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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat have Nader, Stein and the Green's accomplished,
aside from helping to elect W and Trump?
For all of their complaining, all of their incessant outrage, have they accomplished anything aside from the above?
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applegrove
(118,501 posts)bring up important issues and Nader did great stuff outside of running for office.
Chevy
(1,063 posts)leader is that says alot.
applegrove
(118,501 posts)Chevy
(1,063 posts)hell even Russia's Greens have more in common with Canada's Greens.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That government is pledged to a transformational program.
If the program is carried out, it will be the most progressive provincial government in Canadian history.
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)Fuck him and all Green traitors.
JI7
(89,241 posts)so i guess they can say they have more wins.
NYResister
(164 posts)I agree.
The idea that this 3rd party's GOAL was to assist the Republican defeat of the Democratic party is just dumb. Maybe they were unwilling patsies ? I could see that perhaps... but their GOAL ? Thats just nonsense. The desire here to absolve any and all Democrats from any blame for their losses is what will guarantee our future fate. Democrats used to be the smart ones.
Oh, and as another poster said, "welcome back!" 
NYResister
(164 posts)And thanks for the welcome?
SunSeeker
(51,522 posts)Winning!
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)enabled Bush II's Presidency, Nader actually accomplished a LOT in the field of consumer reform and we ALL owe him for that.
Stein is a fraud in just about every way. The US Greens are in much too "with-us-or-against-us" mode and helped to contribute to defeats for both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, to the detriment of us all - and to the world.
One of these is not quite like the others.
I personally love the Greens in Switzerland. If I ever do opt for Swiss nationality (I am eligible), I would likely join the Green party here. At the Climate March in Geneva, I ended up inadvertently marching with the group and got to know some members personally. They are very committed people, yet not quite as hard-line as the Socialist Party, many of whose leaders I also admire. The Greens are a minority party though and generally align with the Socialists and others to form a strong coalition of the Left.
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)He is a fraud and a liar and gave us United, two wars, 9-11,Katrina deaths and an economic meltdown...he also influenced the 2004 election as did other Green traitors. Look at the 70's and 80's...when Democrats have to defend themselves from the right and the left, they lose important elections.
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The ills you cite are from the millennium.
It was more than "one fucking car."
You can have your opinion. I have my facts.
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)Bush.
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)I really don't care!
But - unlike Stein - he actually improved some things. Until 2000.
In 2000, he acted a LOT like a certain "Democratic" Presidential candidate did towards the Democratic Party in 2016.
Think about it.
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)He has no merit and is a spoiler no different than Kremlin Jill.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)You act as if Nader did absolutely nothing before running for President except write one chapter of "Unsafe at Any Speed". If ALL he had done was to write that one chapter about the Corvair, that would have been a worthwhile contribution. In fact, however, the book addressed many other safety issues about automobiles generally. Nader's book about auto safety was a best-seller in 1965. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was enacted in the United States in 1966. Do you think that was a coincidence?
If ALL Nader had done was his work on auto safety, that would have been a significant contribution. In reality, of course, he didn't spend the succeeding 30 years doing nothing but planning his presidential campaigns. He made major contributions on numerous other issues. In addition to his own advocacy, he played a key role in establishing other organizations, such as the Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen. He deserves some measure of the credit for everything those groups have done.
Apparently, you're so blinded by your anger at Nader's political races, in particular in 2000, that you can't concede the slightest bit of merit to him in any respect. My reaction is different. Before his Green Party foolishness, Nader was one of my heroes, and I stand by that assessment of the first part of his career. All the harm he did by running in 2000 made me think of "Ichabod", by John Greenleaf Whittier. It begins:
"So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!"
I feel much more sadness about Nader than about any of the subsequent Green Party nominees, none of whom had much glory to start with.
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)caused...it is well documented on this thread what Nader caused...He can burn in hell as far as I am concerned.
KTM
(1,823 posts)If "this thread" is all the documenataion you need, there is nothing any of the rest of us can say. Enjoy your two minutes hate.
NYResister
(164 posts)harm progress towards their own beliefs.
hunter
(38,304 posts)He found his niche and made his million$
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)You have your opinion. I have my facts.
hunter
(38,304 posts)because that would mean I've been possessed by the devil.
