Progressives and Horizontal Contempt
Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 09:03:07 AM PDT
At the neighborhood pizza joint the other evening, I shared a table with an acquaintance I'll call Mike. I can't remember what led up to it, but Mike cued up the butt-kicked Democrats' trusty old canard:
"If it weren't for that bastard Nader, Gore would be president today!"
I find the scapegoating of Nader for Gore's presidential defeat as disturbingly common these days as it is cheap. Gore did not lose the 2000 election "because of Nader." Particularly, Gore didn't lose because of the people who voted for Nader. Go ahead, if it makes you feel better, hate Ralph Nader. At least he's a professional politician, he's braced for your invective. Call him a delusional egomaniac, and everything else. Just don't dare malign progressives and would-be progressives who acted their consciences, in tragic circumstances, and didn't elect Democrats.
The deck was stacked, voters were forced to make untenable choices, and could not win. Mike and many others may curse Nader and everyone who voted for him, but progressives lost the 2000 and 2004 federal elections because of a sick American electoral system, where the interests of big money vie with humanitarian goals, and the moneyed interests triumph. Blame that, don't blame every-day voters of conscience, in tragic circumstances, who ended up electing Republicans. Also, if you're going to hate Nader, hate him thoughtfully. Remember, the comparatively ill-funded third-party candidate articulated daring progressive reforms the grassroots takes seriously, but the big political establishment will not.
We should have a liberal president today. We don't. We look at the militarism and corruption and the pure incompetence, and we're sick at heart. What happened, why has democracy failed us?
Gore had enough money. He should have won, Bush should not be president today. But instead of running the 2000 race to beat Bush, Gore ran a "Republican Lite" campaign, in thrall to the big money, the lobbies that funded him. Gore lost, because he was out-of-touch with his constituents--the progressives and would-be progressives who cared about their retirements and their healthcare and their kids' schools--the reforms Democrats have traditionally stood for. This bloc needed to be inspired to elect Gore in a clear landslide. The efforts of dedicated volunteers notwithstanding, progressives and would-be progressives were not inspired to do any such thing. Democracy, by definition, is about voting your conscience, and those voters who could have buoyed Gore's tragically shoddy campaign, couldn't really be blamed for letting it founder. Nader and the people who voted for him, also couldn't be blamed for Gore's failure.
The question of why American democracy so often doesn't work, why it often isn't about the best interests of the people, voting their consciences, needs to be right up there with why we don't have healthcare for everyone who needs it. It needs to be drummed insistently, right along with why we have to keep sending kids to Iraq to get killed. Free and fair elections would be an excellent start, so would real campaign-finance reform. Instant-runoff voting, so people can always vote their first choices without penalty, is less talked-about, but just as essential to a healthy democracy. For any of that to happen, though, we need a big tent, with a diverse throng inside, clamoring to ask the hard questions of the establishment, to demand reform.
Phil Angelides, the recent Democratic gubernatorial candidate in my home state of California, like Gore in 2000, ran a "Republican Lite" campaign. He lost big, I knew he would. The Democrats' loss wasn't my fault, though I'm a registered Democrat and I didn't vote for Angelides. Angelides' loss also wasn't the fault of other Californians who didn't vote for him, out of conscience, who instead voted for another candidate, or who stayed home, because Angelides promised voters so little that the more-charismatic Republican incumbent Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't also promising.
All else being equal, I suppose I would've backed Angelides, if the race with Schwarzenegger had looked close. In Florida, in 2000, I probably would have voted for Gore, without enthusiasm. In the tragic, untenable circumstances, though, I sure can't blame progressives who made the difficult choice not to vote for Democrats in close races. I defend them. I plead with other liberal Democrats to understand and defend them, too. We need them enfranchised, for the progressive movement to work in any big way.
After I revealed that I'd voted for Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo, one Kossack blamed me explicitly for Angelides' loss. She implied I was responsible for Schwarzenegger's disastrous continued incumbency. Whooo-weee. What child of yours did I kill, lady? Your jab at me, and the fact nobody troll-rated you over it, speaks only to the injured nastiness we liberals carry in our hearts.
We should have a liberal president today. California should have a liberal governor. We don't, and we're beside ourselves. We're furious, and we're grieving.
When the Green Party does something really stupid, like taking money from the Republicans, criticize them. OK, criticize Ralph Nader. But never, ever say that the Green Party shouldn't exist; don't dare imply that it shouldn't raise issues or field candidates, or that those candidates shouldn't get votes.
Maybe it's just human nature that's driving me crazy. Maybe I'm expecting too much of the progressive movement, wanting it to unify. The Republicans, after all, have cynically built an empire on divisiveness: dear public, your problem isn't your small paycheck, your lack of healthcare, your kids dying overseas, your isolation, or the crime in your streets. Don't come together; don't try to bring the corporations to heel, don't muzzle the lobbyists. Dear voters: your real problem is single welfare mothers, it's gays who want to get married, it's the brown-skinned immigrants, it's uppity women who want abortions--it's them.
Dear Democrats--and there are no other "true" progressives--third parties cause democracy to malfunction. Not.
Democratic, Green, or whatever, many of us wouldn't have chosen to be political progressives. The going is hard. It can feel lonely and discouraging, coming up against these vast impersonal forces that shape every life. Many of us liberals got here the hard way, for a very personal reason, or reasons. Maybe somebody we love was injured in Iraq, maybe we lack for healthcare. Maybe we have children, or want them. We'd as soon be comfortable and privileged, but life makes demands. We dissent, we beg to differ. We feel we have to. "Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me," said Martin Luther.
The going is hard, it's often discouraging. But as Luther implied, we can choose dignity.
I've written before that the penchant of liberals, at our best, for free discussion and inquiry, our appreciation of nuance and "shades of gray" in any point-of-view, is the progressive movement's crown jewel. Our essential open-mindedness is a basic way we trump the neoconservatives, who are essentially authoritarian, whose movement lends itself to divisive tactics and cynical "easy answers." That's why I want to see the question of why democracy fails honestly faced, reckoned with. We need a big, vibrant popular movement to advance our aims, and scapegoating demoralizes. It hurts all around. It benefits only the establishment that doesn't want to be challenged, that wants to keep things what they are.
Come on, we're better than the Republicans. We have to be.
