Gored Liberals, Wasted Votes, and Selling Out
by Bijan Parsia
Gored Liberals
As Gore fumbles his way out of the White House and
Bush spends his way into it (of course, this isn't certain, but...),
the odd debate over "Nader the election spoiler" has become a
cacophonous roar since Gore mobilized the Loyal Liberals to do his dirty
work. The general refrain is quite old: "A vote for Nader is a vote
for Bush!" and "Don't waste your vote by voting for someone who can't
win!" There are three popular counterpunches:
- If you live in a state which is solidly for Gore or solidly
for Bush (say, by more than 8 points), you may as well vote for Nader
to help the Green party get Federal matching funds,
- most of the voters for Nader
wouldn't have voted for Gore anyway, so no votes are being "stolen",
and
- Gore and Bush are so close on the issues that a vote for
Gore might as well be a vote for Bush.
Let's pay attention to the fact that no one is trying
to reach out to Nader, the Greens, pro-Nader voters, or, for that
matter, progressive voters. It's lesser of two evilism all the
way, and that's just strange. Why should I vote for
Gore if he doesn't remotely endorse or even consider the
positions I strongly hold? From the selection of Joe
Lieberman as running mate to the exclusion of Nader from the
debates, Gore has never made the slightest move to give
progressive voters the least reason to think he'd toss them the
smallest bone, if elected. For a man who treats "the enemy," Bush,
with super-kid gloves in the name of taking the "high road," Gore has
set his minions not just to make the lame lesser argument, but to
mock, derogate, and slander Nader, and, by extension, those who
support him and intend to vote for him.
Side-note: This election seems to be a
replay of the 1988 one. Dukakis was 30 points ahead coming out
of the Democratic convention, and he managed to squander it against
what was widely considered the weakest Republican ticket in
decades. Dukakis, like Gore, was a unlovable technocrat. Dukakis, like
Gore, swore off "mudslinging." The Bushes, on the other hand, come
across as genial enough and have no problem with smearing their
opponent. Not to mention spending a ton of
money.
The money point is crucial. Dubya managed
to squash McCain (who is a likeable -- to the press -- more
independent Gore) by outspending him two to one. (During the
primaries, Bush didn't accept federal matching funds so as to avoid
spending limits.) Right now, Bush is letting the RNC buy the ads. Bush
just may prove that having no useful qualities except a vague
reputation for geniality and a bunch of negatives means little
compared to a pile of money and a willingness to be
nasty.
Gore's surrogate campaign against Nader is
entirely negative. It's not just that it's mean, but, with few
exceptions, it offers no reason to vote for Gore. Instead, we
are enjoined to not vote for Nader in order to "effectively"
vote against Bush. Even the Supreme Court argument -- that Bush
will appoint justices that will overturn Roe v. Wade and Gore
won't -- doesn't purport that Gore will be an effective and active
advocate of abortion rights (e.g., funding for poor women, rolling
back Webster, etc.), much less women's rights in
general. This is a measure of what progressives can expect from a Gore
administration: to be shafted while the chorus sings, "It could have
been worse; it could have been worse; hallelujah, it could have been
worse."
It could be better, too. Much better.
Remember that the DLC has worked to kill the left wing of
the Democratic party. It suppressed Jesse Jackson and dispersed the
Rainbow Coalition. It betrayed the unions to bring us NAFTA et.
al. Did I mention welfare reform? (And these are just the
domestic policies!) All this was done in the name of taking
back the White House. We progressives bit the bullet and held our
breath and noses and voices and supported Clinton/Gore. Of course, the
Democrats lost the House and Senate (with many Democrats
switching over), and we didn't get health care, and we did get Kosovo,
Iraq, East Timor, and Rwanda. But we had the White House, and if we
wanted to keep it we had to keep our mouths shut and accept the little
losses which, or so they told us, were better than the big
losses we could have suffered. And now "we're" going to lose
the White House unless progressives come back into the fold and do
their duty: Vote for someone who despises us and all that we stand
for.
I confess to feeling the touch of ambivalence. I really and truly despise Bush, and I'm
completely embarrassed by him. I'm hard pressed to come up with
someone who's more of a pathetic lightweight aiming for high
office than George W. Bush: Reagan, Bush Sr, even Dan Quayle had
better qualifications, personality, intelligence, stature. I blush for
the Republicans.
However, the Loyal Liberal appeal to vote for Gore
doesn't heavily focus on the rage and humiliation I feel toward
Bush -- even though, I think, such a campaign would play well with the general public. I can
imagine several "killer" ads discussing Texas's and Bush's systematic
misadministration of the death penalty, ads that could even support
the death penalty in general. Given the fact that worry about the
fairness of the application of the death penalty, coupled with a "in
principle" favoring of it, is the dominant public view, it's
mystifying that Gore hasn't pounded on it. I just don't understand why
the Gore campaign turns itself inside out to be nice to Bush and then
turns itself outside in to be nasty to Nader.
Wasted votes
If you vote for someone who then doesn't win, have you
wasted your vote? Suppose Nader gave up and endorsed Gore, and even
suppose that Gore picked up a few percentage points as a result, what
happens if Gore still loses (which is quite possible, sad to
say)? Now that would be a wasted vote for a progressive.
By the same token, suppose Gore would win -- by however
slim a margin -- even if Nader didn't withdraw, but in fact Nader
did? In that case, wouldn't the Naderites have wasted not just their votes, but their efforts
to put Nader on the ballot?
