Michael Albert
The
general anti-Nader argument is very simple. To vote/work for Nader means not
voting/working for Gore. That’s uncontestable. In states with close Gore/Bush
ratings, Gore could lose enough votes to Nader for Bush to win the state, and
ultimately the election. That’s also uncontestable. Thus, and here is the leap
in logic, if one thinks that Bush has a worse White House agenda than Gore, one
should vote for Gore and not for Nader. In short, a vote for Nader is a vote for
Bush.
The
most frequent reply to this lesser evil argument either (1) disputes that Bush
is that much worse than Gore, or (2) urges that voting for Nader sends a message
to the Democrats that they are missing the boat and need to move left to win
wider support.
The
main problem with the anti-Nader argument is that it assumes that what matters
most about an election or an administration is the positions the candidates and
their parties want to pursue, rather than what they can get away with.
The
main problems with the noted pro-Nader replies are that (1) Bush and the
Republicans are — because of the differing constituencies backing them —
considerably worse than Gore and the Democrats and (2) at most the Democrats
would learn from losing a close election due to Nader’s appeal that they need to
change their image a little‑‑their reality being another thing
entirely.
What
seems missing on both sides, therefore, is recognition that the most important
impact of the Nader campaign will be changing the political climate in the
country by energizing the left, and that our arguments need to take account of
this impact. Take the cases most often bandied about: Supreme Court Justices,
taxes, police violence, abortion, and interventionism. The issue isn’t can we
plausibly predict that Bush’s preferred agenda for each of these policy areas
would be sufficiently worse than Gore’s to adversely impact many suffering
people. Of course it would. The issue is, if lots of people throughout the
country support and vote for Nader, thereby awakening not only hope but also
organizational clout and commitment, will either Gore or Bush be as able as
otherwise to pursue their full agendas on these issues?
In
other words, the real choice is Gore winning without Nader getting lots of
support and therefore with a typically un‑aroused populace that will allow
him to pursue his full corporate agenda nearly unopposed, versus Bush (or maybe
still Gore) winning but with Nader getting lots of support and therefore with a
highly aroused sector of the populace impacted very positively by Nader’s
campaign and ready to fight up a storm. The correct comparison isn’t the will of
Bush versus the will of Gore — it is what Bush (or Gore) will do with a 10%
Nader constituency fighting on, versus what Gore will do with no such
on‑going, galvanized, and organized opposition contesting government
policy‑making, plus, as well, what the emerging opposition will mean in
future elections, and general movement development.
What
is odd, therefore, about the lesser evil discussion is that it stacks the deck
against third party politics by simply ruling out, tout court, the whole reason
for Nader’s campaign, it’s whole logic and purpose, and thus its real value —
and not only in the long term, but in the short term as well. The discussion
most often assumes, that is, that the only thing that matters about an election
is who wins it — not the election’s impact on constituencies supporting or
opposing candidates, and on movement organization and commitment. It assumes, in
other words, that nothing substantial can ever be accomplished electorally (or
otherwise, with just a little tweaking of the argument) unless it occurs by some
kind of overnight miracle that wins all things sought in one swoop. If Nader
could win, then it would be okay to vote for him, but we can’t participate in an
extended process of work and organizing needed as a prerequisite to later
winning major gains and even eventual electoral power. The discussion denies
that with elections, you lose, you lose, you lose — and then you win — and
thus all those losses weren’t really losses at all, but were, instead, part of a
process of building eventually definitive support. And, more, the discussion
denies that the supposed debit of having pushed some elections in the short term
from tweedle dumb to tweedle dumber (and more vile), were not such large debits
as they might seem, either, because the electoral swing to the right was offset
by the fact that tweedle dumber then had to operate against a far more aroused
and organized populace constraining his options.
Reasonable
people might still plop down on either side of this debate – despite that
given the seriousness of their efforts every vote for Nader/Laduke seems like it
will be a step in a movement path forward, another tally toward Green electoral
finances, another person likely ready to continue dissenting beyond election
day, whereas every vote for Gore seems like it will enlarge resignation and
whether intentionally or not pave the way for people throwing up their hands as
if their task is done once the have elected Gore to gently commandeer our
futures further into the maws of big capital.
What
certainly isn’t reasonable, however, at least for leftists, is to let liberals
redefine the lesser evil discussion in a way that presumes that elected
officials are invulnerable to pressure, that vote outcomes matter more than the
consciousness and organization of constituencies, and that movement organizing
impacts what occurs in the short term and what is possible in the long term only
by miracles as opposed to the hard work of losing, losing, losing on the road to
winning.