Don't ever call me a "consumer," them's fighting words. I am a human being. (Also some kind of Luddite and radical environmentalist...)
I bought a new car once when I was young, full of testosterone, and new to a career type job, but I won't make that mistake again. The automobile age was a terrible mistake and I was sort of hoping it would be over by now. Too bad peak oil didn't come true.
Both our family cars have salvage titles. Recycled! (Our kids hated that about me when they were still living at home, their parent's cars too embarrassing to drive...) My computers are diverted from the electronic waste stream and run Linux. My $7.00 a month cell phone similar. No cable, no satellite, no broadcast television. Local ISP, can talk personally to the guys in charge.
Maybe I should worry about meds... because all but one are generic and cheap. The expensive-in-the-U.S.A.-non-generic is Mexican, but so far, so good...
Nader has always been about protecting corporate U.S.A. from their own worst excesses, and even then he wasn't especially skilled at choosing targets. Had he not been a useful idiot to some big money he'd be a nobody.
Back in Nader's heyday I noticed too many of his cult followers voting for Reagan and I'll never forgive that. The Bush fiasco wasn't anything new to that group.
Fuck Nader.
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)you are not in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - that the GOP hates - because it contains the word "consumer?"
Whether we like the term or not, we are all consumers in one way or another, no matter how much we recycle, etc. Btw, I do. I have to confess, however, that my current vehicle, which I did buy new 15+ years ago because my former vehicle was totaled while quietly behaving itself in a parking place and the insurance paid for replacement value, has never caused me a problem. That vehicle will continue to serve me until it falls apart, which it is currently in no danger of doing, or otherwise becomes unusable.
If I outlast it, I will not buy another. As a retiree, I can adequately manage most needs with public transportation options, of which fortunately I have plenty because I live in a country that believes in accessible, affordable and efficient public transportation. Already, I use public transportation most of the time.
The only time I really need a vehicle is when I need to schlep visitors around and that can be managed with short-term rentals, should my current vehicle poop out.
hunter
(38,304 posts)... patting themselves on the back, claiming they are somehow "saving" the world.
It's lipstick on a pig, just as solar panels on a 4,000 square foot house on some mini-ranch twenty miles from town with a 4wd flex-fuel "green" SUV in the driveway is lipstick on a pig.
If all the world's people lived as affluent U.S. Americans have, this world would already be dead.
This thing we call "economic productivity" is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to what's left of earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.
We ought to be paying people to experiment with lifestyles that have a very low environmental footprint. We ought to be figuring out how to shrink the economy without harming those already struggling to survive each day. We ought to be taxing the uber-wealthy out of existence.
Years ago I'd make myself unwelcome at the Sierra Club with similar arguments. If you are buying "green" automobiles and flying about the world, hiking the Himalayas and such, then you are part of the problem and it doesn't matter how much greenwash you apply.
I won't pretend, as an on-and-off-again affluent person, that I haven't used up far more than my fair share of the world's resources. I recognize my hypocrisy and I don't try to make up for my environmental trespasses with "green" bling. That would be no different than the Christian-with-the-fish-on-their-car who trespasses against others six days a week, behaving as if the slate is wiped clean at church every Sunday, Jesus forgiving them.
In spite of my personal political views, my voting is entirely practical. I was an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton. I think a disturbing level of Bernie Sanders' support, and the election no-shows, arose from sexist people intimidated by strong women. Just as the "colorblind" all-lives-matter crowd is unable to acknowledge and examine their own racism, there's a women-are-equal crowd unable to examine their own sexism.
In any case, "consumer" activism is perfectly compatible with reasonable Republican or Libertarian ideology. It's good for business. The insurance industry approves of five mile-per-hour bumpers, steering shafts that don't impale drivers in accidents, seat belts, and airbags. The fact that today's Republican party is a sack full of grifters, racists, organized criminals, brain dead religious cultists, and rabid weasels doesn't change that.
BlueMTexpat
(15,365 posts)I believe that we agree on far more than we disagree on, parsing of individual words aside! Hang in there! 
ashtonelijah
(340 posts)Keep in mind, I don't care about moral victories. I care about the actual effects and impact politicians have. I don't care about how "principled" and "clear conscienced" they feel.
