Sunday Discussion Group

February 4, 2007

At a certain level, I’m terribly uncomfortable with the very idea of Nader having been right about any of the political choices he’s made over the last seven years, but Matthew Yglesias raises a provocative point on the subject.

[O]ne of the memes floating about in the Nadersphere has, I think, been vindicated: Namely the basically Leninist idea that a Democratic loss and a period of Republican governance would pull the Democrats in a more progressive direction in terms of, for example, questioning “Washington Consensus” globalization. At the time, that argument didn’t make sense to me. And in some important ways I still don’t think it makes a ton of sense logically. But it does seem to be what’s happened. Now, was that a price worth paying for the dead in Iraq, the torture, etc.? I don’t really think so.

TNR’s Isaac Chotiner adds:

It’s certainly true that this era of Republican governance has moved the Democrats to the left. The reaction to Bush, after all, has been pretty strong. But what if McCain had been elected in 2000, or Bush had decided to govern from the center? In short, Nader may have been right this time around, but as a general rule I’m skeptical he’s correct.

As am I, but it’s a topic worthy of some discussion. It seems a little self-serving — not to mention a little callous — for Nader and his supporters to say, “Bush has ruined the country and our standing in the world, the country has recoiled and moved to the left, so our actions are justified.” That said, the crux of the 2000 strategy, which was to help the right in order to fix the left, seems to have at least a kernel of merit in retrospect. Maybe.

So, what do you think? Did Nader’s burn-the-forest-in-order-to-save-it approach succeed? Was it worth the incredibly high costs?

Good Lord, no, it was not worth it! All those lives lost? Our reputation in tatters, 6 years lost dealilng with the greatest threat to our planet since we were considering nuking each other in the 60s, climate change? Our economy taken back 100 years in terms of opportunity and equality? No way. Nader and his supporters have a lot to answer for. I could go on and on. If Al Gore had become president, as he should have, since he won, most of the horrors of the past 6 years would never have happened.
And McCain? We are now seeing exactly what he really is made of.

  • But it does seem to be what’s happened. Now, was that a price worth paying for the dead in Iraq, the torture, etc.? I don’t really think so.

    People are invariably a product of the objective conditions they’re living in. To an extent one can transcend it, this determinism, to whatever extent that’s the right term, but it takes self-realization, meaning a consciousness of what’s going on (being, as said, the supremacy of the objective conditions). Then one can act, but it takes keeping one’s eye on that realization to be able to work outside of your comfort zone (the psychological bubble, imposed by the objective conditions, which you usually don’t notice.

    Different people, psychologically, are more or less capable to do this to a different extent.

    Example:

    One reason liberals of today are not as effective as liberals of yesteryear is that the threats they face and the challenges they seek to overcome are not as immediate. The threat the civil rights movement faced was so much more physical, so much more immediate, so much more a physical threat and oppression of the people we sought to protect, that it drew our vision and resolve into focus and made us do things that were necessary at a higher priority and made us do things better. Some who work in politics today would probably contest this, because it’s their pride on the line, but it’s a matter of relatively speaking, and I think if they look at it that way they’ve got to admit we were doing politics better back then, if not for some particular things in which we’re better today.

    Did Nader’s burn-the-forest-in-order-to-save-it approach succeed?

    It wasn’t an “approach” or a “strategy” if he didn’t do it, and so it wasn’t a “cost” that we paid.

    If he was waiting and conserving resources because he thought this was going to happen, and now he’s going to take advantage of it, maybe that would be that case, but it isn’t so. Looking at it this way only begins to make sense if Nader or someone is now going to go with it somewhere from here, if we’re going to look specifically to what’s changed in people’s minds because of this and find a way to capitalzie on it specifically.

    It was a cost to the extent that we didn’t wake up sooner when we could have (which is so). But I don’t share Matt’s feeling that a lot has changed. Doubtless he’s looking at things I’m not but a lot of things I emphasize and am concerned about, I emphasize as much as I do because they’re things we should have started to notice years ago. And I think only a little bitnow and over the past year people are starting to notice them more.

    Sorry if the above is wordy but this question makes better for a conversation than a blog comment. Anyway, the above isn’t jibber jabber, so if you don’t get it all the first time you could read it again and give it another try.

  • ***Did Nader’s burn-the-forest-in-order-to-save-it approach succeed?***

    Absolutely, positively, undeniably not. Nader may have burned the forest, but in his wake are untold numbers of people, holding the matches, torches, and flick-that-bic lighters of anti-American sentiment. It makes about as much sense as to prove that fish is an important part of the Pacific Rim food supply—by killing off all the fish.

    ***Was it worth the incredibly high costs?***

    Again, the answer is no—and if Nader wants to try and play the “exploit-the-troops-for-political-gain” game, then I’ll be the first in line to put a big, fat “R” next to his name the next time he—or any of his blithering lemmings, for that matter—run for elected office.

    Personally, I’m getting kind of tired of his bunk. Is their a horticulturist out there who needs a quaint name for the next speciality/hybrid brand of lemon? I’d like to propose the term “Nader” as an appropriate moniker for the fruit….

  • If the question is did Nader’s costing us the election lead to something better, the answer is, that’s not worth talking about because it wasn’t a real strategy or anything (the loss was a real loss- it can’t be worth the risk. When you lose something as big as the presidency, your opponent can do almost anything he wants, relatively speaking, so there’s no way to be confident your “gamble” will be worth the risk. It’s like betting the house.).

