too linear? I hope so
Dave accuses me (in the most constructive way possible) of thinking too linearly about responsibility and Nader. I'm sticking to my line, because it is precisely the line Nader (rightly) took when arguing against, e.g., car manufacturers.
Here's a familiar story about how the law tries to assign "responsibility": A guy forgot milk at the store. He gets into his Corvair to return to pick up the milk. It's raining. A girl scout troop is, at the same time, coming home in a bus from a meeting. The bus is 5 minutes late because one girl couldn't find her bag. The guy in the Corvair is driving up a curvy mountain road. The bus is coming down. A deer darts into the road. The guy skids and then swerves a bit to miss it. Because the steering column design in the Corvair is bad, the car goes out of control. Because the car is out of control, the bus swerves to avoid it. But the bus driver miscalculates, and the bus drives off the cliff. Thirty girls are killed.
Who's responsible? Because of course each fact I described might well have been a "but for" cause of tragedy. If the guy hadn't forgotten the milk, he wouldn't have been on the road in the first place. If the girl hadn't lost her bag, the bus wouldn't have been where it was when the guy swerved. If the deer hadn't crossed the road, the guy wouldn't have swerved. If the Corvair hadn't been badly designed, it wouldn't have gone out of control when the guy swerved.
Thus, "responsibility" can't mean "but for" causation, because there are many things that happen together that had they been different, the accident would not have occurred. Instead, "responsibility" is placed upon the person in the best, or cheapest, position to avoid a foreseeable harm.
So, plainly, the rain and the deer are not responsible. We place "responsibility" on things with agency so that they behave differently in the future. Rain and deer have no agency. And while guy shouldn't have forgotten the milk, and the girl shouldn't have lost her bag, that's not the sort of thing that would, systematically, increase the risk of a car accident. And while a bus driver trained as a race car driver might have been able to avoid the swerving car, it would cost a great deal of money to train all drivers as race car drivers.
So those actors may have "caused" the accident, but we don't assign to them the "responsibility." Instead, as Nader-types (and I'm wildly one of these), we place the responsibility on the one actor whose behavior produced a foreseeable risk, and who could have avoided that risk at a reasonable cost: the car manufacturer. A better design would have avoided the famous flipper of that car. It would have increased the cost of the car a bit, perhaps; but that increase would have been the cheapest way to avoid accidents just like this.
And what is the car manufacturer responsible for? Well, all the damage caused by its negligence. Does that mean that the car manufacturer intended to kill a bus load of kids? Of course not. What it means is that the party responsible is responsible for a large portion (at least) of the harm would not otherwise have occurred had he not behaved negligently.
The same analysis applies to Nader (as he has rightly applied it to car manufacturers since the beginning of his time): Lots of things "caused" the election of Bush. But of all the things, in my view, there is one that this man should take responsibility for: On the weekend before the election, it was absolutely clear that Nader (1) was not going to win, and (2) but was doing well enough to tip the election to Bush. At that point, it would have been a simple thing for him announce: "I have made my point, I have run my race. The best has not prevailed. But let's not make the best the enemy of the good. I withdraw from this race, and ask my followers to vote for the remaining candidate of their choice."
That would have been an easy thing for Nader to do. It would have cost him nothing but would have gained the nation a great deal. He chose, however, not to do this, knowing the risks, but ignoring them. And the consequence was that George Bush is president.
So now we ask, what things have we suffered that would probably not have happened had Bush not been elected. The list is endless, but I do think there would have been zero chance that we would be at war in Iraq had Bush not been the president.
Nader didn't intend the war. Nor did he intend the endless list of other awful things that have happened because Bush is the president and not Gore. But if a car manufacturer must take responsibility for a girl scout troop lost because of its negligence, then there's a great deal Mr. Nader needs to take responsibility for because if his own behavior. And at the very least, he needs to take responsibility by not creating the very same risk again.
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Comments (47)
"We place “responsibility” on things with agency so that they behave differently in the future. "
In this case the things with agency are the voters. Not the candidates. And the voters now knowing the cost will behave differently in the future.
I know the Nader people protest this. They didn't give the election to bush. It was Gore's fault. etc. etc. But in the end the majority of them will pull the lever for Kerry or whoever the democrats nominate.
An unintended consequence of all this is that a significant portion of the liberal electorate will never vote Green.
There are indications that this was s significant portion of the margin in the SF mayor's race.
So now we have Willie Brown's puppet in there.
F*** You Ralph.
I should have known better than to argue with a lawyer, for pleasure. ;->
But I'm a fool, so...
Doesn't the law care who is *most* responsible? Surely nominating a candidate who couldn't beat Bush even with a three percent tax, if that's what Nader was, must bear some responsibility? (Even though some Nader voters surely would have voted Republican.)
And perhaps if Nader declares before the Dems have chosen their candidate (still true, no matter what the pundits say), maybe there will be time to adjust.
The damage hasn't been done yet, so don't wheel out the legal machinery. The guy hasn't gone out for the milk, and the bus is still on the road. Call the driver on the cell phone and let him know what's coming.
I don't know that much about american politics, but wouldn't a system more pluralistic help out here?
I mean, if the system is builded so that people have to behave so strategicly when voting, instead of according to their belief, isin't the election system in fault here, more than Nader and voter?
