Ralph Nader is still spot on

If you’re online or at left wing events, you hear the old slogan a lot lately… Both parties are the same and it doesn’t matter who wins the White House in 2024 or who controls the US Congress. Various left wing thinkers in America have made the claim before and the most famous modern example was from Ralph Nader when he ran for president in 2000 on the Green Party ticket. Unfortunately Democrats and allies in the media have created the narrative that George W Bush won the 2000 election because Nader did so well in Florida, as well as other states. That narrative is a total lie, Bush won the election for two reasons… 1. The vote never got counted correctly in Florida because his brother and allies controlled the state government. 2. The popular vote does not elect the president , the electoral college does.

Sign from 2000

Before we fast forward to 2024 we have to talk about The Green Party and how it connects to Ralph Nader. If you asked someone randomly what party Ralph Nader is in, they would likely say the American Green Party. Truth be told the story Nader’s connection to the Greens is a little murky and some in his camp characterize him as not a member of the Greens in 1996 and 2000, despite leading the ticket. Before New Years 2003 it came out from Nader’s camp he would not be seeking the nomination for president with the Greens. One comment that is telling is

“As an independent, you can do more innovative things because you don’t have to check with all the bases” ¹

I do think it’s worthy of criticism that despite all of Nader’s good work, he wasn’t able to build a party. But at the same time if Nader’s justified true belief from his time with the Greens was that they aren’t a serious go forward idea to make progressive change, I think we at least have to engage with that. It’s a hard fact the Greens have never had a presidential run that got the media attention, crowds or raw vote totals of 2000. It’s hard to come to a firm conclusion on Nader 2000 to 2004 but I argue it is very unfair to say he always positioned himself as a leader in the Green party, despite helping campus Greens and other’s during this period. Using the Archive.org wayback machine to go back to his 2001 website I feel this quote is telling.

“When asked to define himself, he always responds, “Full-time citizen, the most important office in America for anyone to achieve.”. ²

I won’t use this piece to do a deep dive but as a member of the Maine Independent Green Party from 2015 to 2017 , I agree with Nader they aren’t a serious party and I know they aren’t run democratically. In Maine many Greens have left to join The Maine Democratic Party with some even getting elected to Augusta.The last statewide race the party engaged with was The US Senate race in 2020, the Green candidate refused to attack the Democrat who was also running against Susan Collins, despite the race using Rank Choice Voting. If your goal for good or bad reasons is electing Democrats, having a third party is a waste of time is my take away from my home state of Maine.

Before skipping ahead to today’s Nader , he ran for president again in 2004 and 2008 without the backing of a party and during these runs never backed down or conceded he was a “spoiler”, building the Green Party has not been part of his plans in a long time. Now the shocker comes in late 2023, Nader made his feelings clear about the upcoming election by supporting Biden. Some people including people I know and respect have dismissed these comments and basically accused Nader of being a sell out. I deeply respect everyone’s right to engage in political debate and think we all must make our own choices, but I for one think Nader is onto something. I do not think morally cutting Nader down is the reply to his shift in views. To best discuss Nader’s view and how I overlap with them, I think his more recent statement must be taken into view.

Nader’s core points in his recent demand for debates are as follows, Trump walking away from any debates is undemocratic and like it our not because of the electoral college system, a few areas’s mostly highly populated urban areas will decide the winner of The White House.³ His first claim is fairly uncontroversial, it is not becoming of a Democratic Republic to have the Republican nominee refuse to debate anyone in his primary process and refuse to debate Biden in the fall. The second claim is harder for some but checks out, some clusters of voters in certain states will have more say than others. We know for a fact in 2016 a few small margins in swing states tilted the election to Donald Trump, despite the hard fact Clinton won the popular vote. Regardless of your worldview, party preference , outcome preference, the facts on how the presidential race creates winners is not open for debate. Before we get to Nader supporting Biden, I don’t think any progressive person should oppose the tactics being promoted for a new series of debates. Nader wants local governments and local press to pressure the candidates to appear in fall debates, to bring the case to the voters. Nader is using his voice to support these debates for all runners and points out how the old debate system blocked non major party runners, despite the public wanting inclusion. The DNC and Biden aren’t stepping up to restore the debate, I suspect they may think it’s a better idea to have none. Nader again proves he’s serious in standing up for citizens.