1. They have ensured the undemocratic election of two popular vote losers – both Republican.
2. Democrats have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 elections. But thanks to the Green Party, Democrats have only been elected president in 4 of those elections.
3. They have made what would be a 6-3 liberal Supreme Court majority a 5-4 Republican majority. permanence of a right wing Supreme Court. Neither John Roberts, nor Samuel Alito, nor Niel Gorsuch would be on the court today if not for the elections the Supreme Court threw.
4. In fact, they're probably responsible for the only one of the 7 elections where Democrats lost the popular vote – if Bush hadn't become president in 2000, Gore probably would've been re-elected in 2004.
5. Which means the Green Party probably ensured not only a right wing SCOTUS majority, but a right wing Supreme Court Chief Justice.
6. The Greens ensured a President Al Gore would've never had the chance to do what Bush didn't – pay attention to intel that could've helped avert 9/11.
7. Because not only did the Greens ensure W's election, they ensured Dick Cheney as Vice President and Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, ensuring the Iraq War and the loss of thousands of Americans and half a million Iraqi lives.
8. And thanks to them, we have unConstitutional detention centers like Gitmo.
9. We can thank them for the death of the Kyoto Protocool.
10. Also for America's withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. Because they're so green.
11. Oh, and we can thank them for the botched response to Katrina.
12. We can also thank them for the election of Trump.
13. And the decline of U.S. power.
14. And the Muslim ban.
15. And the end of any hope that marijuana would be reclassified and we'd move towards decriminalization and national acceptance of medicinal marijuana.
16. And for the fact that LGBT people now live in fear of losing all the rights they've fought so hard for.
17. And for the fact that mass incarceration, the drug war, and police killings are now being enabled more than ever.
18. And for the fact that women must live in fear of losing their rights and autonomy as sexual predators and religious extremists alike are emboldened.
19. And for the fact that our libraries could be decimated.
20. And for the fact that healthcare access for the poor and disabled and elderly could be decimated even as costs go up for all of us as quality declines.
21. And for the fact that white supremacists and Neo Nazis have found a new lease on life.
I can go on all day. If you were actively working against Gore or Hillary's elections, you are complicit all day long and responsible for the right wing fallout.
VOX
(22,976 posts)You should post more often.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)make this reply a full blown OP, it deserves it!
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)I also agree that this should be an OP. Well done
irisblue
(32,932 posts)Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)
Docreed2003
(16,850 posts)NYResister
(164 posts)I would also love to see this post as an OP.
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)That sums it up very well. And I join the cry to make this post an OP.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)
betsuni
(25,380 posts)Thank you.
KTM
(1,823 posts)You can blame Nader on Gore's loss all day long, but in the end you will still be wrong. 200,000 registered Democrats voted for Bush in Florida... but you, like many here, cannot *ever* accept the fact that the loss was on us. It was no fault of Hillary's or Kerry's either. Sleep well in that mask.
So tell me, Mr. Nader voting person, how is helping to elect Republicans in your best interest?
I honestly want to understand this point of view. It makes absolutely no sense to me, but you seem to have a stake to claim in this, so please, I'm listening.
YCHDT
(962 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)RandiFan1290
(6,221 posts) KTM
(1,823 posts)Was this 143 post poster gone ? lol...
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)8 years of a democrat and people forgot how bad the GOP actually is
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)voters leading the way.
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)Romney...it was touch and go.
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)If Sanders had primaried President Obama in 2012, we could have had a President Romney
Demsrule86
(68,473 posts)in a debate. Read below...and consider that the Pugs had the house...and the president could get nothing done...but it was his fault...don't you know.
"July 22, 2011 Thom Hartmann Radio Program: "I think one of the reasons that the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him, and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. … At this point, I have not (encouraged anyone), but I am now giving thought to it. There are a lot of smart, honest, progressive people who I think can be good presidents."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/10/martin-omalley/fact-checking-martin-omalleys-claim-bernie-sanders/
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)With her fraud of a recount. In the eyes of many she verified the accuracy of the election. Her own words went above and beyond what was actually happening with the recount. True fraud who did lasting damage.