"It would have cost him nothing" -- not true. Nader may well have plausibly thought that dropping out would cost him millions in Federal matching funds, and thus an opportunity to change America for real. I think then, and even now, a reasonable person could say that such a chance was worth the cost of Bush's presidency.
Mr. Lessig,
Granting your point, what do you think the future holds for copyright and freedom of information under a Kerry administration? Given the public statements he has made so far?
Cranky
Aaron is wrong (and I speak as someone who foolishly voted for Nader).
It was clear that Nader was not going to get the 5% that the Greens needed for matching funds. Furthermore, the experience of the Reform Party shows that even receiving matching funds would be no help to the Greens. The US election system is stacked against third parties, and reforms since Watergate have institutionalized which parties are allowed (for example, the FEC board is 3 Republicans, 3 Democrats).
If you read Michael Moore's account of Nader's behavior at the end of the race, you get a sense of how much hubris the man has. He refused to make a deal with Gore, and he explicitly campaigned in extremely close swing states, like Florida. He did not care if Gore won or lost.
The last three years has demonstrated the folly of Nader's argument that there was no difference between the parties. Despite what Aaron writes about Bush not being that all that bad, the Republicans have put into place a plan to secure their party's rule for a generation. Bush's re-election will allow them to fully execute the plan. It must be stopped.
If Nader and the Greens really wanted to change America, they would work with the Democrats to elect progressive politicians and reform our government. Some of them complain that it can't be done. BS. The Christian Right took control of a major portion of the Republican Party in the last 30 years. Parties ARE who shows up. If the Greens would show up in the Democratic Party, they would BE the Democratic Party.
RE: Copyright policy
I won't speak for Lessig on this. But I take the view similar to what Paul Krugman does with trade.
Krugman says reasonable people can have disagreements about international trade. Free trade versus fair trade, international labor and environmental standards, service sector outsourcing. These are all subjects that can and should be debated in America.
But right now, we are not ruled by reasonable people.
Step one is to put the grown ups back in charge.
It just so happens that Kerry has a crappy maximalist position on copyright. But I believe his administration would be filled with reasonable people, not radicals.
Read Krugman's argument in this interview he did with the LiberalOasis blog.
There are two likely and important differences between the car manufacturer of the parable and Nader. The car manufacturer may realize that bad things might happen as a result of their actions, but they deny it to themsleves and hope for the best. In any case, they certainly don't intend any bad results of any kind, whether specific or generic.
Nader, on the other hand, not only knew good and well that bad things would happen if the Republicans won the presidency (first difference), he actually ~intended~ that outcome (second difference). Of course, he didn't know exactly what they were, but he knew and welcomed that the Republicans would do bad things to the country. If anything, the surprise was ~how~ bad those events could be, like really wrecking the nation's future economy and dragging it into a stupid war which also worsens the economy, not to mention ultimately ~decreasing~ the US's power to influence the course of world events.
Yes, there were certainly a lot of reasons why Nader ran. But it seems likely that among them was a hope that a Republican administration would further polarize the country by outrageous actions, thus radicalizing more voters and driving them toward him and the Greens.
The "beauty" (a stark and terrible beauty, of course) was that goal dovetailed nicely with Nader's other goal, not to win the presidency -- a clear impossibility -- but to build a radical movement in the US. Thus the two-pronged strategy -- provoke the old order to destroy itself through mistakes while building the new order.
" At that point, it would have been a simple thing for him announce: "I have made my point, I have run my race. The best has not prevailed. But let's not make the best the enemy of the good. I withdraw from this race, and ask my followers to vote for the remaining candidate of their choice." "
All of us that voted for President Bush could care less that Ralph Nader was in or out of the last race. We voted for Bush because we think he is the best man for the job. So far I'm not disappointed.
All voters should vote for whoever they like. Don't blame candidates for losing because someone else ran, that's silly. That's like saying Dean couldn't win because Al Sharpton ran, or Edwards ran, or Kelly ran. That's all BS. The majority of primary voters decided "anyone but Dean" all on their own.
Think back to the landslides of the past. Johnson won big-time in 1964, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980 an 1984. They won because the majority of electoral votes went their way, not because another candidate snuffed out the competition.
I'm glad Ralph Nader runs for President. He holds views that the other parties don't. There are Americans that want him as their President. They don't care that you want a different person to win. He didn't run on the Democratic Party ticket so give him a break. It just shows that not everybody wants the same person as President, nothing more or less.
Sometimes I think you Democrats have lost more than perspective. That's why your party doesn't win the big ones anymore.
Yeah, I'm voting for President Bush. I hope he wins in a landslide that increases Republican representation in every office contested.
Don
Sorry... one footnote to the prior comment that Nader "did not care if Gore won or lost."
Actually, Nader did care. He preferred that Gore ~lose~ and the Republicans win. That follows directly from my argument that Nader was really out to drive people into a radical movement.
So, bottom line is that it does not take a legalistic argument to establish Nader's culpability. Sorry, Larry and the other lawerly folk hereabouts... we don't need to hire an attorney to propound llegal doctrines on this one. The guilt is in plain and intentional sight... first-degree, pre-meditated murder of a nation!