    If the question is did we need some awakening to happen, the answer is that it’s just inevitable when you’re faced with vastly different conditions that an “awakening” or at least a change of some sort is going to happen; but the real question is whether we’ll be able to take advantage of the lessons and make them worth it, and the answer is that’s still shaking out. Is it an “awakening” to self-consciousness that allows you to over-come long-term challenges or is it an awakening that just allows you to understand what you’ve lost a little better?

  • …a period of Republican governance would pull the Democrats in a more progressive direction…

    Media darlings and democratic presidntial candidates Hillary and Edwards sucking up to Israel and hawking ongoing War doesn’t strike me as “a more progressive direction.”

  • That self-serving, sanctimonious prig has lost his freakin’ mind.

    Even were he completely correct, the cost would be too high.

    But I tend to think every element of the analysis is, in fact, incorrect – or at least indeterminable on the evidence. First, one has to assume that Nader has a unique gift of fortune-telling. Remember, this is 2000, not 2004, we are talking about. While many of us may have felt Bush did not deserve re-election in 2004, the majority felt that he had earned another four years. So Nader would have had to know that while Bush might look ok in a first term, he would turn all of those supporters against him in a second term.

    Second, I’m not at all convinced that the Congress elected in 2006 and the Democrat elected President in 2008 will govern any farther left than Gore would have in 2000. What seems more likely is that in the intervening 6-8 years, BushCo moved the needle so astoundingly far to the right that the definitions of “center” and “left” have shifted rightward. In theory, a President Obama could actually govern slightly to the right of where Gore circa 2000 would have and most people would perceive it as left of Gore 2000 due to the intervening shift.

    In any event, I am quite positive that Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, Edwards, Obama are so marginally different in location on the governing spectrum from Gore, Kerry, etc. that there is just no way the difference is worth 3,000 American dead in Iraq, $1 trillion in wasted money, Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, scrapping of Kyoto, opening of Guantanamo, domestic spying, massive giveaways to Big Oil and other Big Polluters, the through-the-looking-glass drug (company) benefit program, and additional examples too numerous to list.

    Nader can say whatever he wants to help him sleep at night knowing he was the biggest enabler of BushCo and the horrors it has wraught, but we all remember his biggest argument was that he was the only choice because “there isn’t a hair’s-width of difference between Democrats and Republicans; they are all corporatists.” Everyone who participates on CBR who thinks Al Gore would have started and/or conducted the Iraq war the same way as Bush, raise their hands. . . now everyone who thinks Gore would have appointed the young ultra-right justices Roberts and Alito raise yours. . . lets add in all who think GOre would have given tax breaks solely to the richest 1%. . . finally lets add all who think the Gore environmental policies would have been the same as BushCo’s starting with secret meetings with Enron execs and other oil bigwigs. . .

    Thats what i thought. The number of raised hands is roughly equal to the number of functioning brain cells in Nader’s narcissistic little skull.

  • Basically, if you want to move the Democrats to the left, you join the party and work on moving it to the left. Like the wingnuts have done to the Republicans. That would have been a better move. It’s easier and…makes sense.

  • From where I’m sitting as more of a politics guy than a policy guy, we haven’t gained much. In Yglesias’ academia, a few formerly intractable people may have moved over from one position on a particular issue to the opposite side, due to the present conditions, and that may be pleasing to the intelligentsia. But beyond that what’s the benefit of it? They may have changed their minds but how do you implement it. When we still face the significant inroads the conservatives have made on, for example, the media, how do you make sure the Democratic win is not really just a transient ripple, what do you do to make absolutely sure it will last. How do you get to implement what these academic or Washington beltway people have learned when the Republicans still hold the whip.

    I’d just like Yglesias to be concerned about the legions of Christian fanatic goons who are still out there and fixated on creationism and on enforcing their opinions on everyone else’s lifestyle in the meantime of his and the other smart people’s intellectual afterglow. I guess demographically the tide is against them and we soon won’t have to worry about an Evangelical hegemony. But in the meanwhile, for a generation or so, they can do a lot of damage and it’s up to liberals to stand up to the challenge and make sure it doesn’t come to pass. It’s up to us to notice it and deal with it as the challenge it is and not as something that we can afford to dismiss.

  • Oh gods why is this preening peacock still around? Let’s see, after eight years of rule by jackass the country has gotten fed up and moved to the left. Quelle surprise! If you’re an idiot.

    Nader overlooks little events like the Sept. 11th attacks, which imparted an aura of leadership and strength (one he did not deserve) to the Chimperor. Enough people got scared enough to follow BushBrat just because he was there. Does anyone remember the squeaking from the Right soon after to the effect that if Gore had been in office it would have somehow been “worse”? They were scared even then that their darling would fuck everything up and what do you know? He did! But he also invaded Iraq in 2003 so he could promise to finish up real soon and trot out the “Don’t change horses in mid-stream” crap. More like let me flog this dead horse a bit longer, but anyway it worked and who knows, if it weren’t for things like Iraq and his non-response to Katrina and the endless line of corruption scandals from the ReThugs and his little problem understanding the Constitution and basically if George W. Bush wasn’t George W. Bush and the 108th & 109th Congress weren’t what they were, maybe things would be a bit different. But what did Nader have to do with any of this?
    Anyone?