Docreed2003
(16,850 posts)Given her Russian proclivities, I think that was EXACTLY her motivation for the "recounts"...plus a healthy does of grifting!
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)
quickesst
(6,280 posts)..... but in 2016 at least, it established the fact that NOT MY PRESIDENT garnered approximately 1,200,000 more votes than was actually counted.
To quote AMÉE LATOUR Nov 9 2016....
"It was, overall, a good year for Stein and the Green Party. Just not for, you know, America."
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)In addition, nader gave us the Iraq war
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)Heck, we just had a candidate who voted for the war.
G_j
(40,366 posts)such as this accomplished?
pirateshipdude
(967 posts)is only about the destruction of the Democratic Party, getting us Republican representatives.
G_j
(40,366 posts)the education this provides also.
pirateshipdude
(967 posts)saw the movie. I have the dvd. I was disappointed in the movie. I was very excited to watch and see the take down of Bush, but it was light, highlighting on more the bit of outrageous, and ignoring the more in depth gray of the whole issue and what went down.
Intellectually, I had an higher expectation of Moore and was disappointed what he presented to us, to truly educate.
G_j
(40,366 posts)which is pretty much forgotten, while Nader 's role
in the election is endlessness rehashed.
Fix The Stupid
(947 posts)pirateshipdude
(967 posts)NYResister
(164 posts)against voter suppression. Obviously voter suppression harms our elections.
But Nader votes in Florida and New Hampshire harmed as well. New Hampshire alone would have given Gore the electoral votes needed.
G_j
(40,366 posts)turning back the clock on civil rights should be considered
a very serious matter, it was in fact criminal.
NYResister
(164 posts)
lapucelle
(18,190 posts)understand that our institutions are more important than any single candidate or party and will fall on their swords to preserve the better interest.
Al Gore understood that in 2000.
Barack Obama understood that last fall.
I believe that Hillary Clinton understands it as well.
Maybe the senators were acting from the same motive. I like to think that they let the House powerfully make the point about the stolen votes and then fell on their swords by remaining silent to preserve the integrity of the office and the peaceful transition of power.
G_j
(40,366 posts)seemed to lack the statesmanship and courage you mention.
lapucelle
(18,190 posts)And I hope you're not doing it deliberately.
I'd like to think that it was a strategy coordinated across both chambers. The CBC was the most powerful voice to make the point about the stolen votes. Had that move come from the Senate, it might have appeared to be motivated by partisan politics.
I could be wrong. It could have that no sitting senator had the courage to sign on, but I don't think so. Gore seemed too well-prepped for the moment. He knew it was coming.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest that call for social justice by the CBC was not statesmen-like and courageous. It was and remains one of the most powerful moments in congressional history.
G_j
(40,366 posts)though that remains a theory I don't really ascribe to.
I agree on the powerful significance of the moment, and there is no denying the sadness experienced watching it again.
lapucelle
(18,190 posts)Al Gore on the death of Ted Kennedy:
"He was a true giant. He was a warm, funny, thoughtful, and generous friend and he was the most effective member of the United States Senate with whom I served. In the grief that Tipper and I share with so many, we know that the legacy of his brilliant work will carry on for decades to come. Ted was a champion for those Americans who had no voice...and they could have had no greater friend in the Senate."
Kennedy was an early supporter of Gore's presidential candidacy and supported him in the court fight after the election.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gore-gets-kennedy-backing/
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/09/us/contesting-vote-vice-president-miraculous-revival-brings-elation-but-no-rest-for.html
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)Rove funded Nader in 2000 and 2004 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065.html
Furthermore, Karl Rove and the Republican Party knew this, and so they nurtured and crucially assisted Nader’s campaigns, both in 2000 and in 2004. On 27 October 2000, the AP’s Laura Meckler headlined “GOP Group To Air Pro-Nader TV Ads.” She opened: “Hoping to boost Ralph Nader in states where he is threatening to hurt Al Gore, a Republican group is launching TV ads featuring Nader attacking the vice president [Mr. Gore]. ... ‘Al Gore is suffering from election year delusion if he thinks his record on the environment is anything to be proud of,’ Nader says [in the commercial]. An announcer interjects: ‘What’s Al Gore’s real record?’ Nader says: ‘Eight years of principles betrayed and promises broken.’” Meckler’s report continued: “A spokeswoman for the Green Party nominee said that his campaign had no control over what other organizations do with Nader’s speeches.” Bush’s people - the group sponsoring this particular ad happened to be the Republican Leadership Council - knew exactly what they were doing, even though the liberal suckers who voted so carelessly for Ralph Nader obviously did not. Anyone who drives a car the way those liberal fools voted, faces charges of criminal negligence, at the very least. But this time, the entire nation crashed as a result; not merely a single car.....