And that's also why Nader probably won't run again. Apart from having fooled us once, so we won't be fooled twice, he will only run if he thinks the Democratic candidate has a chance.
Nah... While everybody wants steering wheels not to malfunction, not everybody considers that Bush winning over Gore is any better than Gore winning over Bush. Go ask Nader... he (an me!) thought both results were about the same (remember this is pre Iraq war), I still don't think there is much difference between them...
One other factor is that I'm sure most people had no idea how much of a disaster for the country Bush turned out to be. Not because he is such a bad person but because the team he installed is so idealogically rigid in a way that totally belied Bush's "compassionate conservative" promise. This team is neither compassionate nor conservative in any traditional sense.
If America had realized ahead of time how much damage Bush & crew would do to the constitution and the country, the electorate would have shown up in droves to vote against the man.
So back when people were repeating the meme that Bush and Gore were two sides of the same coin, they had no idea how wrong that would turn out to be. I'm saying this as someone who could not support Gore back in 2000 for various views he had on tech and privacy issues. But knowing then what I know now? I would have voted for Gore, Nader, the mailman down the street, a baboon, anyone or anything but Bush. Now that the country has seen the damage done, I don't think Nader will cause too much damage this time. America will do whatever it takes to take this country back from the idealogues in Washington. Well, maybe not the Red states, but the clear majority of America anyway.
A couple of points on the Corvair and Nader's attack on it.
There was nothing wrong with the steering column of the Corvair. There was an early problem with the suspension of it, but that was addressed in later models. The biggest problem was with drivers that didn't know how to drive it. It was a different car than most made at the time.
Later, after GM discontinued the Corvair, the NHTSA said that the Corvair was in fact safe, the only automobile they have ever said that about.
Next, Nader didn't have a drivers license at the time, and I don't think that he does yet. How can someone without a drivers license decide which car I can drive, much less know how to run the country that is based on the automobile?
How many times do the Greens need to compromise with the Democratic Candidate to prevent a Repulican from being elected.
I can't fault your logic or deny that Nader bears responsibility but it looks to me that the Greens feel that Democratic party no longer represents their interests.
And rightly so as since the early 90's the Democratic leader have been trying to steer the party back to the middle to forestall a Republican Majority.
I am a Libertarian myself and I can't help but notice that with the collapse of the mid 20th century Democratic coalition that things has been in flux. It bad that Liberals feel betrayed by the Greens but I think that the power and ideals of the traditional Liberal has waned. There are new issues now and new groups that revolve around them.
If anything we will see more of this as people realize that with the internet they can find others of like interest and forge not only new groups but new alliances and compromises to get a large group elected. In the past you need a lot of money to do some printing and have the lists of addresses and staff to mail stuff out too.
I am not sure what the futures hold but it will be interesting.
How many times do the Greens need to compromise with the Democratic Candidate to prevent a Repulican from being elected.
I can't fault your logic or deny that Nader bears responsibility but it looks to me that the Greens feel that Democratic party no longer represents their interests.
And rightly so as since the early 90's the Democratic leader have been trying to steer the party back to the middle to forestall a Republican Majority.
I am a Libertarian myself and I can't help but notice that with the collapse of the mid 20th century Democratic coalition that things has been in flux. It bad that Liberals feel betrayed by the Greens but I think that the power and ideals of the traditional Liberal has waned. There are new issues now and new groups that revolve around them.
If anything we will see more of this as people realize that with the internet they can find others of like interest and forge not only new groups but new alliances and compromises to get a large group elected. In the past you need a lot of money to do some printing and have the lists of addresses and staff to mail stuff out too.
I am not sure what the futures hold but it will be interesting.
Nate, nobody knows how Gore would have reacted to 9/11, not even Gore. This isn't the kind of question that one can answer until they are actually put in the situation. It is neither productive (simply because Gore is not president) nor does it help us understand what we do know (about the differences between the Democrats and Republicans on the issues) to get lost on this. In 2000, we know that Gore and Bush agreed on many issues--so many, in fact, that during the so-called CPD "debate" the moderator had to ask the two if they wanted to distinguish themselves from one another.
I still don't think the Democrats are going to change without a challenge ("Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."--Frederick Douglass) and in recent years the Greens are in the best position to implement that challenge. I don't think the Greens are uniquely qualified to challenge the Democrats, but right now they have the best odds of doing it. I'm disappointed that the Democrats did not call for a federal investigation into how those Floridians voting rights were subverted in 2000 (Greg Palast, investigative reporter, seems to have done the best job on figuring this out). I'm still disappointed that the Democrats apparently care little about these same voters today (who, if they can't vote in 2004, will have been denied their voting rights in three elections). If the Democrats cared more about this democracy-busting issue, Katherine Harris might be in prison instead of in Congress right now. On another significant national issue, campaign finance, the Democrats disappoint again. If the Democrats want to challenge the corporately funded campaign system, their candidates should stop taking corporate bribes. Once the Democratic party nominee is named (and the pressure is unquestionably on to go up against the most highly funded campaign in US history), we'll see how much that candidate is willing to challenge a corrupt campaign financing system.