    Nader is like the simpleton who farts just as lighting strikes and thinks “Gosh, look what I did.”

    Or the simpleton who thinks that because he happens to be President, God wants him to be president. Arseholes the both of them.

  • Ditto to most of the above. Not stated yet is that Nader aggressively fed the meme that there was really no difference between Gore and Bush, when in fact the differences apparent at the time were large. This falsehood has had a long shelf life in the public consciousness that has hampered getting Dems elected because “there isn’t really any difference between the candidates.”

  • Madam, we’re taking a survey today of parents of American soldiers killed in the Iraq war.

    1. If the political capital Bush gained by going to war had enabled him to dismantle Social Security, as he had beforehand claimed to be the real point of being a war president, would you think the loss of your son worth it?

    2. If the political capital the Democrats have gained, by being the opposition party in the time of a disastrous war, enabled them to establish single-payer universal health insurance, an example of the sort of thing Nader had beforehand claimed to be one of the real points of enabling Bush to attain office, would you think the loss of your son worth it?

  • An absoluely moronic argument to justify Nader’s campaign. I don’t recall a single Nader campaign statement that said Bush would so screw up the nation that Democrats would become progressive.

    What a crock. This egotistical maniac assisted Bush’s election. Now he claims hundreds of thousands of deaths, destruction of our national reputation and a trillion dollars of additional debt are the price to pay for making Democrats more progressive.

  • Nader has never been correct for a democracy like ours because, like many self-styled intellectual nerds, he basically fears and abhors hoi polloi. He’s haughty, he talks down to any audience, he’s disdainful of ordinary folk while consciously trying emulate them through rumpled clothes, beat up cars and unkempt hair. And it’s more than a matter of manners or style … it’s that he lacks the soul of a democrat just as surely as does George Walker Bush. Neither of them care about the monetary or human costs of their agendas.

    With one major exception the Democratic Party is, and has always been, left or liberal or progressive or for the little guy. Forgetting ancient history, since the 1930s we have been for working families, for public education, housing and health. The only blight on us was our need to compromise with the Civil War legacy Old South yahoots in order to get the votes for President and in Congress necessary to pass our programs and not those of the Wall Street crowd. LBJ took a big risk, but the right path, in tearing up that Faustian bargain.

    The GOP, ever looking for a way to appeal for votes beyond obscenely wealthy investors’ boardrooms, took up the Democrats’ discarded cause of bigotry and won a few points by doing so. From Richard Milhous Nixon’s “southern strategy” through Ronald Wilson Reagan’s verbal slime (“welfare queens”, “I’m from the guvmint and I’m here to help you”), through his and George Herbert Walker Bush’s utterly scandalous Iran-Contra affair and Bush’s “Willie Horton” ads, past the impeach-Clinton nonsense and into George Walker Bush’s costly Quagmire — quite a legacy built on nothing more inspiring than fear and loathing.

    Over that period the Democratic Party, while occasionally going off track with too much political correctness (is even that really a sin?), framed the only successful response to the world-wide Depression which did not involve ideological turns toward either communism or fascism; led the Allied coalition which, in less time that we’ve been in the Quagmire, overthrew the genuine global threats posed by the Axis powers; promoted the sometimes conflicting but balanced programs of ideological Containment and socio-economic development worldwide; and attempted at home to reverse age-old discrimination based on income, race, gender and sexual orientation. At the same time the GOP was finding new ways to rape the environment (e.g., supertanker spills and massive chemical dump sites) the Democratic party was promoting environmental awareness and cleanup programs. While the GOP used every opportunity to side with AMA or the realtors or the developers or the crackpot attempts to turn education into faith-based training camps, the Democratic Party has sought to improve public health, housing and education for everyone. Promoting new solutions takes much more work than stirring up old hatreds and fears.

    In short, Nader is irrelevant except as a gadfly, the kind of pest who is pleased to stand on the sidelines claiming ex post facto to have always been right. In spite of job-loss and brain-drain, most Americans still work for a living. Most either have parents or children who may need help. Most want a productive peace rather than an endless series of bloody, costly and fruitless quagmires. The Democratic Party owes Nader nothing, but we do owe the voters a pair of national candidates who can address our higher hopes and values, who are themselves inspired by “better angels”. With leaders who embody and can articulate our messaage, we can and will trump the GOP’s fear-and-loathing card by offering a better world for nearly everyone … everyone except the obscenely rich who so richly deserve their comeuppance.

    My choice falls among Gore, Edwards, Obama — though we are very lucky to have so many wonderful candidates this time out, and I’d back any one of them over anything the GOP has to offer (including Nader, to return to the piece of fluff who was made the focus of this discussion).

  • Strategy my ass. Sounds more like an excuse from a spoiler and sore loser. (Note the ego is still intact) As The Bagger pointed out, this spin is after the fact and is contrived to fit the current scenario only. It sounds a lot like a Repug listing recent “successes”- convoluted and demanding from the reader a suspension-of-disbelief.
    Ralph, get off the stage.

    Get the hook.

  • Just kind of a thesis-statement sum-up of my prior comments-

    Mr. Yglesias is acknowledging what he’s heard, to the extent that people develop a comfort zone from their circumstances and circumstances that have developed may have shook us from that comfort zone a bit.