On July 9th, the San Francisco Chronicle headlined “GOP Doners Funding Nader: Bush Supporters Give Independent’s Bid a Financial Lift,” and reported that the Nader campaign “has received a recent windfall of contributions from deep-pocketed Republicans with a history of big contributions to the party,” according to “an analysis of federal records.” Perhaps these contributors were Ambassador Egan’s other friends. Mr. Egan’s wife was now listed among the Nader contributors. Another listed was “Nijad Fares, a Houston businessman, who donated $200,000 to the Bush inaugural committee and who donated $2,000 each to the Nader effort and the Bush campaign this year.” Furthermore, Ari Berman reported 7 October 2004 at the Nation, under “Swift Boat Veterans for Nader,” that some major right-wing funders of a Republican smear campaign against Senator John Kerry’s Vietnam service contributed also $13,500 to the Nader campaign, and that “the Republican Party of Michigan gathered ninety percent of Nader’s signatures in their state” (90%!) to place Nader on the ballot so Bush could win that swing state’s 17 electoral votes. Clearly, the word had gone out to Bush’s big contributors: Help Ralphie boy! In fact, on 15 September 2005, John DiStaso of the Manchester Union-Leader, reported that, “A year ago, as the Presidential general election campaign raged in battleground state New Hampshire, consumer advocate Ralph Nader found his way onto the ballot, with the help of veteran Republican strategist David Carney and the Carney-owned Norway Hill Associates consulting firm.”
It was obvious, based upon the 2000 election results, that a dollar contributed to Nader in the 2004 contest would probably be a more effective way to achieve a Bush win against Kerry in the U.S. Presidential election than were perhaps even ten dollars contributed to Bush. This was a way of peeling crucial votes off from Bush’s real opponent - votes that otherwise would have gone to the Democrat. That’s why the smartest Republican money in the 2004 Presidential election was actually going to Nader, even more so than to Bush himself: these indirect Bush contributions provided by far the biggest bang for the right-wing buck.
liberal N proud
(60,332 posts)HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)I don't get all this ranting and raving about people who don't vote for the two party system.
It's their right, they don't define their liberalism the way we do. They aren't Democrats, stop acting like democratic candidates are entitled to their vote.
Get over it and let's focus on ourselves. The Democrats should be able to beat Trump with Democrats... if we can't, we are in trouble.
NYResister
(164 posts)But many are demanding that we somehow cater to them.
They helped elect Trump.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)People vote their conscience, the two party system is not written in stone.
NYResister
(164 posts)Everyone knew the dangerous risk of electing Trump. Everyone knew the harm it could bring. Everyone should have had that on their conscience.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Were not going to shame or guilt them into voting democratic. We need to look at anything and everything that will break this Republican hegemony, including our platform. I just don't see that as "catering" to them, I see that as winning over sufficient voters necessary to govern. All this damning of Greens and whoever else who didn't vote Trump or Clinton is just whining.
BzaDem
(11,142 posts)This is despite an arguably less progressive candidate, who actually voted for the Iraq war. Education of voters about Nader's pro-GOP goals is not only effective but essential.
Freddie
(9,257 posts)I don't see the chance of having runoff voting or a more parliamentary system here. Until we have one of those things, we are stuck with a 2-party system. Voting 3rd party does not help abolish the 2-party system, it only throws the election. See also 2000 and 2016.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)their conscience will do to him.
=====================
A tweet from a New Jersey mom put a very young face on the fight over the Senate health care bill.
