The Folly of Ralph Nader

[ehrnst]

In the 2000 election, the high priest of anti-consumerism turned politics into the very thing he hated most.

Oct. 13, 2000, 15,000 zealous progressives packed Madison Square Garden for one of Ralph Nader’s super rallies. They paid $20 each for admission, evidence of their passion, since political rallies are almost always free. That year, many on the left were disappointed with the Democratic nominee for president. Al Gore was a wonky centrist and a stilted speaker who appeared to possess few core principles. For progressives, his association with Bill Clinton, icon of triangulation and political compromise, counted against him. At a time when the left was outraged over our corrupt campaign finance system, Gore was dogged by questions about money he’d received from sketchy donors with ties to foreign governments.

At best, Gore offered progressives a continuation of politics as usual. True, the Republican in the race seemed a right-wing buffoon, but Nader told his followers to vote their hopes, not their fears, and his message about citizens banding together to overturn entrenched, amoral corporate interests spoke to many people’s deepest aspirations. Bush and Gore, he said at Madison Square Garden, are “both for cracking down on street crime but ignoring corporate crime, which takes far more lives.” In response, the crowd erupted in chants of “Let Ralph debate!” Young people flocked to Nader, and hip musicians played his rallies: The lineup in New York included Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, and Ani DiFranco, whose ’90s cool had not yet evanesced.

Nader concluded his almost hourlong speech by calling the evening “the most memorable political rally of the year 2000.” Some who were there felt they were witnessing the flowering of an epochal social movement. “The protest movement that has been growing on a grassroots level, as evidenced by the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, reached its political coming-of-age last night,” the Village Voice wrote.

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In retrospect, the paradox of the Nader campaign is that the high priest of anti-consumerism turned voting into an act of individual self-affirmation, a kind of lifestyle choice. He addressed voters the way companies address consumers—as atomized individuals whose personal experience is paramount. “Welcome to the politics of joy and justice!” he roared at the Garden. Despite the zero-sum structure of American presidential elections, he told voters they needn’t settle for one of two dispiriting mass-market options built of innumerable compromises, or worry about the broader effects of their vote. This was bespoke politics.

Nader’s movement never constituted a real cross section of the left; even sympathetic observers noted that it was overwhelmingly white. After attending another of Nader’s massive rallies in Chicago, Salim Muwakkil wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “This lack of racial diversity among Nader supporters is particularly striking, given the 66-year-old candidate’s progressive positions on economic democracy and social justice.” Yet plenty of people on the left saw Nader as the era’s great political hope. “Nader and the Green Party represent the best opportunity in half a century to place a progressive agenda on the national scene,” wrote Juan Gonzalez in the left-wing magazine In These Times. He added: “It has brought hundreds of thousands of white youth into electoral politics in much the same way that Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition movement brought disaffected blacks to the voting booth in the ’80s.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_next_20/2016/09/ralph_nader_and_the_tragedy_of_voter_as_consumer_politics.html

(Please excuse if this has been posted before - I could not find it in the search)

[tonyt53]

1. The Nader voters of 2000 are the Johnson/Stein voters of 2016.

Given the incredibly ignorant statements and/or actions of both Johnson and Stein, the only way a person could see any redeeming value in either would be it the person voting really doesn't care about the US. When they say "time for a change", well change isn't always a good thing, and this is one of those times. In 2000, people were warned that bad things would be happening to the country, but Nader voters didn't believe that because Bush didn't come out and say he was going to screw everybody but the wealthy over. This time there is a candidate, Donald Trump, that has said it over and over while insulting more than half of the population of this country. Voting for Johnson or Stein? Go ahead, you'll complain just like those Nader voters of 2000 did.

[Nitram]

2. Nader used to be a hero of mine.

But that ended when he helped George Bush win the presidency. To say that the two parties are equivalent was proved to be total hogwash when Bush invaded Iraq, as he had planned since his first day in office. And Nader has never been able to admit he made a mistake.

[KG]

3. I lulz'd

again.

[ehrnst]

4. We don't get "bespoke" candidates. They're not your user experience on Amazon.com

Maybe I'm just an old jaded activist, but I also don't expect politicians to be activists - they have diferent metrics, different obstacles and different timelines. If that makes me a 'get offa my lawn' type to the young ones, fine.

Politicians are managers. I want a good manager, and one who will make the decisions that are best for what we are trying to accomplish. I want a manager with the long view, and knows that sometimes you have to choose between the doable and the dreamable. Activists will be out there pushing hard on the public to move forward on an issue.

I don't require a candidate to call the police 'executioners' at a debate to think that she will do what a president can do to change things, with the congress they have.

I don't require a candidate to say "single payer is the only ethical way to acheive universal health care" to know that they are very knowledgable about universal health care and how to go about getting it.

I don't require a candidate to give the finger to corporations to believe that she's not a "corporate shill." The Clinton Foundation works with pharma corporations to provide affordable antiretrovirals in a way that will not affect their profits. Simply calling them "the problem with our health system" doesn't get anybody anywhere, and doesn't get medications to where they are needed.

[Archae]

5. Nader is a real bastard.

I first read this several years ago.

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

[ehrnst]

6. "Bernie hasn't returned his calls in 17 years"

And Stein actually thought that Bernie would jump on a Green Party ticket?

[UTUSN]

7. It ain't just NADIR -the kewl "idealistic" thing happens every cycle -each generation learning anew

Last edited Fri Sep 30, 2016, 09:38 PM - Edit history (2)

[hunter]

8. "Anti-consumerism" What???

Consumerism is how he makes his living.

He's just another facade for U.S.A. business as usual, and he is a mega-consumer himself.

Nobody can be entirely "anti-consumerism" since we humans all need food and shelter and clothing appropriate for the weather, but I know a few people who get pretty damned close to an anti-consumerist ideal; a few religiously motivated advocates for the homeless, a few hard-core environmentalists, a few artists, and a few can't-hold-a-regular-job eccentrics.

Myself, I believe this thing we call "economic productivity" is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to the natural environment and our own human spirit.

Ralph Nader is part of the problem, another egotistical self-aggrandizing head on the hydra. When he says the two parties are the same, it's merely a projection of himself. I don't think he ever "sold out," Nader has always been a cog in the machine that is consuming our world.