    I’m saying, yeah, no duh, that always happens, and then I’m dismissing the significance of that having happened in this particular set of circumstances, because: A) we could have become more aware without these events, and B) I’m not sure how much these events have shaken us from the comfort zone (especially for the kinds of things I describe in my other comments).

    I’m not meaning to sound critical of Yglesias, here.

  • I’ve always assumed that if Nader hadn’t run for President in 2000, George Bush would not be President. It’s too bad we can’t ask the 3000 dead in Bush’s Iraq War whether they wanted the Dems to be more progressive.

  • No, it wasn’t worth it, but I and other Nader supporters weren’t wrong about the Democrats, and we should have seen that things wouldn’t go as planned.

    The fall back was that the Democratic Senate would be a brake on Bush. That didn’t happen for reasons we’re all familiar with, and last fall’s election included numerous electoral corrections as gutless Dems and corrupt Republicans were replaced by common sense heartland and western progressives.

    Going to war broke my heart, but Bush didn’t break it. Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, etc. shattered my illusions by cravenly giving Bush everything he asked for post-9/11. That wasn’t Ralph Nader, that was the leadership of the Democratic party cowering before the bully boys of the right.

    No, I didn’t see that coming, and I don’t know if anyone did. I assumed the Democrats woudl be strong enough to stave off any gratuitous wars or complete giveaways to the idle rich.

    I could vote for Al Gore in 2008, but that’s beacuse Al Gore changed, not me.

    Nader is irrelevant, and I’m tired of Democratic party apologists pretending our party was OK after Clinton. No. It. Wasn’t. And it’s still not fixed to my satisfaction.

  • Sorry, that should have been:

    No, it wasn’t worth it, but I and other Nader supporters WERE wrong about the Democrats, and we should have seen that things wouldn’t go as planned.

  • Fuck, no. I’m not going to say anything to embolden that jackass; it’s just like admitting Bush was right about anything, ever. Nader can shut up and die for all I care.

  • Nader didn’t burn the forest. He just said that things would get worse before they got better. Is that really such a profound and unique concept? He ran for president for his own silly reasons, as do so many also-rans.

    The American people are doing a fine job of destroying the country by allowing themselves to be manipulated by their gut fears to vote against their own self interests. The major media barely even reports on the fires of our destruction, with the exception of the policing of Iraq.

    There were 10 people listed on the Florida 2000 presidential ballot, with a winning margin of 537 votes for Bush. Nader was just one of the little voices from the underbrush, ignored by his lack of funding.

    If ANY of the 8 other contenders hadn’t been listed, things might have gone another way. If the ballot had not been designed to deceive, things might have gone another way. If Gore had run a better campaign, things might have gone another way. If the major media hadn’t attacked Gore simply for reasons of playing the devil’s advocate, things might have gone another way. If the major media hadn’t defended Bush by their failure to report that he was a former drunk and coke addict, a man who never did an honest day’s work (and should have been prosecuted by the SEC for malfeasance), who profited greatly from shady deals, who was tutored right through college, who was a military deserter, who was the only man in the history of flight to get into the Air National Guard without a pilot’s license, etc., then things might have gone another way.

    IF THE SUPREME COURT HAD NOT RELIEVED BUSH OF A RECOUNT, THINGS WOULD HAVE GONE ANOTHER WAY!

    To claim that Nader had an effect on our history is so much self-flagellation for the writers in question.

  • By this standard, World War I was a good thing because so many monarchies fell as a result. World War II was a good thing because the US became a world power. Vietnam was a good thing because it inspired so much good music. The problem with this is causality – no change is inevitable. If Bush had been better at his job (or Cheney, depending upon which one you think runs the government), the country would still be moving right. The level of Bush’s incompetency was not known in 2000.

    Nader is claiming credit for events he could not predict.

  • Before reaching any conclusions, I believe the premises Yglesias and Chotiner present are questionable, beginning with the idea “that a Democratic loss and a period of Republican governance would pull the Democrats in a more progressive direction.” I don’t think that has happened.

    Republican governance has caused Democrats to be more driven and focused in their thinking, but also more realistic in terms of recognizing how conservative much of the country is. In other words, Democrats have come to realize that certain issues, like gun control, are political dead-ends because of the numbers of Americans who feel otherwise. In the recent midterms, we saw a considerable number of Democrats running toward the center and winning.

    To my mind, it would be more accurate to say the center has shifted away from the right.

    The fact that “Washington Consensus” regarding globalization may now be questioned may be true, but this seems to be based on experience than on ideology. In any event, it seems thin proof that Democrats become more liberal or progressive.

    As for Nader, the man has been struggling to achieve relevance for quite some time. Now, it would appear he’ll settle for accidental relevance if that’s the best he can get. Too bad, because occassionally, i think he raises has valid points, .

    Related Pet Peeve… It seems that the term “progressive” has come to be used as little more than a less objectionable substitute for “liberal.” When I read the word “progressive” I never know whether the author really means “progressive” or “liberal.” I now assume the latter.

  • Most 3rd Party candidates have a very loose grasp of reality or at least of the realpolitik. I think instead of a strategy, Nader’s purpoe was ego, true-believerism and that meme that Dems and Reps were too much alike for it to matter.

