Scientific paper I cited says otherwise.
Nader was an egotist asshole who hadn’t done anything noteworthy in decades. People didn’t vote for him, they voted against Gore. And we saw what happened.
Again, if so many people didn’t seem intent on forgetting this lesson (like, say, you) and willing to go through it again, maybe I wouldn’t be quite as obsessive about the many people who died in Iraq because Bush was President.
People died in Iraq because a few supposed progressives in a state synonymous with stupid made a protest vote.
I guess you think they should be let off the hook. Tell that to the family and friends of the people who died there. Nearly quarter of a million dead according to that citation.
Elections have consequences, buttercup. Sorry that the facts bug you, but if the new generation of idiots let Trump or Cruz lead this country into the ground because they repeat it, it won’t be because I didn’t mention it a few times before then.
The underlying message is that in a first past the post system, running third party actively harms the side of the political spectrum you wish to associate with. This is not news nor is it hard to understand.
It’s hard to understand for some people, evidently.
You’re a dishonest piece of shit. You quote the numbers as if the people you’re talking to are somehow unaware of them, and as if simply quoting the numbers somehow validates your unrelated and retarded argument about responsibility.
I am well aware of the consequences of the Iraq War, and i am also aware that elections have consequences. But i’m also sick of self-righteous assholes who are more interested in casting blame in all the wrong places than they re in acknowledging the messy realities of democratic politics.
Al Gore should have won the 2000 election comfortably. The fact that he didn’t is testimony to one of the truly shitty campaigns of modern presidential history, which helped contribute to the equal second-lowest presidential election turnout since the Great Depression. Had just a few thousand more actual Gore supporters turned out in Florida, the presence of Nader voters, and the problems of the hanging chads, never would have even been an issue. Had more Democrats gotten off their lazy asses in other states, Gore might not have even needed Florida. He couldn’t even manage to carry his own home state.
But despite all of this, and despite the fact that no-one, least of all most voters, envisioned the events of 9/11 and the ensuing consequences for global politics and foreign policy, the deaths in Iraq can apparently be laid at the feet of a few people who voted their political beliefs.
There is some basic truth that, in a close election, a small number of votes can have a significant effect on the outcome. In that sense, every voter and every non-voter contributes in some way. Had i been an eligible US voter in 2000, i would most likely have voted for Gore, despite the fact that Nader probably represented my politics more closely. But the disproportionate efforts of goat-fucking shit-eaters like you to cast blame miles away from the actual people responsible for the policies that you claim to oppose demonstrates a complete lack of intellectual and moral perspective.
And I have started reading that paper, but I have to say that phrases like “the conclusion … borders on logical deduction”, “One might quibble …”, and - my favorite - “…the combination … obviates any real need to substantiate Nader’s role as Democratic spoiler”, do not give the impression of a rigorous scientific investigation.
I’m going to count this here. Israel’s intelligence minister blamed chocolate for Brussels attack.
Actually he said “If in Belgium, they continue to eat chocolate and enjoy the good life with their liberalism and democracy, and do not understand that some of the Muslims there are planning terror, they will never be able to fight against them,"
The problem is he’s forgotten, or never knew, that Europe has suffered through politically motivated attacks for decades
With regard to why Al Gore lost in 2000…
In any close election, there are dozens of things you can point to as the “reason” why somebody lost.
In the wake of the 2000 election I remember any number of these, including but not limited to: butterfly ballots, hanging chads, Gore’s inability to come across as likable, Gore’s choice of Joe Lieberman as a running mate, too much talk about climate change, too much talk about gun control, Tipper Gore’s crusade against the music industry, Gore not running away from Clinton as much as he should’ve, Gore running away from Clinton more than he should’ve, underestimating the appeal of GW Bush, etc., etc., etc.
Most of which probably had some truth to them. And in a really close race any of them could’ve come into play. Sure, Gore’s focus on climate change could’ve caused a few voters in FL to stay home or switch to Bush, or…or…or…
But all of that was essentially speculation, because we couldn’t know for sure whether there was an effect or what that effect actually was. (How many voters stayed home because of Joe Lieberman? We don’t know. How many people who wouldn’t have voted for Gore voted for him *because *of Lieberman? We don’t know that either…)
There was one thing, though, for which we DID have numbers. That was the Ralph Nader effect. Unless you would like to argue that 97,000 is actually less than 538 (good luck with that), or that Nader voters were simply voting at random (good luck with that, too), there’s no question that Nader’s presence on the ballot made a huge difference. If just one percent of Nader voters goes for Gore, then Gore wins.
Nader voters thought of themselves as very very progressive, and didn’t vote for Gore because they thought he was not nearly progressive enough–and as a result they got an extremely unprogressive president. Do I blame them? As a progressive, yes, of course I do. I saw a huge difference between Gore and Bush; I still see one. I don’t “get” how people who call themselves progressives don’t see that difference. Anyone in Florida who voted for Nader is absolutely responsible for George W. Bush.
As are a lot of other people: those Floridians (and some in other states as well) who stayed home because they didn’t like Lieberman, or because they didn’t completely buy into Gore’s rhetoric on climate change, or voted for Bush because they thought they’d rather have a beer with him than with Gore, or because Gore was too closely connected with Clinton or not connected enough.
But the only one of those we can quantify, the only group we can clearly identify, are the 97,000 Nader supporters in Florida. That’s why they get the brunt of the criticism. Fair? Probably not. Understandable? Sure.
Exactly.
I had a long argument with a friend of mine about this, back then. He argued he would vote for his ideal candidate (in terms of espoused policies prioritized over experience, actually, since he agreed Gore had greater experience). I.e. Nader. I argued I would vote for the candidate mostly likely to be able to win and do the most for progressive causes. I.e. Gore.
