councilor.org
| Source | Brad DeLong |
| Date | 01/03/25/13:53 |
| First of all, there are lots of ways of trying which do *not* involve
handing elections and offices on a platter to the right-wing candidate. Second, the costs of "failing" as you put it are significantly higher than the costs of "not trying." Nader was supposed to demonstrate the strength of the left and not hand the election to Bush. He failed on both counts--failed to get anywhere near as many votes as right-wing challengers to Republicans have gotten, and did hand the election to Bush. We are now paying the price. We now have an administration committed to renewed confrontation with China and Russia (God knows why); an administration committed to pollution rather than environmental protection; an administration committed to employers' rights rather than workplace safety; an administration committed to a more regressive rather than a more progressive tax system; and so forth. If you don't think that these shifts in policy make America a worse place, it's not clear what you do believe. =============== >It was the Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas who >noted that FDR carried >out the Socialist program "on a stretcher." But without the >Socialists, the Communists, >and other insurgent forces, the New Deal would have dwelt on National Recovery >Administration-type corporatist "solutions" to the Depression and >would have held back >from more progressive reforms such as Social Security... And if third parties had split the anti-Republican vote in 1932 in the same proportion as LaFollette split the anti-Republican vote in 1924, the 1932 vote total would have been Roosevelt--38.4%; Third Party--22%; Hoover--39.6%. A highly likely electoral vote victory for Herbert Hoover, and no New Deal at all. Even where it is today the Democratic Party is committed to environmental protection, to workplace safety, to a more progressive tax system, and to no new Cold Wars; the Republican Party is committed to pollution, to employers' rights, to a more regressive tax system, and to confrontation with Russia and China. Only if you think that these issues don't matter can you be proud of a vote for Nader in 2000. And if you don't think that these issues matter, I don't know what you are doing here... |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho