Ah, Nader

In case you haven't seen it, here's Ralph Nader holding forth on Obama's victory:



More than anything else, it just goes to show what a lazy idealogue Nader has become. Yes: any black politician who disagrees with Ralph Nader's politics is an "Uncle Tom". Right.

It's kind of weird that I voted for this guy back in 2000, when I was 18 years old. Back then, we had had 8 years of frustratingly centrist leadership from the Democrats and Bush was running as a center-right non-interventionist. Nader's thesis that Gore and Bush were essentially the same made sense to me, so I jumped ship (of course, being in California, my vote wasn't too meaningful anyway). By the time 2004 rolled around, that thesis had been completely shattered: 9/11 had happened and Bush had used the occasion to get us into a war in Iraq on false pretenses and secretly wiretap Americans without warrants. Moreover, he was able to muscle through an extraordinarily right-wing agenda. When election time came, it was obvious to me that electing Bush had been a blunder of the highest order, and that the task for everyone from the middle of the spectrum leftward was to kick him out. Nader, though, somehow didn't see this: he ran again, potentially splitting the Democratic vote, still making the now-ridiculous contention that Kerry and Bush were essentially the same. If he hadn't already alienated most of the left by handing Florida to Bush in 2000, this definitely put him over the line: he was now a genuine pariah.

I don't begrudge Nader for having the out-of-the-mainstream views that he does, or even for running for president in 2000. Within the suboptimal electoral system that we have, third-party runs are a legitimate way to exert force on a major party that tacks too far towards the center, and he could not have known how dramatically the political landscape would change a year later, when America came under attack. However, I do begrudge Nader for the way that he has, since 2004, divorced means from ends, effectively casting his movement even further into the wilderness than it already was by alienating just about everybody in the country who would have lent him a sympathetic ear.

Ralph Nader was a fine activist; but he was a terrible politician, and one who shall remain forever unburdened with power.

PS: I think Shep Smith is overdoing it in the video...a little melodramatic, no?