In the end, I didn’t persuade him, but he did admit later that he regretted his vote, even though it was in a state Gore won handily (WA.)
For me, voting for a candidate is always about the possible, and not be about the ideal. The ideal is wishful thinking, always.
ETA: I have little doubt that either Hillary or Bernie could beat any GOP candidate, provided neither runs as a third-party or pulls any write-in nonsense.
Neither. They voted for progressivism; Nader was just that year’s standard bearer as Kucinich was later and Sanders now.
It’s easier to show up every four years & vote for the “progressive” Presidential candidate than support Progressivism on the local & state levels.
Sanders polls actually better than Hilary in matchups against any Republican Challenger. If Sanders was able to get the Democratic nomination, he will likely become our president. Nader was never going to become our president. His supporters were delusional.
They may have thought they were voting for progressivism. They weren’t. They may not have intended it, though I suspect a few did, but by holding out for a purer form of progressivism they ensured that the least progressive president of my lifetime (so far!) would be elected. Doesn’t sound very progressive to me.
Since the last one on American soil was 9/11, God evidently needs to work on his aim.
And timing. Obama was still years in the future.
I guess that knows all, sees all can be confusing.
You’re not going to get everything you want in life, this isn’t a movie where’s there’s always a happy ending. Sometimes, MOST times, you will have to settle. There’s no perfect line of causation between presidents and their opposition. Nixon was terrible, everybody knew that, but the country didn’t swing leftward immediately and elect Democrats, we got 4 years of Carter after Ford and 12 years of Reagan/Bush 1. I think the calculation for a lot of progressives is: let Clinton fail, elect Trump, country will go to hell in a handbasket, then Democratic progressives will take over and transform the country.
That’s simply not going to happen. First, we have a census year coming up. An incumbent president is a lot harder to beat than a new one, so even if Trump trashes the country, guess what? We got a 2nd term of Reagan and a 2nd of GWB. There’s no guarantee that the country will swing leftward and its vital that Democrats win in 2020.
Second, there’s a small chance that the country won’t be as bad off, at least immediately, under Trump. He’ll hire experts, he’ll get lobbyists, he’ll get people who worked with Bush or Romney or other conservatives, you’re not going to get the perfect scenario in which he nukes a country in the first 100 days, sells off the Lincoln Monument to WalMart, builds an eyesore of a wall in the south, and rounds up Muslims at gunpoint. The loss of liberty will be gradual, and at each step he’ll have the bully pulpit of the presidency claiming how great everything is and no one to be able to challenge him. Look at his campaign so far, its been less than 10 months. You think that his kind of yelling and anger won’t sway some Americans if done for 4 straight years?
Third, the SCOTUS. If the GOP really hold their line and refuse to consider Obama’s choice, then we get another Scalia. In 4 years, he might replace RBG as well. That’s a possible 20 or 30 years of a super conservative court. Every law you think that progressives will be able to push through with a progressive president and Congress due to blowback from Trump can be stopped dead in its tracks with a 6-3 conservative vote. Not only will progress be stopped, so will change that’s already been made. I’ve no doubt that a conservative court will face more challenges from conservative states on Obamacare. Electing a Hillary Clinton doesn’t simply move progress forward, but it preserves progress already done. If you let Trump win out of spite, good luck getting another health care reform through with possibly a GOP Congress and 6 conservative judges. And you can bet that we’ll probably have a referendum on abortion, gay rights, unions, labor laws, etc. Yes, there’s never a time when its a good time to take a chance, but there’s a lot of progressive laws being assaulted right now that’s generational. If there’s no good time to test out your theory of a mass progressive shift due to blowback from a super conservative administration, then now’s an even worse time than usual.
The whole concept of a letting the opposition win so you can feel vindicated in the blowback is absurd and kind of arrogant. There will be a non-significant number of people that disengage from the political process due to being disenfranchised. You’re not getting those people back. Some will be convinced by the other side and some will come to your side. But nobody’s going to, to borrow words from someone else, “see you as liberators”. Instead, there will be plenty of centrist voters like me who will blame you progressive voters for a horrible 4 or 8 years of Trump. Just look at this topic, people are STILL mad at Nader. Do you think in 4 years we’re all going to forget that, hold hands, and join together? Or will it split the party even more, make primaries even more acidic?
Your plan is a great plan, in dreams, but real life has a way of interfering with dreams. There needs to be a hundred things that happen for the next election to break your way, and any one of those not happening can destroy progressive dreams for a generation. Instead of trying to navigate down a narrow path to a singular victory that is nearly impossible, why don’t you and other angry progressives try this: Transform the Democratic party instead. Here’s what I mean:
You’re mad the rest of us don’t vote progressive enough. Fine, then convince more Democrats to be progressive. If your ideas are so great and I believe the Democrats are much more susceptible to reason and logic than Republicans, convince us to vote more progressive. Instead of one Bernie Sanders (who isn’t really even a Democrat), work towards a party with multiple people like Sanders. Instead of a DNC that supports establishment Democrats like Clinton, work towards one that supports more progressive thinkers like Sanders and Warren. What’s that you say? Too hard? It’ll take too long? Well tough shit. Real lasting change is going to be hard and you won’t win nearly as many battles as you think you might, but if it happens, its more firm, its more powerful, and it lasts. Spiting Clinton to let Trump win will not help you. Working to reduce the number of Democrats like Clinton and increase the number of Sanders will. And it won’t result in a catastrophic 4 or 8 years of Trump in the meantime. Do that, and I’ll gladly follow. But if Trump is your second choice after Sanders, then you’re just as bad as the Republicans
John Anderson, perhaps. Whatever. The Democrats have learned not to divide their forces by third-party runs. It’s self-destructive.
We’d love the Republicans to split this way this year.