Ali Chandra shared this photo of a $231,000 medical bill for her 2-year-old son, Ethan, for a 10-day stay. It was re-tweeted more than 57,000 times. Chandra was surprised to see how much their story was resonating with others.
Her goal was simple: put the health care debate into perspective by reminding politicians in Washington that their decision affects real people -- children like her son. Ethan was born with nine congenital heart defects and his organs in the wrong place. He had his first heart surgery at just six days old.
"Five surgeries, two heart catheterizations, another diagnostic procedure under anesthesia… He doesn't know any other life," Chandra
said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mom-who-shared-sons-hospital-bill-gop-health-care-bill-obamacare/
===========================
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)So this is ALL the independent's fault...
They bear no more responsibility than do the non-voters, the Trump voters or the Russians...
People need to get over this obsession with independents.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)and the consequences of having trump in the WH is "scapegoating".
You brought up people voting "their conscience" How would this story affect them? Do you think anyone in this situation would vote "their conscience"?
Don't you think that those who vote "their conscience" do so because they have the luxury that election results will not affect them -just like Nader, Stain Sarandon?
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Such a sense of entitlement -- that, more than anything else, is why the Democratic party can't bring them into the fold. Most liberal independents feel Obama didn't push hard enough for universal healthcare and now they are be told to swallow their beliefs, vote Democrat and forget ever hoping for a change that isn't approved by the Democrats.
I would have preferred they voted for Clinton, but I'm not going to blame them for exercising their franchise. I'm going to blame those too lazy to vote, and those who actually voted for the nightmare.
Focusing on the independents is a mistake - they have nothing to do with the across-the-board losses we are experiencing.
NYResister
(164 posts)What is wrong with wishy-washy independents?
Do they get it, or not?
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)A vote for Nader was a vote for Bush
Voltaire2
(12,965 posts)Johnson received approximately 3x the votes of Stein.
We should therefore applaud and promote rightwing libertarians. Or something.
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)Voltaire2
(12,965 posts)Johnson was pulling potential Trump voters on the right just as Stein was pulling potential Clinton voters on the left.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)was a vote for Bush since Nader didn't win...
I mean the fallacy of your argument is that you are assuming all the independent voters would have voted for the Democratic Candidate. I suspect, since most of them don't agree with the two party system, they may not have voted at all. That would put them in the same category as all the other citizens who don't vote, and where's the outrage against them?
I think there is a degree of scapegoating here...
Gothmog
(144,945 posts)Nader was being paid by Karl Rove to help Bush win
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Some people can *never* admit that our loss was our fault.
NYResister
(164 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Hardly anyone is.
A much larger group have simply argued that it was partly OUR party's fault that that Nader/Stein phenomenon happened-that it wasn't reasonable to expect all progressives to vote for our presidential ticket when in the times when it moved sharply to the right on policy.
That was always going to lose us the votes of a lot of people who believe politics is about working and voting for change. It couldn't NOT lose us those votes.
The only possible way to prevent that would have been for the party, after 1998 or so, to start letting the progressive wing back in from out in the cold again.
We could have said "we pretty much froze you out in '92 and '96, but that can change now. The country isn't as far to the right as it was then and there's space for more options".
The party could have said that, in exchange for progressive votes in 2000 that we would stop being as rigidly centrist after that. We could have said "this is temporary-we won't keep things this limited for the rest of eternity, and we recognize that we need you and your ideas in the future".
We could have committed to re-opening debate and discussion within the party after 2000-to restoring at least the kind of say that labor and rank and file activists had before 1989. We could have put Paul Wellstone in charge of the platform committee.
I agree that it would have been better if Gore had won in 2000. But it's as much our party's fault that he didn't as it is Nader-Nader(and the GOP people who funded him) could never have done what he did if our message in 2000 hadn't been "nothing will change-history is over".
We are now in 2017. If we don't want people on the left attacking the Democratic party from outside, the answer is to make it possible for as many of them them to work for change, to work for what they want, INSIDE this party and in a positive way-it's an exercise in futility to simply demand that they shut up and take whatever we give them.
We are a good party, but we are not an infallible party, and if we are under that kind of attack from people we might be able to make common ground with, we need to respond in some way other than just demanding that the attacks stop.
