I'm sorry I have to say this but I just do. In the wake of Ralph Nader's decision to run for President, again, I have to vent on the idea that his candidacy merits any consideration.
First of all, let me say that the pratice of casting a vote is not a sacred experience. It is not a communion with God. It is not an existential affirmation of your deepest convictions in your heart's very core. It is a practical decision made on the Surface of the Planet Earth that has tangible effects on real people's lives. In some cases, it can be a matter of life and death for the people affected.
Approaching one's vote otherwise amounts to an elevation of hollow symbolism and a sense individual moral superiority over the practical consequences of one's actions on real people's lives. Many of us would strongly prefer more left-wing policies than what the Democrats have historically offered, including myself. If Nader had any chance whatsoever of winning, by all means we should vote for him. But here on this planet, the decision of millions of left-leaning people to vote for Nader in 2000 has led to absolutely disastrous results. It accelerated the extreme concentration of wealth in this country through regressive tax cuts and created a massive budget deficit that will make future social programs more difficult to implement. It made possible an unjustified war in Iraq that cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and thousands of U.S. soldiers. It led to cuts in funding for student loans, Medicaid, and a heinous overhaul of the bankruptcy code. It led to a serious (but thankfully unsuccessful) attack on America's most successful social program and anti-poverty measure, Social Security. These are all bad things, we can all agree. And they could have been prevented if the people who voted for Nader in 2000 had voted for Gore.
Nader will proclaim til his death that he did not cause the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 election. I'll accept that. You know who caused Gore's defeat? The people who voted for Nader over Gore in swing states. Anyone who has far-left policy goals and voted for Nader in swing states completely abdicated his or her responsibility to help prevent a global disaster.
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Hey Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI am glad we are now friends on Facebook. Hope law school is going well.
Interesting post. I've always thought that what France does with Presidential elections is a very practical approach. Have the parties select a representative and then have a preliminary election. Once that's done you pick the top two candidates and have one final election. A lot of people who voted for Nader knew there was significant risk that they were helping Bush, but in their mind it was more important to do what was right versus what was practical. If you implement something like what France does, you can vote for whomever you want knowing that if the person does not earn enough votes to be one of the top two candidates, there is one final election to re-evaluate between the top two vote earners.
I have to agree with my blog commander Ryan on this one. I'm well within the democratic party camp, but I'm a bad democrat when it comes to wishing that the United States had a multi-party system, or runoff elections, or some other election reforms. However, I really think thir party movements have to come from the ground up. It makes no sense to me to put yourself up as a third candidate with no chance of winning. Nader should have been spending all those minutes he campaigned in 2000 and 2004 to stump for city, county, and state Greens and Independent candidacies. It's the best way for a third-party candidate to get there. Until then, run symbolic campaigns in a primary, but when it comes down to a Democrat who will at least meet you halfway and a Republican who will the rug out from underneath the poor and the middle class, get your ego out of the way.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible and recommended for me to go to 110% on the agreement reactors regarding Nader votes = Republican enabling.
ReplyDeleteMight we also consider the possibility that Nader is on the Republican payroll? In 2003 or 2004, TNR did an article asking that very question.
One aspect was as follows: in October of 2000 many Nader aides approached their boss to express concern that he would tip the balance in swing states like OH, FL, and PA, and thus they recommended focussing their energy on solid blue states where they could still go for 15% in the national standing without jeopardizing electoral points for the Dems. Nader instead opted on a whirlwind tour of the battleground states in the last weeks of the election.
About Luis' comment: in general France's system is cooler than ours, but it can also lead to distasteful results like in 2002 when the left split up its votes among the impossible-to-elect choices during the first vote, and the only realistic leftist, socialist candidate Jospin, didn't even make it to the final election. Instead it was right-wing Chirac versus extreme-right anti-immigrant LePen.
Luis: It was nice to hear from you as well. Law school is, fortunately, nearing a close. I hope the world of haute finance is going well for you.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of responses to your comments. First, Luis says, "in their mind," referring to Naderites, "it was more important to do what was right than what was practical." My view is that it is a warped sense of "right" that blithely ignores the consequences of one's actions.
Second, I agree that the French system may be better than ours, but I also agree it still leaves a lot to be desired. My most favored system is a proportional parliamentary democracy, which I think is by far the most democratic. But we're not going to see that here any time soon.
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ReplyDeleteI don't know that this adds anything, but Ryan held me down and stimulated my mind until I could not contain myself anymore and had to blog.
ReplyDeleteSo, it strikes me that the position that staying steadfast to one's principles trumps real human welfare is to say that individual people have no actual value. It's one thing to make a calculated utilitarian sacrifice (if I vote for Nader, it will destroy the lives of thousands, but will pave the way for improvements in the lives of hundreds of thousands, not that that's the case, mind you); it's quite another to say in the face of actual human suffering that the personal satisfaction of maintaining an uncompromising "moral" high ground justifies letting the world burn. I respectfully disagree with Ryan that it is an act of hollow symbolism to throw away a vote on the grounds of principle. It is an act with a symbolic shell and a creamy destructive nougat center. I'll take a commitment to the people over a commitment to the People any day.