader to scapegoat, who will Democrats blame if they get their asses kicked in 2010?
Obama.
Progressives who voted for Nader shouldn’t try to avoid blame by pushing it all on someone else. Third party formation is, given our political system, no more than an easy, cheap way to feel self-righteous. If we’re serious about this, we need to learn from the religious right, who took over the Republicans. They were patient, hard-working, and above all else, they were less interested in punishment than reward. Which any psychologist will tell you is more effective.
So yes, I blame Nader (and myself, since I was an eager Nader volunteer) for what happened in 2000.
I can’t agree. I blame Bush voters, myself. Yes, Nader voters might have made a difference on the margins, but if around 50% of voters didn’t want Bush to be president (or prefer Bush to Gore, anyway), Bush would not have won.
Blaming Nader for the Iraq war? Really? So the Bush administration didn’t have anything to do with that? Your idiot Gore/Lieberman team, who couldn’t hold Gore’s home state, had more to do with Bush’s assent to power than Nader.
And yet, you spit and whine and sneer at this good man. Pathetic. Simply pathetic. The best progressives can summon is cheap ThanksRalphing and sub-moronic fingerpointing. You democrats are as out of touch with reality as your republican friends and both of you richly deserve every kick in the teeth your masters give you.
Former Naderite? Yeah, right! More like former bandwagon jumper desperate to ingratiate yourself with the a-list democrat bloggers. Give it up already. Stop pretending to be independent of your masters wishes. Amanda will show you how to sell out gracefully. Ask Kos for advice on washing the blood from your hands. And, whatever you do, keep screaming “IT’S ALL NADER’S FAULT!!!” It’ll help block out the screams of the civilians you’re incinerating.
Push left-wing third parties at the local level where they can win. Hell, New England’s a one party state these days. Go in and break that shit up. I’d support Green candidates there.
But at the federal level, during a presidential election? Heh. If you get in everyone’s face and loudly support third parties at the federal level, but never support either the pragmatic choice at the highest level or do any grassroots work for your putative party at the local level, then you’re just someone who’s using politics to boost your own ego, and a walking caricature of what turns so many people off politics.
MediaGhost–
That’s several personal attacks leveled within two paragraphs. Keep it civil, or go somewhere else.
Also, as someone who’s been blogging for seven years, i can assure you that if I was in this to “ingratiate myself” to other Democrats, I would have stopped writing many years ago, when it was apparent that I wasn’t going to succeed.
As it turns out, there were 4,000 dead soldiers, billions of wasted dollars, at least one ludicrous war, 1,700+ dead Louisianans, and a gutting of environmental and business regulations’ difference worth of difference between the two.
Not to mention 1 million+ dead Iraqis (by an estimate using a method notorious for undercounting events). However, we can’t assume that all would have been wonderful with Gore. He probably wouldn’t have started the wholy pointless Iraq war, but he might have felt the need to assert his manhood after 9/11 by nuking Kabul or something. Bush at least was a known hawk and no one was going to accuse him of being a peacenik, so he didn’t have to overreact the way Gore might have felt compelled to.
I voted for Nader in 2000 and I just want to add that the issues of ballot access and campaign funding re-imbursement were and continue to be the reasons I vote third party, especially in gubernatorial and presidential elections, and the reasons I affliate third party, even when I vote for Democrats.
With ballot access laws so widely divergent, it is hard to discuss each and every state’s particular barrier to third parties. I think it is safe to say that overall ballot access is incredibly strict, discriminatory, and preferential to the two mainstream, corporately funded parties. If third parties did not have to do the work of or spend the money on collecting signatures, paying fees, making write-in campaigns happen, they would be able to have a voice more often, and not just in the final stages of a crucial presidential election.
And with 5% of the vote, the money those candidates/their parties did spend could be reimbursed. I really believe that third parties would make our system more fair, more just and that campaign reimbursement funding would get different viewpoints out further. During all kinds of campaigns.