    Nobody knew what a fascist the Bush was. Nobody knew how incompetent Bush would be. And nobody knew 9/11 would happen. So for anyone to claim Nader was precognitive is mistaking hindsight for foresight.

  • No. It may have pulled some Democrats in a populist direction, but they still don’t really get it – the leadership still hasn’t repudiated their fake free trade policies, nor their crazy military aggresson policies. Look at them on Iran – it’s a bad joke. They still don’t even realize that you can’t believe a single thing this administration tells you.

    Ralph Nader ruined everything. Who gives a damn whether the Democrats finally learn to lean a little farther left than they have (but not far enough) if the whole country goes down the drain?

    beep52, we may have seen a few Democrats run closer to the center, but you don’t seem to know where the center is – it’s considerably to the left of where they are now. (Gun control isn’t really a left-right issue; a majority of Americans support gun control. The Republicans grabbed the issue and made being anti-gun control a partisan issue, but that’s a different thing.)

  • This looks to me like Nader looking for a silver lining in this horribly dark period to restore some luster to his public image. No, we’re not better off nor more unfied due to this insufferable period of Bush rule. I don’t think 9/11 was a gift to this nation either, just because it created a period of national unity. I wouldn’t wish utter disaster to rein down on anyone just for the effect hard times have on character building.

    These Bush years have grown a number of malignancies that trump any sense of Democratic unity. The rise of the omnipotent religious right, the growth of neocon power, Fox News gaining prominence due to their Repub connections, the radical right turn of th Supreme Court, the year of left bashing that have seered many minds to radical right thought, the list goes on ad infinitum …

    It will take this nation decades to recover from all the harm wrought by Bush, and Nader played a role in W’s rise to power. Ralph is sounding like that Jon Lovitz character when he says, “But I gave the Democrats unity and a turn to the left! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

  • Nader is, and always has been, a sounding ass. As others have said, his claim that the two parties are the same is pure nonsense of his own invention. Can you imagine a President Ralph Nader?

  • What the fuck?

    I agree with most of the posters here. Dale beat me to my point…

    Proclaiming that they helped push the Dems to the left would mean that Ralph Nader had the power to see the future. In reality this is just a cover your ass move to keep people from using pitchforks and torches to Nader and his followers that only ends up opening up the sores of 2000 and reminds people of the role Nader played.

    My dad told me that sometimes it is best to shut up. This is one of those times.

  • I mean, I think that actually seeing Bush’s policy positions play out and fail, and hearing more of the debate (the increased political participation) has gained us increased persuasive and rhetorical clout. I think a lot of Republicans have had to see what they believed in tested and have talked to a lot of us less than they would have (in times where Bush wasn’t around making the claims he’s made) and they’ve come away from it learning a lot they didn’t think they would.

  • As my grandfather used to remark, ” If you have your head stuck up your ass, you always know what’s coming next”. I never knew he had met Nader though!

  • “Did Nader’s burn-the-forest-in-order-to-save-it approach succeed? Was it worth the incredibly high costs?”
    NO and NO!!!!

  • I seem to remember that, as the 2000 election neared its end Nader specifically ran hardest in swing states that Gore had to win to win, and that he specifically stated that he was doing that so that Gore would lose. I don’t have the tape to prove it, but I remember during the election how angry I was about it so I doubt it is my memory editing. The posts above that claim Nader is taking credit for the “strategy” after the fact I think are wrong. He wanted a radical conservative in the White House and he ran his campaign in a way to help make that happen.

    Anyone out there have video to support what I am saying – or is my memory actually wrong?

  • Arguably, if George W. Bush had governed like Bush 41 then the difference between his presidency and Al Gore’s probably would have been strikingly minor, as Nader claimed it would be in 2000 (and perhaps he was the guy who was most deluded of all by Bush’s tax cuts-and-ponies campaign). But after six years of ultra-conservative rule it’s hard to take Nader’s analysis seriously. Maybe external events would have drifted in the same general direction (the September 11th attacks, Iraqi belligerence, Katrina) but the Clinton administration actually had a record of competence that would have stood a Gore administration– and the whole country– in so much better stead. As for whether the Democratic Party is in a different place now– what items on the House’s 100 hours agenda or the rest of its policy program wouldn’t have met with majority support within the caucus at any time between 2000 and now?

  • Only a moron like Ralph Nader and the drooling halfwits of the Green Party could think that an argument like that is anything other than the ravings of fucking lunatics. As you pointed out, this “save” was done at the cost of destroying the economy, destroying the standing of the United States throughout the world by wrecking 200+ years of international reputation, threatening to wreck the Constitution (an issue that is not yet resolved), and coming this close >

  • To Gisleson (#19): the truth is – as we say in Hollywood – Nobody. Knows. Anything.

    Therefore, you have to end up taking the best shot as what you want, and one-quarter of the loaf is a whole lot better than having the loaf stolen from you completely.

    These days, I have to take the bus, and I have to keep some sort of a schedule, which is damn hard to do in Los Angeles. There is one transfer point where I have the choice of getting one bus that will run within a half a block of the ultimate goal, or of the other two that stop there, one will get me within a 10 minute walk of the goal and the other will get me within an 8 minute walk. While they’re all supposed to run “on schedule”, they frequently don’t, and missing getting to the goal in time can add anywhere from 50-90 minutes to the overall trip. So what do I do? I take the first one that comes along. Sometimes I get off and see the bus that would take me the closest zip by, having been right behind the one I got, and on many days I get to the ultimate goal and the “good” bus is nowhere in sight, but the one or the other of the “not so good” buses got me there in time.