Locally, in my home state of Illinois, the Democrats are a mess. In my congressional district, Democrats complain about how the local Greens are "spoilers". Meanwhile, Democrats hold enough power statewide to get some kind of ranked voting system in place (like instant run-off voting) but they refuse to do it. Clinton-Gore was in power for 8 years and, for a while, Democrats controlled Congress. They could have put in a nationwide ranked voting system of some kind, thus removing the whole "spoiler" factor. This behavior tells me more about what the Democrats really believe than any stump speech.
Coming back to the main topic of this blog, copyright law, it can't be repeated enough that the Democrats and the Republicans both supported the DMCA, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and a needless extension of the term of Copyright (the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act). Clinton, a Democratic party president, signed these three bills into law, with no apparent objection from then Vice President Gore. Today, the Democrats continue to disappoint on an issue relevant to this blog--very few Democrats are co-sponsoring HR 2601, the Public Domain Enhancement Act. I thank those Congressional representatives that chose to co-sponsor this bill. A notable absence from the short list of co-sponsors: Dennis Kucinich.
Sorry, Professor Lessig, I am unconvinced.
Nader won enough votes to swing the election in only two states: Florida and New Hampshire. Florida was "lost"--according to the official count, at least--by a margin so slim that *every* third-party candidate could be held culpable, if you were so inclined. But none of them were anywhere *near* as responsible for the outcome as the five members of the Supreme Court who prevented a full count from taking place, or those who deliberately disenfranchised thousands of black and hispanic voters. Heck, one improperly-designed ballot in one county cost Gore tens of thousands of votes. And in spite of everything, the media recount found that he *still* had more votes in Florida than George Bush.
How can you hold Ralph Nader responsible for that insane string of events?
There is no way to know that if Nader had pulled out of the race, all or even most of his supporters in those two states would have voted for any candidate, or (if they voted) that they would have voted for Al Gore. But we do know that Al Gore would have won if everyone had been allowed to vote, if the "butterfly ballot" problems had been caught in time, or if the republicans, with able assistance from the Rehnquist 5, had not fought tooth and nail to prevent the votes from being counted.
All that said, I agree it would be a stupid mistake for Nader to attempt another run for the presidency, either as a green or an independent. But angry at him? Let's not be silly.
I could not agree more with Lessing's view about Nader withdrawing in the final weekend and freeing his voters to vote their consciences. That moment was one of those great historical moments where a person has the chance to rise above the hurly-burly and nastiness of conventional politics, and show that human beings are capable of transcending their selfish personal interests. Nader failed.
It is easy for well-to-do radicals to embrace the argument that Bush's victory brings us closer to a real revolution, the old "let's make things worse, so they can get better" argument. In my experience, the people making this argument are never those who have to pay the terrible price of putting a reactionary government like Bush's in place, in terms of hunger, lack of health care, unsafe schools, etc.
The Democratic candidates for president in 2004 are heading toward another historical moment: when the nominee is known, will all the other candidates throw themselves unreservedly behind the nominee?
This question is especially relevant for Howard Dean. If he does not win the nomination, he would still be in position to transcend his campaign if he were to lead his followers into the campaign of the winner.
Reading the Dean blog, there are clearly many Dean supporters who are very unhappy. Dean has been praised for bringing new people into the political process. But what really matters is whether he can keep those people engaged in the political arena, no matter what happens to Dean's candidacy.
I agree with the notion that Nader should not run at this time. However, if the Democrats can't hold onto the grassroots that Dean has generated that will be their fault, not Nader's. Kerry, right now, is beating Dean on the latter's nominal home turf, such as among antiwar voters and college voters. That's due to the message Kerry is sending, which attracts those voters. If Kerry wins the nomination and then goes back to the right-of-center DNC "we're more Republican than the Republican" messages we heard from Clinton II and Gore I then he deserves to lose that support. If Nader isn't there to vote for, those disaffected voters will just stay home.
Now, as to culpability for past events, it is an error to focus solely on Florida. Gore didn't win his supposed "home" state of Tennessee, nor did he win Arkansas, even with Clinton campaigning heavily for him there. Had he won those, Florida would have been irrelevant. You can't possibly blame Nader for those losses. Sorry Prof. Lessig, but responsibility for Gore's loss has to sit squarely with Gore.
Nader had no way of knowing what his impact would be - and it's too simple to throw his votes into the Gore column and no responsible pollster would even consider doing that. After all, Nader might have actually *helped* Gore get more votes. How? It's reasonable to posit that Nader got a significant number of people interested in the race who otherwise might not have voted at all. A significant number of them might have waivered (or seen the closeness of the race) and voted for Gore in the booth. Without Nader, they might not have felt like voting at all. If Nader falsely believed that he would draw enough votes from Gore to make Gore lose, then Nader is morally culpable for bad intent, but not actually culpable for what really happened.
p.s. Hey Dave - I liked your attempt at legalisms! Why not raise the issue of "proximate cause"? Surely, a jury would see the proximate cause of the loss was Gore and not Nader, eh? :-)
Luke Francl wrote:
Reading between the lines, I take it you mean that whatever Democrat gets the nod will be (and appoint) the "grown ups" you refer to. Unless you're talking about Kucinich, I find that hard to believe. Both Democrats and Republicans like NAFTA, CAFTA, and the FTAA (in fact, the US got into NAFTA under Clinton-Gore with the Democrats controlling Congress). Democrats lost control of Congress in 2002 (with no third party scapegoat to blame) and yet they still back these so-called "free trade" agreements that effectively export jobs out of the country and (as visitors to this blog should know) impose US-style copyright and patent law across the globe. I don't see how most Democrats come out looking better than most Republicans on these trade agreements.