Now let’s address the harder bit, is Nader doing the right thing to support Biden? I reluctantly agree and it took me months to come around to this as someone who has never supported the major party runners in the Presidential elections. If a progressive runner was doing very well in the polls, I would be unable to consider what Nader is saying but the facts on the polls paint a depressing picture. Right now polls have former Democratic party nepotist Robert Kennedy Jr’s conspiracy themed campaign beating the other minor tickets by a lot, sometimes even pushing 20 percent. If things change and Jill Stein or West become viable , it’s worth all of us revisiting our analysis but it is clear they are non factors today. I firmly feel that the ship has sailed for West and Stein, both people with a great set of values who do not support hell in America. Nader and myself will not be going around and calling people who may vote for Stein or West spoilers, I’m merely suggesting that if you live in a swing state you have a chance to impact the outcome by picking Biden or Trump. Let’s now dive into the bombshell claim Nader made.

“I know the difference between fascism and autocracy, and I’ll take autocracy any time,” Nader said in a telephone interview with the Post. “Fascism is what the GOP is the architecture of, and autocracy is what the Democrats are practitioners of. But autocracy leaves an opening. They don’t suppress votes. They don’t suppress free speech.” ⁴

My only objection is that I would call the Republicans barbarists over fascists, but I don’t feel the need to split hairs here. Ralph Nader is correct, we can’t trust the Republicans to run America this is not 2000. My takeaway is that before 2016 , the GOP presidential candidate never promoted reactionary politics that openly threatened the premise of liberal Democracy and now it is mask’s off and a core Republican message is that many demographics need to be punished. From Ron Desantis, to Speaker Mike Johnston , to Donald Trump all we have to do is listen to the proposals they put forward, from punishing women for having abortions, not allowing transgenders folks in the correct bathrooms, to claiming Biden hasn’t deported enough people. These people spell it out and both Ralph Nader and myself are responding to what they openly admit they want to do, we don’t care for the Democratic Party talking points, we are responding to the Republicans themselves.

Nader 08

Nader’s comment of both parties being the same checks out in 2000, it does not check out today. January 6th told us all we need to know on who the Republicans really are today. I concede the violence never had a chance to overturn the election and I think the Democrats version of the events are a bit strange, but that doesn’t make it any less scary. Speaking for myself, if Trump and his party can unleash violence at Congress, none of us are safe with them around. In my book anyone totally dismissing the violence that day is denying the fact that groups that use violence for political purposes will consider using violence again. I do not think it’s acceptable for anyone to excuse the January 6th attacks and also claim to be for a progressive future. Finally on the free speech and voting claim, when I see Trump talk about using the Insurrection Act I lose sleep on the future of liberty in America. It is not a mere Democratic Party talking point, Trump thought about using the act during the BLM summer and has made references on the campaign trail towards using it as a tool.

In the end, Nader can speak for himself but my views clearly overlap with him and I still deeply respect him as a leading voice for a progressive future. My position is as follows: I do not endorse Joe Biden and will harshly criticize anything he does that isn’t progressive BUT I will be using my power in Maine with Ranked Choice Voting to throw my vote towards his electoral college chances. I firmly believe the left in locations that voting matters must at least consider this. I do not think a blanket “set the election out” or claim the election doesn’t matter, is responsible politics.

In my dialogs with friends and strangers about my new view on Biden, I’ve received push back and I want to address it in a graceful way. From swing states to areas that do not matter, many people feel they can not morally support Joe Biden. The number one thing I heard is that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict makes it imposable for them to vote for Genocide Joe. If that is your true belief , I do not wish to morally judge these people. I don’t think doubling down on the reasons I want Joe to win on moral grounds and pretending I’m better helps anyone. My only push back is this, do you really think encouraging people to sit out the election or vote for someone who can’t win helps us build a better tomorrow? Maybe that is what you need to do, hopefully you can respect what Nader and other’s want to do. If people think they have strategies that don’t include Biden beating Trump, I hope they could summarize such plans so we can all engage with such. Let us not all scream at each other, let’s engage in open debates on tactics for a better tomorrow.

In the end I’m rooting for Biden because America is hell and Trump leading it would mean an even deeper hell. Joe Biden should be criticized endlessly and should be putting together a progressive platform to encourage voters to show up and demonstrate he will restore abortions rights and fight back on eroding rights for transgendered Americans. I will work as hard as I can to advocate for abortion rights and LGBTQ rights in the broken America we live in and have faith that at bare minimum Biden won’t sign away abortion rights federally or agree with Republicans that transgender people don’t belong in our communities. I hope regardless of one’s worldview that if you are progressive, you’ll join me in fighting hard for liberty and justice for all. Ralph Nader supports the fight against Trump and the bigoted Republicans and I’m proud to stand with an American political icon on this.