Everyone who supports Nader knew from the start that
he wouldn't win the election: the deck was wildly stacked against him,
and Al Gore didn't do a damn thing to change that. Some folks wanted
to be able to vote for someone they'd actually want to have as
President. Some wanted to build the Green Party up. Some wanted to
send a strong message to the Democrats. These are all real, positive
reasons to vote for Nader which don't disappear because Gore can't
beat Bush. Furthermore, none of them are achieved by a vote for
Gore, especially a vote which is really a vote against Bush.
So to say that they are "wasted" per se has to be some
sort of error. There is the probability that they won't be votes cast
for the winner of the election, but it's at least 50-50 that they
won't be for the winner if you vote for Gore. And for progressives
disenchanted by the Democratic party, it's highly likely that a vote
for a winning Gore will involve a lot of waste as well (in spite of
Gore's "environmentalism").
It's odd, really: the Democrats spent
themselves to gain the presidency (under DLC guidance). Pre-Clinton, they controlled the
House and the Senate, they had a large majority of state governerships and
legislatures. Post-Clinton, they lost they House and the Senate and
many, many states.
The National Conference of State
Legislatures' web site has an illuminating
table detailing the balance of control of the states going back to
1938. From 1970 through 1992, the Democrats controlled an overwhelming
majority of state governerships and legislatures. In 1992, 25 states
were under Democratic dominance, 8 under Republican, and 16 split. In
1994, the Democratic states had dropped to 18, the Republican had 19,
and there were 12 split states. Historically, this is not entirely
unusual, but one does wonder if the presidency is worth the House, the
Senate, and control of all those states. It's not clear that a
Gore administration would or could do anything to reverse this
trend.
Gore's no Reagan. He's not even a Clinton. Can we
really expect him to be an effective progressive leader against all
the power mobilized against him (not to mention all the power he's
sold himself to)? Can we dare to hope that a progressive movement will
flourish with him "in charge"? Especially a movement that gave up its
conscience, its organization, and its wallet (i.e., Federal matching
funds) to save his sorry ass?
I suspect not.
Four years of compromise, of gritted teeth, of excuses
and excusing, of rightward movement, of apologetics, of erosion of
purpose and drive, of joy at microscopic gains and smaller than feared
losses: this is what we're likely to get for our vote? And this is
supposed to be an easy, obvious decision?
As I so often do, I find myself
turning to Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter From Birmingham City
Jail:
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create
such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community
that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the
issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be
ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the
work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I
must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have
earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a
type of constructive non-violent tension that is necessary for
growth...So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation
so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open to the door to
negotiation.
Voting for Nader in a swing state entails the risk
that Bush may win that state. Not working all out for Gore entails
that risk too, yet I don't see the Loyal Liberals trying to recruit
Nader or the Naderites. From the convention, to the debates, to the
last minute diatribes, there's been no negotiation, no
acknowledgement, no honesty. If Nader and his supporters aren't
careful, we stand to waste more that just our votes. And the
shrillness of the Loyal Liberal diatribes points to a crisis that we
should not wish to suppress.
It's strikingly characteristic of the people in power
that the call to fall in line is purely top down. The Loyal Liberals
are all "leaders," power brokers, pundits, and politicians. They stand
ready to blame Nader for Gore's failure and are quick to dismiss the
long-term, grassroot efforts of the Green Party. If the
membership of the NAACP, several of the major unions, and the
like passed resolutions asking Nader to throw in with Gore, the case
would be a lot more compelling, for there would lie the possibility of
solidarity and change.
Selling Out
If Nader and his voters are to sell out, to waste our
votes and efforts in a different way, we should sell them dearly and
for solid coin instead of airy promises. While I do not especially
trust Gore, there are plenty of things that Clinton could do on
Gore's behalf right now (after all, a crucial part of the Loyal
Liberal argument is the power of the presidency, a power under Gore's
direct influence). Mitigation or elimination of the siege Iraq tops
my list. For that, I would sell far more than a vote or Federal
matching funds. Just ending the illegal-by-every-measure bombing runs would be worth
consideration. Stopping the dropping of chemical/biological weapons on
Columbia is another easily acceptable bid. Putting pressure on Israel to stop their violence against the Palestinians
is yet another.
The Clinton/Gore policy with regard to any of these three issues results in more deaths and
destroyed lives than the mere repeal of Roe v. Wade could hope
to produce (not counting that abortion rights can be fought for and
secured on any number of fronts). And each of those policies is much more under the direct control of the president than abortion rights. They could be mitigated, at least, with the stroke of a pen. To the contrary, even if elected president, Bush would have to appoint
exactly the right justices (which would have to get through the
Senate), and then a challenge to Roe would have to come
through, and then Roe would have to be overturned, and then
restrictive legislation would have to be passed, typically on a state
by state basis.
When we are told to save abortion rights by throwing
in with Al "Keep-the-Sanctions--Fight-the-War-on-Drugs--We're-an
honest-broker-who-happens-to-be-a-friend-of-Israel" Gore, we should
ask in turn, "Is the distant risk worth supporting the immediate and
definite destruction?" On these three issues and many more Gore and
Bush are in total lockstep.
To vote for Nader may be to "help" Bush in that the
vote doesn't lower Bush's chances of winning. But sticking with Nader,
however painful it may be, at least offers some hope of future
leverage. Of course, merely to cast a defiant vote isn't enough. If it
is to be more than an empty gesture, it must be joined with a
willingness to be active in future battles and to sustain and heighten
the tension. If we each make our vote an integral part of our
activism, then it is worth more than the fear of a Bush planet can buy.
Bijan Parsia is the scourge of slacker philosophy students at UNC
where he is a PhD candidate in philosophy. An avid computer
programmer, Bijan writes for The
Monkeyfist Collective on issues of politics, identity, and
liberation.