When it comes to Kerry, I would like to know exactly why I should believe that "his administration would be filled with reasonable people, not radicals" (which strikes me as a rather poorly worded way to express the point when one considers some of the things considered radical at one time or another--allowing women to vote, letting blacks lead a life in the US not as a slave, and paying women as much as men for doing the same work). I'm hoping that we can get off this emotional way of arguing and get on with examining specific issues by backing them up with voting record citations and campaign funding information.
Seems to me that the analysis all rests on the assumption that Nader's point was to win the election.
Maybe the point was actually to note that there is plenty wrong with a two-party system which tends to reduce the political choices to matters of window dressing. And given that Mr Nader apparently still hasn't convinced serious people about this, I can't see how withdrawing at the last minute would have been harmless.
Perhaps the long-term effect of non-Republicrat candidates in important races will be to make one or the other parties attempt to move a little bit from the meaningless positions that they claim they hold. Perhaps the threat of enough alternative political organisation will cause the mainline parties to act a little differently. Only by denying -- actually denying -- the Democrats power, possibly repeatedly, can the disaffected make their point. Otherwise, the Democrats might well decide that they can safely ignore those voters, on the grounds that they always deliver their vote in the end. I'd still like to believe that there is a point to using the ballot box to extract action from political institutions.
Repeating a comment I posted in the last discussion, because I believe it's just as relevant this go-around:
Many straws go into breaking a camel's back. And each individual straw can say:
"Who me? Wasn't me. I'm just one straw! What sort of a big strong camel is this, if he can't deal with one more straw on his back? The solution is to get a better camel!"
Media smears such as the Al Gore "invented the Internet" fabrication were one straw. ChoicePoint was another straw. And Ralph Nader was yet another straw.
In collective action, how do you allocate responsibility for the end result?
It's certainly true that *some* Nader voters wouldn't be Gore voters. But I think it strains credibility to argue that overall, Nader voters would prefer Bush over Gore!
What a TERRIBLE example this post is, Mr. Lessig. The story would be relevant if
a) Nader's campaign was criminally negligant (as was the defective steering column)
b) half of our country wanted the bus of girl scouts and their driver dead (as half our country wanted Gore to lose)
c) the votes for Bush were accidents (as were the "less responsible" conditions in your story: the rain, the tardy scouts, the forgotten milk)
Please don't insult your own good standing and intelligence with such childish posts as this. You do too much good for those of us without your power, seeing your reputation tarnished by ill-considered public postings like this saddens me because someone I have looked up to for a while is making himself sound like a third-rate Jr High debate club member.
If electing Bush is considered to be a foreseeable and preventable harm, then three conclusions follow: a) 50 million people knew there was a risk of harm, and deliberately attempted to cause that harm; b) 100 million more people knew there was a risk of harm, but stood by and did nothing; and c) 2 million others knew there was a risk of harm, but took the chance anyway. If we accept Professor Lessig's analogy, then all of these groups share culpability along with Nader.
But I don't think Nader would accept this analogy. I think Nader's position would be: Look, it doesn't matter whether the Corvair spins out of control, and it doesn't matter who wins the election, because the laws of physics still apply. Whether it's Bush, or whether it's Gore, the bus is still gonna drive off a cliff because nobody bothered to install any guardrails. And it's gonna keep driving off that cliff until we build some, because Bush and Gore aren't gonna do it for us. Stop letting buses go flying off of steep, slick, winding mountain roads and help me build some freakin' guardrails!
So what exactly did Gore offer Nader for withdrawing from the race?
Or do you and other Democrats who dispute the right of Nader to run and of his voters to vote for him expect to get their support for free?
Obviously that Constitution you got with the help of your French friends is broken in a way that works against minority parties. In a real democracy, people get real choices, even if they represent only under ten percent. And in a real democracy, that leads to coalition governments after a small party secures something like 8 percent of the votes.
Since your broken Constitution assures that you can't do the coalition talks after the votes are cast, you would seem to need to do them at some point before the election.
But the position "don't you dare to run, and we will give you absolutely nothing for your withdrawal" doesn't seem to be a very attractive offer. If I had a vote in America (I don't) and leaned Green, that kind of posturing would give me one more reason to vote for the Green candidate.
It won't do for the "Democratic" party to deny basic democratic values like respect for minority positions when dealing with Nader and his supporters. You need to talk to them in a more constructive way.
I voted for Nader in 2000 and don't regret it. Sure, if I knew then what I know now I would have voted for Gore, but if I knew then what I know now I also would have shorted Enron's stock. Hindsight is 20-20 and completely irrelevant.
At the time Gore came across like a focus-grouped sitcom, pointless and without spirit. I believed I was looking at a politician whose sole goal was to win, not to improve the United States and the world. Compared to Bush he only appeared to be marginally better. He certainly wasn't better enough to justify my vote. I'm not going to vote for a slightly better candidate, I'm going to vote for the clearly better candidate. Gore failed to show that he was really the better man. I voted for Nader in protest. Maybe we'd end up with Bush, but heck, his father managed to avoid destroying the country for four years.