    Life, and politics, work like those buses. Take the first one that comes along that’s heading your way. It might not get you exactly to the point you want to get to, but frequently it will get you “close enough.”

    Neither you, nor me, not anyone reading this, nor anyone else, can foretell a damn thing about what’s going to happen 5 minutes from now (other than I can look out the window at a clear blue sky and figure it won’t be raining anytime soon).

    Nobody. Knows. Anything.

    And Ralph Nader knows less than that.

  • IF Nader is right, we won’t know for about 25 years. That’s the amount of time the Republican Party — a cancer on our politics if ever there was one — has managed too hoodwink a majority of voters in acquiescing to the destruction of the futures of their own children. Even now, after all that has happened, virtually no one is making the most important point — that the ultra-conservative wing of the GOP has been incredibly successful in acheiving their goals.

    The destruction of New Orleans is Exhibit A. Government performed its role flawlessly, as conservative doctrine would have it. That is, it was absent. It did nothing. People were left to fend for themselves, to sink or swim — literally — on their own merits. That is much more damning than pointing to it as a failure.

    So the righties go with their fallback position: Our ideas are good, but so-and-so (Bush in this case) screwed them up. If they succeed, then in 2012 we’ll see a candidate on the level of a Santorum or an Allen — not them, of course, but someone like them — come within a hair’s breadth of winning the election. If they are not successful, then the White House is the Democrats’ to lose for about a generation. But not if the Dems don’t make the point clearly and frequently that the disasters are not failures.

    And if Reagan is not ultimately repudiated, if the populace never makes the connection between the disasters of Li’l Georgie and the groundwork for it laid by Saint Ronnie, then nothing will change. We will have a conversation just like this in ten years about some other spoiler in some other election.

  • #2: “Anyway, the above isn’t jibber jabber, so if you don’t get it all the first time you could read it again and give it another try”

    It was more than enough jibber jabber the first time around. And at #3, #5, #9, #16 and #29.

  • As a cruciverbal freak I just I had to look up “jibber jabber”. Untll now I had only heard the phrase used by one of the comic judges on Boston Legal.

    The online OneLook Dictionary yielded but one reference, Wikipedia‘s. “Jibber-jabber is a phrase made famous by Mr. T. Jibber-jabber is a noun that refers to either long-winded dialogue full of rhetoric or a line of conversation that one participant no longer wishes to follow.”

    How apt.

  • Ed – What does cruciverb mean? I couldn’t find it in any of my dictionaries.

    Btw, thanks for the OneLook link.

  • At some level, American politics are reactionary. When presented with something we do not like, we will move toward it’s opposite. That’s why demonization has worked so well for the repubs – hold up a Limbaugh or Coulter styled cartoon ‘liberal’, and many people move away from ‘liberal’.

    Nader’s ego takes this concept to new heights. By delivering the most damaging executive the Oval Office has seen, things can only improve. The logic is as bass ackwards as sawing the roof from your house to better paint your basement.

    Who knows if we will end up with a better Democratic party or not. It’s an as yet unwritten history. But sure as rain, there’s Ralphie boy, already claiming the credit.

  • I have to agree with Roddy McCorley at #37 – the jury’s still out. I remember thinking after the 2002 midterms, when Dem’s lost the Senate again (which they had only regained due to Jefford’s jump anyway),

    “What will it take for the mrkn peeple to wake up?”

    I remember thinking, after the 2004 elections:

    “What the FUCK will it take for the mrkn peeple to wake up?!?!?!?!”

    And as for the 2006 election, that any Publican *anywhere* was reelected is, in my mind, proof that not *enough* of the mrkn people have woken up to the destruction the publicans have wrought on their lives and this nation.

  • marcus alrealius alrightus (#40), “cruciverbal” is an adjective referring to “crossword”. It’s made up (literally) from the Latin words “crucis” (cross, crucifix, cruciform) and “verbum” (word, verb). I didn’t make the word up; I got it from the name/url of a crossword website, cruciverb.com — you can see many other uses of it here.

  • […] the crux of the 2000 strategy, which was to help the right in order to fix the left, seems to have at least a kernel of merit in retrospect. — CB

    Not a big enough kernel to feed the hungry, unless you’re Jesus. Besides, you’d have to swallow the premise that this had been “strategy”. But that’s pure BS; he’s not a doctor of the Dem party; he’s a charlatan and a quack, all for himself. This talk of “strategy” is a post-factum excuse, not something he expected and done on purpose. He knows he’s screwed up, so he adds fancy theories to the mess of his creation.

    I have some friends who design lace and who, quite often, will say “it’s a bit of a mess, so I’ll give it a fancy titleand some high-fallutin’ “philosophy”, then pretend I’d meant it to look like this”. That’s OK. A bit dishonest, maybe, but the consequences of it aren’t as dire as those of Nader’s actions.

  • and have talked to a lot of us less than they would have (in times where Bush wasn’t around making the claims he’s made) and they’ve come away from it learning a lot they didn’t think they would.

    Uh, this sentence in my comment at #29 should have been ‘and have talked to a lot of us more than they would have (in times where Bush wasn’t around making the claims he’s made) and they’ve come away from it learning a lot they didn’t think they would.’ not ‘less.’

