General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Yes, Nader cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. [View all]beerandjesus
(1,301 posts)And shame on the whole NDS crowd for their hatred of democracy.
Someone else said it in here already, but it bears repeating: The unstated premise of the OP is that the Democrat in the race is entitled to all left-of-center votes. Therefore, the Democrat has no responsibility to earn the votes of those left of center. Therefore, any left-of-center votes that do not go to the Democrat are "stolen".
That is not democracy. In a democracy, candidates have to earn votes. When the peasants follow their lord unconditionally, that's called feudalism.
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Now, let's talk about Nader for a minute, since the NDS crowd seems similarly to have no concept of what liberals believe. Nader is a life-long liberal, a hero to the left of the 1970s, and a hero to liberals today, even though well-meaning liberals may disagree over whether Nader was right to run in 2000 and 2004 (I'll admit to being conflicted over that, myself). The Democrats moved to the right under Carter's presidency; they moved further to the right under Reagan; they moved even further to the right under Clinton, and showed no signs of moving back to the left in 2000. Far from espousing liberal causes, by the era of Clinton, Democrats demonstrated their "seriousness" by showering contempt on liberals at the same time as they took for granted liberals' support.
Nader did not move during that time, and ran to shine a light on how far away from their Democratic principles the party had strayed. Again, we can disagree over whether this was the right approach, but to pretend it was Nader's egomania and/or left-wing sanctimony is to completely absolve the Democratic party for having abandoned liberal causes almost entirely. Today, the Democratic party is, as Nader said, as beholden to Wall Street and the super-wealthy as the Republicans, and although Democrats are better on some issues, particularly around identity politics, the national Democrats are generally to the right of Republicans like Eisenhower or even Nixon.
All of us here are Democrats, but it's clear that some are liberals first and Democrats second. I do think there's room for all of us, but it's absolutely contemptible to pretend that liberals are somehow Republicans, and it's equally contemptible to pretend that Democrats have no responsibility to serve their supposed constituents--which is what the OP does.