Now that I can look back in hindsite it comes clear that Gore is the vastly better man. Bush has proven to be much, much worse than anticipated; I now look fondly back on his clearly more intelligent father. Gore apparently found his spine and has fire and spirit; I now believe that Gore really wants to make things better. Either change (showing how bad Bush was or how spirited Gore can be) would have changed my mind then, but that was then and I didn't know then.
This time I know more. It's become clear that Bush is so bad that I'm willing to vote for a candidate that I have serious problems with. (Although there are still lines I won't cross. Gore just seemed like a pointless politian. Lieberman actually seems like part of the Bush administration, just withe the Democrat label. Thankfully he's out now.)
I think something's broken in our political system when a third-party candidate is vilified for running for office.
We need more than two parties in this country because the two that we are stuck with have ceased to be opponents. The middle ground has been lost because both sides have been co-opted by special interests.
We are faced with a recursive political loop and if Ralph Nader can generate an EXDEV in that loop, more power to him.
--Jason
Horsepucky.
The assumption implicit in this closing argument is that all Nader votes would have gone to Gore.
They plainly would not have.
I counter-assert:
1) Many Nader voters were committed to voting to the most viable alternative to a two-party duopoly. These are the registered Greens, the Libertarians, the Independence party voters, who looked at the candidates available outside of the mainstream, and picked Nader. Nader took more votes from LaRouche than he did from Gore among this crowd.
2) Many other Nader voters were young idealists, who wanted to vote for someone whose values, they felt, reflected their own, who inspired and motivated them, who talked, even preached, to them. These folks mostly wouldn't have voted, or would at least have been fairly split among Gore, Bush, and third-party candidates. They wouldn't even have been enough to change Florida, this crowd.
3) Finally, many Nader voters were people like me. The pissed off mainstream. (hey, we're all mainstream here aren't we?) The people who voted for the best practical candidate, who weren't inspired to vote on the abortion question alone. I'm sorry, was there another difference IN THE CAMPAIGN, between Gore and Bush? It's clearer now, with the beard, than it was then. Then, for me, I was going to vote for Nader or Nobody.
Voters make up their own minds. Democracy is funny that way. And the end of the day, the guy with the most votes wins. Usually.
Nader didn't lose the election for Gore. Gore lost it on his own, failing to motivate while Bush did. The Nader votes would never have cut his way with Nader out of the race. Nader knew that then. Gore knows that now, why don't you?
I think deep down you do. A deer in headlights doesn't change that. The people who would vote for him because they believed in his message did, and it wasn't quite enough. Bush won, 5-4, because Gore just didn't sell his message to either the masses or the law. Get over Nader, get over Florida, and Move On already! This election cycle, we've got a lot more to talk about. Let's start talking.
Usually I read, and then move on without commenting. But here I just can't resist lol.
Mr. Lessig's arguments and 'parable' seem fair to my mind. I didn't think it could reasonably be argued that--practically speaking--Nader ultimately did cost Gore the election. Nader leans left of Gore who leans left of Bush, last I checked. Despite a few surprising personal testimonials posted here to the contrary, Nader could have swung the bulk of his supporters away from Bush to Gore, and thus probably made the difference in the election.
And yeah sure it was a whole lot of other things (an infinite string of "but-for" causation), and the Nader difference was small as percentage of the overall vote ... but that small percentage was likely dispositive at that last moment, and Nader for whatever reason (I don't care to psychologize his motives) allowed an opportune moment to move his supporters away from Bush to slip away. Of course this also assumes that Nader saw a substantial political difference between the candidates Gore and Bush, which I assume he did (I generally interpret Nader's public and cynical statements to the contrary--if my memory serves correctly--as more political bluster).
Putting aside the question of whether a two-party system is bad (and there are surprisingly good arguments on both sides), and therefore assuming that our current electoral system will be in place for the 2004 election (a safe assumption for the pragmatically minded lol), at the end of the day it will take a "coalition" of every anti-Bush persuasion to defeat the incumbent.
Thus, The Nation or Mr. Lessig asking Nader to stay out of the coming election (and hopefully to join together in an anti-Bush bandwagon, i.e., endorsing a more "moderate" and "right" Dem candidate) in light of the last election is good advice. And good advice in which first amendment/censorship concerns are hugely irrelevant (can't help but smile here).
greg
... actually, Nader may have genuinely seen no substantial political difference between Gore and Bush in the last election. Would explain a lot (and many posts here seem to flat-out assert it), though be disappointing to me (as Nader remains a hero of mine). *Wonders at the energy of those at the ends of the spectrum, and how from the ends everything probably looks the same size.*
There was plenty of evidence before the 2000 election that Gore was substantially different from Bush.
Environmental policy was a big "duh" issue, given Gore's strong conservationist record and Bush's strong pro-pollution record. Apparently, despite running on the
*Green Party* ticket, Nader didn't notice this massive, massive difference? That made me lose all respect for the national Green Party -- if they're supposed to stand for anything, it has to include environmental protection, but they nominated someone who apparently couldn't tell the difference between Bush and Gore on the ENVIRONMENT?!? And there were *massive* differences between Bush and Gore on that issue -- Gore would have been great for the environment. "Earth in the Balance", hello?!? Bush, of course, has been an unmitigated disaster.
