I happened to catch the following exchange on Twitter the other day...
"I thought 2000 had taught liberals a lesson about making the perfect the enemy of the good. But maybe not."
"it taught this liberal a lesson I'll never forget."
Since one of the participants in this exchange is someone I follow on Twitter and respect even if I often don't agree with them, I thought perhaps they would be so kind as to respond to a question that has long been bugging me. So I tweeted...
"Serious ?. y do U & so many others cont 2 downplay or ignore the role the SCOTUS played in helping Jr steal the 2000 election?"
(Translated from Twit-speak it reads, "Serious question. Why do you and so many others continue to downplay or ignore the role the Supreme Court of The United States played in helping Bush junior steal the two thousand election?")
This persons reply was...
"because SCOTUS would not have been involved at all, had Nader not peeled off millions of votes."
I sat at my keyboard stunned.
Now to be honest this is not the first time that I've encountered this reasoning. Ironically it was a very similar kind of reasoning that Republicans used to explain Bush Sr.'s loss to Bill Clinton in ninety two, when Ross Perot ran as an independent candidate for President.
Now from a pure math standpoint of course it's inarguable. Let me reduce the numbers to make it easy to talk about for purposes of this article.
Lets say you have two candidates for dog catcher and there are fifty nine people casting their votes.
Well one person can conceivably end up with twenty nine votes and the other person can possibly end up with thirty.
Now what would happen if a third candidate was on the ballot?
Well now it's conceivable that two of the candidates could get twenty votes and a third one gets nineteen.
Bottom line the votes have to go somewhere.
But the problem is that statements like the one I cited above about Nader are never made in the spirit of mathematical accuracy. No they are made in a spirit of blame. With an implied tone of "How dare they?" As if there is only one possible right choice. And anyone who has the audacity not to choose correctly is an idiot or a simpleton, or must be deranged or damaged in one way or another.
It's a presumptuous and arrogant argument and it's one that it sickens me to hear Liberals in general and Progressives in particular make.
It is an argument that lines up very nicely with the narrative that the GOP has been trying to shove down our throats all these years. Oh they talk a good game, the GOP does. About the "Will Of The People" and all that. But the truth of the matter is that the Republicans don't want to be bothered with the will of the people unless it's in alignment with the will of the Republican party, and therefore in alignment with the will of the Corporatocracy.
It is an argument that says that the system is just fine and that there is no need for anything other than the two parties that have anointed themselves perpetual Kings and Queens on alternating Tuesdays.
It is an argument that insists that anyone who does not get in line and vote with the majority is an idiot. A dreamer who honestly probably doesn't even deserve the vote they are wasting.
It is an argument that they are trotting out again to use against anyone who dares to talk about the idea of a Primary challenger to Obama.
Now I've gone on record as saying in this very blog that I think that trying to Primary Obama is a bad idea. When I wrote that I was speaking tactically and I still believe that tactically that is the case. But here's a bit of news that will shock some people. A lot of people don't vote tactically. Instead they vote their conscience.
What idiots. What fools. How dare they? Don't they know what's at stake? If Obama were to lose because of such nonsense it would be all their fault.
But you see it wouldn't. Because here's another shocking bit of news. Voting your conscience, is, ideally, what you are supposed to do.
You are supposed to look at the candidates on offer and choose the one who most shares your values. Not the one with the best chance of winning that you find the least despiseable.
Now if you want to vote based on who you indeed believe has the best chance of winning and doesn't totally make your skin crawl you are entitled to do exactly that. It doesn't make you a fool or an idiot for doing so. It just makes your conscience calibrated a little differently from the person who votes based purely on which candidate they believe best represents their views on a wide array of issues.
But if Obama cannot successfully convince those kind of people to vote for him in two thousand and twelve it will not be their fault. It will not be because they were stupid, or naive. It will be because Obama did not offer them something they felt was worth their vote.
So perhaps Obama and his supporters would be well advised to find ways for him to become worth voting for instead of finding ways to blame those who so far hold their vote as too valuable to ransom for petty trinkets.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
(To read an enhanced version of this article at The One About... just click here.)