    Oops.

  • “for Nader and his supporters to say, “Bush has ruined the country and our standing in the world, the country has recoiled and moved to the left, so our actions are justified.” That said, the crux of the 2000 strategy, which was to help the right in order to fix the left, seems to have at least a kernel of merit in retrospect. Maybe.”

    I think not. Such a conclusion sounds to me like the triumph of ideology over actual results. It is self-delusion and denial akin to that of Bill Kristol’s belief that the disaster in Iraq is somehow validated by the “need” to attack Iran. It is possible to believe anything if one desperately needs to, I guess. Let’s destroy the village so we can save it. Let’s drive the care into a brick wall so we can get a new stereo system installed. This is just intellectual depravity.

    I frankly can think of nothing that would make the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune that has been the reign of GWB worthwhile. Nothing.

  • I think Dale’s (#43) got part of it. It wasn’t that the party moved to the right in 2000 so much as we flinched, fell back and were hesitant after the Publican revolution and Clinton’s blowbjob. That’s why Gore picked Lieberman. That’s why Gore advisors couldn’t make up their minds on what kind earth tones he shoudl wear. That’s why we couldn’t figure out wether to shit or blind in the Florida count challenge. We really were bamboozled. And it carried over in Kerry’s failure to react in 2004.

  • Davis X. – That’s scary, but I’d hope that American voters would be wiser this time. This nation doesn’t need another Ralph Nader intervention for the Democatic Party to keep it liberal enough for him. Why doesn’t he direct his tough love at the Republicans instead? They have a far worse liberal deficit than the Dems. Ralph may hate Hillary, but she’d be a whole world better than a McCain or a Brownback.

  • Me at 16:

    Mr. Yglesias is acknowledging what he’s heard, to the extent that people develop a comfort zone from their circumstances and circumstances that have developed may have shook us from that comfort zone a bit.

    I meant Nader says X, and out of that, Matt acknowledges at least the point that circumstances of Bush winning shook people from their comfort zone to look afresh at some issues on which they’d taken what he considers to be flawed positions.

  • I try not to be easily offended, but to even pose the question “Is it worth the deaths of half a million people to marginally move left the political discourse of our nation?” is to betray such a a fatal narcissism that I don’t even know where to begin to drain the moral swamp.

    Christ, get a grip. 500,000+ people are dead, and you’re wondering whether that was “worth” a few votes switching teams?

  • I can’t fathom the suggestion that Nader helped the nation because Bush has moved the Dems leftward as anything but the most ironical joke. It just can’t be serious. Forget the foreign policy disasters for the moment, what about the surplus now converted to a deficit that will handcuff progressive governance for decades? What about nearly a decade of work to ameliorate global warming replaced with time actively making it worse? What about the active creation of a culture of fear to support their authoritarian ends? What about the loss of New Orleans?

    Even if one agreed that the Washington Dems are actually more progressive now, which I don’t really, it would be like saying it’s OK that we’re all now in a deepening 100+ foot deep hole, because the Dems are willing to talk more about climbing upward now than they used to be.

  • Any theory of Naderology needs to account as well for why he ran in 04 and why he is apparently planning to run in 08. The only thing that explains that is ego. Before, he perhaps couldn’t foresee Iraq, but he no longer has that excuse. Being a spoiler in 08 is, quite literally, murder.

  • Was all of the environmental damage, destruction of civil liberties, Iraq War, crushing of unions and the middle class, bad policy decisions on just about everything that matters worth it? What the fuck do you think?

  • Nobody knew how incompetent Bush would be.

    …

    Even the thrice damned Bushies were saying “Well, Bush may be dumb, but look at his staff!”

    We all know how that turned out.

  • Think how different the U.S. and the world would be if Nader had not run in 2000. Gore would have clearly won – no recounts, no court fight. Then, no unbalanced tax cuts, no denial of global warming, no lots of bad things and, most of all, no disastrous Iraq invasion.

    Thanks a lot, Ralph. Going to help the country again in 2008?

    Homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com

  • burn-the-forest-in-order-to-save-it approach

    Sounds like “creative destruction” which some (I think a Harper’s article) have accused this administration of advocating for Iraq/the Middle East.

  • With rolling the dice on the burn the forest to save it approach, you have to actually root for the county to go to hell in a handbasket in order to win later.

    Voters will never trust the keys to country to those who take this approach.

    In the sound bite culture of our times here’s an example:

    Nader: I was right. The end justifies the means. Now the county has moved to the left.

    Voter: what about Shrub, he’s incredibly incompetant. Everything he touches turns to s**t.

    Nader: I was right. No regrets.

    Voter: What about torture, abu graib, etc..

    Nader: The end justifies the means.

    Voter: What about Hurricane Katrina, Bush was playing air guitar while New Orleans drowned.

    Nader: The Country has moved to the left.

    Voter: WTF. You can’t be serious.

    Nader: I was right. There was not a dime’s bit a difference between the BushCorporation and Gore.

    Voter: How about Iraq? Not a dimes bit a difference, you got to be kidding me.

    Nader: The end justifies the means.

    Voter: You mean to tell me all this death and destruction and reckless incompetance is a good thing? What about the damage to our country’s reputation in the world? This mess is going take a generation to clean up.