Then there are the issues of sex education, contraception, and abortion. Nader was even asked about these and answered that he didn't care.
If Nader actually believed there was no difference, he was an idiot. Which I can believe, unfortunately. :-(
riverrat wrote:
It is easy for well-to-do radicals to embrace the argument that Bush?s victory brings us closer to a real revolution, the old ?let?s make things worse, so they can get better? argument. In my experience, the people making this argument are never those who have to pay the terrible price of putting a reactionary government like Bush?s in place, in terms of hunger, lack of health care, unsafe schools, etc.
Don't forget the environmental degredation. On environmental issues, Gore was the strongest Presidential candidate we've *ever* had, and Bush is a contender for the absolute worst. Nader's claims that Bush and Gore were somehow indistinguishable were unforgivable when he was running on the GREEN PARTY ticket.
I think Nader has set back the legitimacy of the Green Party a tremendous amount -- it now appears that they're only interested in getting press and votes, not in actually promoting environmental conservation.
Jesus, I can't believe this idiocy.
Falacy: Gore/Kerry, or any Democrat is better/different for America than Bush.
I don't believe this is true, Lawrence has certainly not established this in his comments, just taken it as self evident. Most Green Party party voters are looking an Alternative not a better Democrat.
Falacy: Gore would have done things differently than Bush.
We do not know what Gore "would have done" We only know what happened during Gore's vice presidency: An Immoral and Illegal war against Yugoslavia, Draconian Copyright legislation, etc.
Falacy: Gore would have won if Nader had not run.
Lawrence has ignored clear arguments against this idea, has not proven his assertions and can not prove them.
Falacy: If Nader had droped out in the last weeks he could have purposefully handed victory to Gore. Also unsubstantiatied bunk. See above.
It's disapointing for a Lawyer to depend so heavily on unsubstantiated assertions, it's even more troublesome for a supposed progressive like Lessig to trying to pass of criminals like Gore and Kerry as allies of progressives any more than criminals like the Bushes.
Fact: Thinking like Mr. Lessig means suporting a permenant Democratic Party Dictorship, for fear of a Republican victory.
And even if they where to establish this Dictatorship, these antidemocratic thinkers would then focus their bile on progressive candidates who run for nomination within the party and perhaps upset the chances of more "electable" (read: less progressive) candidates. I'm really surprised I haven't heard Lessig critisize Dean yet for hurting Edward's chances.
Fact: It is America's disfunctional Democratic system that is to blame.
Fact: Only the Green Party supports the reform of America's election system.
Fact: Nader was by far the most progressive Candidate in the 2000 election, and barring a surprise Kucinich win would also be the most progresive in 2004.
Fact: Actually saying that Nader has blood on his hands because of what Bush did is unbelieveably stupid and offensive. An incredibly low blow. One I would have have hoped was beneath the dignity of Mr Lessig.
Three words: Instant runoff elections.
Prof.-
Nader has no more agency than the deer. He's compelled to action by a messianic self-righteousness. He *CAN'T* help himself. Sure, he did good once, but that was in another age and besides it's becoming easier to believe it was, to him, an unintended consequence of self-aggrandizement.
Environmental policy was a big “duh” issue, given Gore’s strong conservationist record and Bush’s strong pro-pollution record.
The problem is, Gore was running on Clinton's record, which by the end of his eight years in office was looking pretty bleak. While the mainstream press was hailing Clinton as an environmental progressive, the international press was reporting on how the U.S. was managing to kill Koyoto and fishing treaties by insisting on loopholes to make those treaties meaningless, the failure of the U.S. to develop a long-term sustainable energy plan. Clinton was willing to charge into a trade war with Europe over differing standards of environmental safety for both GMOs and chemical products (Clinton and Gore backed the U.S. industry standard of "no proven harm" vs. the EU's trend towards "proven harmless".)
Another story that did not make the mainstream American media was the administration's decision to defund public domain seedbacks, resulting in in auctioning off those stocks to private biotech (who are in the process of converting those cultivars into copyright-protected intelectual property.)
Meanwhile, there was tons of bad blood remaining over the federal government's involvement against protesters at Seattle and Philadelphia. The use of the term "terrorist" to apply to non-violent protest groups started heating up in the late 90s.
The end result is that while Gore looked good on the nice, easy-to-understand, fairly trivial environmental concerns like noise in National Parks, when it came to big issues like health and environmental regulation of GMOs, producing a working greenhouse gas treaty, protecting the long-term health of ocean ecosystems and defining basic structures for international trade, his record was not so great. Over and over again, I saw environmental groups give lukewarm endorsements for Gore as the lesser of two evils.
2000 was the perfect storm of American progressive politics. A combination of an extreme right-wing candidate, a left that had been ignored, battered or imprisoned by a standing "progressive" presidency, and a lukewarm moderate vp who demanded votes, but offered little in return to groups that did not agree that the Clinton administration was 8 years of American Eden.