Some of the attacks go too far, but the larger points raised by the Green phenomenon are valid:
It the GOP is going to be a party of the rich, we at least need to be a party that says that what the rich want isn't more important than what the majority of people, the people who work for a living or want to, need.
If the GOP is going to be the party that backs stifling conformity, we should be the party that supports the right of everyone to be themselves and be accepted as themselves, so long as no one harms others in doing so.
If the GOP is going to be a party of war, there needs to be a party of peace for people to vote for against it-that doesn't mean being pacifist, but it does mean at least acknowledging that war should never be anything but an extreme last resort, that it should be avoided at all cost, and that even if a war is just in one short-term situation, it is also a tragedy and a failure when it comes to that.
NYResister
(164 posts)and that would have been voting for and electing the Democratic nominee who ran on the most progressive platform, ever.
Now it is crucial for us to retake the House and Senate. Attacking the party is not a very wise thing to do right now.
Other than that, you need to work for change on a local level. We do that quite effectively, where I live.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I spent a significant part of that time, when I wasn't going door to door for the ticket, pleading with people to our left to vote HRC on antifascist grounds.
I wish she had been elected.
And if you don't want the party "attacked", you should be working to engage the voters we need to win over for the future.
OPs that are the equivalent of shouting "Admit you were WRONG!" don't win people over.
This is why I keep calling for dialog.
We need to open up communications with people we could make common ground with, rather than just demand that they vote for us.
NYResister
(164 posts)needed someone to plead with them.
My Rep. is Paul Tonko
My State Senator is Neil Breslin
My Assemblyman is Phil Steck
Phil Steck was a Bernie Sanders supporter, and someone you might consider to be to your left. Obviously my area leans left, because our local state rep is left. Hillary Clinton won my area with over 75% of the vote. I didn't need to plead with anyone. Heck, I know republicans in my area who voted for Hillary. So who exactly are these left leaning people who didn't vote for the most progressive campaign platform ever?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)My belief is that what cost us those votes, more than anything, was this endless "you HAVE to vote for us!" hard sell pitch that was made, over and over.
Voters, especially young voters, don't respond well to a "you HAVE to!" message. They will be won over by a "here's what we have to offer" message. These are people whose party loyalties have not been established yet, who may not have long poliltical memories, who want to hear what we are FOR more than what the other party is terrible about.
I've outlined ways I thought would have been more effective at bringing the votes we didn't get to the polls. I don't want to repeat them I the thread, but if you pm me I'll go through them with you there.
And I don't like Stein or Nader or what they have done any more than you do. The point isn't to go after those people as individuals. It's to find a way to actively engage the people who vote for them on a positive level.
NYResister
(164 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)In that area, there wouldn't be anybody who was obsessed with making sure that the party "doesn't sound liberal, for God's sakes".
People had different experiences in different parts of the country.
NYResister
(164 posts)I thought your argument was that you had to plead with left leaning people.
Now you are saying that these "left leaning" people don't want to vote for a party that "sounds too liberal?"
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Your premise is faulty.
JI7
(89,241 posts)We view them as conservatives that want right wing policy
KTM
(1,823 posts)By "we" I mean "you."
BzaDem
(11,142 posts)NYResister
(164 posts)And again, NH alone could have won the electoral college.
Who are these people who pretend to align with us, yet vote against us?
still_one
(92,061 posts)adversely affected by what the republicans and the WH do.
The same cannot be said for others
NYResister
(164 posts)Thank you.
TEB
(12,827 posts)
Else You Are Mad
(3,040 posts)Is that us, as Democrats, assume that we should have won all liberal votes -- even from those that are not in the party. They do not owe us their vote. Rather, it is our job to convince them to vote for the Democratic party. The more we blame other liberals instead of trying to understand why they don't vote for Democrats the more we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Don't forget over 200,000 registered Democrats voted for Bush in Florida in 2000. That had nothing to do with the Green Party.
NYResister
(164 posts)If they were willing to risk a trump presidency, well, I will never understand that fucking logic.
There is nothing remotely liberal about allowing that to happen.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)
MFM008
(19,803 posts)True environmentalists would have had nothing to do with any of them.
NYResister
(164 posts)