    Nader: I was right.

    Voter: Heck of job Ralphie.

  • With rolling the dice on the burn the forest to save it approach, you have to actually root for the county to go to hell in a handbasket in order to win later.

    The German Communists tried this at the beginning of the 1930’s — Nach Hitler, Uns.

  • I’m a bit dumbfounded by the constant reiteration of “no one can see the future.” Bullshit. In 2000 I and all my Nader-voting friends discussed exactly what it would mean if Bush got elected, and, Bush came through. It was the Democrats in the Senate who didn’t come through, and I’ll never forgive Daschle for his idiotic go along to get along leadership.

    After Pearl Harbor, the Rebublicans still resisted giving FDR too much power. Who were Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to hand over the keys to Bush? That is what I and my Nader supporting friends didn’t see coming: the Democrats bending over for George.

    I was active in the Iowa Democratic Party from 1978-1984, and my views have been consistently liberal. The party moved away from me, and in 2000 I told the party they had moved far enough and voted for Nader (in a Gore safe state) to send a message.

    Howard Dean got that message. Jon Tester got that message. Our new majority is comprised of new members of Congress who got that message. There are no newly elected “conservative Democrats, just prairie populists who will go after Wall Street with hammers and tongs once their numbers grow.

    The country’s been gamed by Wall Street, and the DLC wing of the party is effectively just the GOP without a stupid need to go to war. But staying home won’t bring peace to the Middle East with AIPAC running Congress.

    It’s not about Nader, it’s about not going the DLC route. The Nader haters in this thread are also guilty of reading tea leaves. Who’s to say that Gore in 2000 would have saved us? Perhaps it would have just turned 2004 into another referendum, one lost by the DLC compromisers. And in that scenario, Bush would just be starting his third year in office with five more to come and wars to start.

    This ain’t over. If the Dems go with a DLC candidate you may well have another round of party-splitting ballots, and something else to complain about.

  • I can see the point being made by most of the folks above, but I would like to point out that the reason we had such a big realignment last November was that America finally spit out the Republicrooks’ koolaid after three years of unmitigated disaster in Iraq. That’s what it took! In 2000, the congress was mostly Republicrooks, and it really did take a TOTAL failure on their side to change that dynamic. If Gore was elected president in 2000, it’s not like he could have passed all kinds of great legislation with a bitterly hostile and corrupt Republicrook congress. Certainly we wouldn’t be in Iraq, and the devastating tax cuts would have been different, but the main issue we all know is looming (global warming) would not have been seriously addressed with a Republicrook congress. There are other reasons why, one reason being the science back then wasn’t as dead-certain as it is now, and another is that many of the alternative energy sources weren’t “mainstream” back then.

    NOW, we have huge majorities of Americans who know about the climate crisis, and much bigger industries that can help put fossil fuels out of business (if given the help they deserve by the government) and even some major carbon emitters who are ready to be regulated. NOW we have a movie that spells it out to anyone with a brain, and easier means to distribute it cheaply.

    Now is the time for Al Gore to step onto the world stage, now that America has truly seen how corrupt and dangerous the Republicrooks are (they really did not see this before, because before the Republicrooks always had Democrats to blame things on).

    IMO Ralph Nader is a schmuck (somewhat) and did a horrible thing (for some idealistic but ultimately selfish reasons), I think it can also be said that half of America wasn’t ready for Al Gore to be president in 2000, and now they are, big time. I’ll bet if he runs, he’ll win with record margins. If he had won in 2000, he would have been saddled with a congress that impeached people for bullshit, and an electorate that was half-filled with koolaid zombies. It will be good to see what he can do with a Democratic congress and an electorate that is 85% awake.

  • I know I’m a day late (and probably a dollar short too) but I thought I should add something to this conversation. I voted for Nader in 2000. I liked him more than anyone else that was running, Gore included at the time, not that I didn’t have any major issues with Gore. But the issue I had to figure out for myself at the time was do I a) vote for the guy who has the best chance of winning, or b) vote for the guy who I really believe in? I decided that, in spite of the winner-take-all method our presidential election is run, voting for Nader can still give the Greens some campaign money for the next election cycle (and mea culpa if I’ve been deceived on this point, feel free to contradict or confirm it for me) and I’d still be voting my conscience instead of the watered down, lesser of two evils.

    Regarding the true damage that Bush has done to this country since the 2000 election, there was always a bug itching in the back of my brain warning me that he would do some of the truly outrageous things he’s done, such as start a major war with Iraq. I didn’t believe any of it, it was too far-fetched. I don’t suppose I was too naive because I still think it’s completely absurd how far over the edge we’ve gone. No one would have believed that Bush would have “governed” with as much recklessness as he has. But, in Nader’s defense, that isn’t Nader’s fault, that is Bush’s fault. We shouldn’t be blaming the Nader voters for Bush’s election, we should be blaming the Bush voters.

    In my own defense, I’ve since had a conversion. Thanks to Bush’s recklessness, my priorities have shifted away from more electoral choices (moving away from the two-party system to a multiplicity of parties) to simply supporting the party that is best positioned to oppose Bush, the Democrats. And the Democrats, I’ve come to learn, are my ideological kin. After this is all over, I don’t think I will be as interested in third parties so much as working to strengthen the Democratic party from within. I’m not sure yet what this says about me, but we’ll see.

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