Does not Gore share some negligence in stonewalling the issues that were at the core of the Nader campaign such as the WTO, environmental waffling and campaign finance reform? Given that these had sparked massive world-wide protest in the years proceeding the war, is this not a forseeable risk, avoidable by the minor cost of actual coalition-building rather than unilateral demands for votes? This year, the situation is quite different because the primary process forces the Democrats to build coalitions rather than simply stick to message.
Tim Ivorson
Very instructive links, thanks.
Of course, there is no perfect system out there.
Here in canada there seems to be a political will from major parties for voting reforms, to some extent. We'll see where that leads.
Bush has proven to be much, much worse than anticipated; I now look fondly back on his clearly more intelligent father.
Alan De Smet, you summed up my feeling of admiration for Bush Sr. whom I hardly thought respectable at the time.
It's voter's responsibility.
I suppose that Ross Perot is to blame for electing Clinton, not once, but twice.
Nader was not the only third party candidate to influence the election.
Gore won Iowa by a mere 4,000 votes. Buchanan, Browne, Hagelin and Phillips recieved a combined 11,967 votes.
Gore won New Mexico by 366 votes. Buchanan, Brown, Hagelin and Phillips recieved a combined 4,154 votes.
Gore won Oregon by 6,460 votes. Buchanan, Browne, Hagelin and Phillips recieved a combined 19,236 votes.
Gore won Wisconsin by 5,396 votes. Buchanan, Brown, Hagelin and Phillips recieved a combined 20,862 votes.
That is a 60 electoral vote swing if there had not been any fringe conservative parties in the election. Democrats have been taking their base for granted for far too long. They talk the talk, but when it comes to passing laws they don't walk the walk. The growth of the Green party is a sign of the disastifaction of the environmental and populist fringes of the democratic party. Don't blame Nader and the Green party for that, blame Gore and the Democratic party.
I wouldn't be surprised if Bush loses this next election because fiscal conservatives either sit out the election or find a fringe candidate. It won't be the fault of the fringe candidate, it will be the fault of the Repbulicans and Bush.
A voting system like where voters can rank candidates is farer (but more difficult to tabulate results).
e.g, rank in order of preference, e.g.:
- Browne (3)
- Buchannan (4)
- bush (5)
- gore (2)
- nader (1)
So if more people prefer gore to bush, gore wins, despite that bush is (butterfly ballots aside) the 1st choice of more people.
Some articles on Voting theory (which is very interesting mathematically and practically):
http://www.constitution.org/voting/voting.htm
your thoughts?
Why, of all the people responsible (in this mode of thinking) for Gore's loss, have you not blamed Gore himself? To blow such a lead, the endorsement of a popular outgoing two-term president, the incumbancy, the relatively favorable impression of the media (the heuristic for Gore being exceptionally knowledgable, but boring, nerd versus that for Bush: spoiled rich playboy with no experience, no knowledge, and no intelligence) is unthinkable. Gore waffled on silly issues like Elian Gonzales, attempted to take a conservative-mainstream stance on ``family values issues'' to win a demographic that was and would remain solidy Republican, resulting in the loss of support among his more-likely supporters, and generally managed to screw up a perfectly good campaign. It should never even have been close.
You can, as you said, put the blame on many different people and events. But why not put it where it belongs--on Gore?
mister lessig.....I have always enjoyed your columns about the freedom of expression on the internet.you have managed to convey the hopes and dreams of this new age.-------thank you very much-------but when you try to get into the mind of my hero Ralph Nader you have a main point.Ralph Nader believed in his heart , that like Moses of the Bible who parted the Red Sea,he could stop the flow of Conservativism that has awashed America under Bush. Ralph Nader had a very poor political instinct and that is his downfall. you look at Dick Chaney or Henry Kissinger and see how graceful they move in the political lime light.But to beat Bush you have win the hearts and minds of the American voters.The best spin doctor is David Frum and he is from Canada.He wrote the Coservative and Economic speeches that Bush wanted say to the Average Americans through the use of the television media.Bush expresses the Visions of the conservative right wing flawlessly. WHAT are the Visions of the Democrats.......putting down Raph Nader is fighting the last war
This successfully demonstrates that Democrats angered by Nader's campaign will only undermine the "responsibility" of his run for President. For obvious reasons, attacks upon his activism and policy ideas are lacking from Democrats. If the Democratic candidate wants to minimize Nader votes, he must convincingly advocate better policy than Nader's proposals.
Somehow, I am unconvinced that voting for Nader is "irresponsible." It seems relatively more irresponsible to vote for candidates that accept corporate special interest money and voted for the acceptability of a pre-emptive war despite international law. Given this, which candidate is technically "responsible" for deaths of innocents?
This comment (which I posted yesterday) got erased from Aaron's blog so I thought I'd post it here.
As a Democrat I don’t regret that Perot split the vote in 92 - I was happy about it. It was precisely because of that election that I was against Nader campaining in swing states, as he had promised not to do. But he broke that promise - why doesn’t this get mentioned when people talk about how “principled” a man he is?
As well, the mathematics of a third-party candidate splitting the vote, causing the downfall of the two most similar candidates should’ve been apparent to anyone who studies politics. Nader’s inability to make a reasonable prediction about this outcome further disqualifies him for political life, in my opinion. (And for those who thinks that IRV elections will ‘save’ us from this fate - guess again. It happens there too!)
Finally, any person following politics, especially right wing conservative politicians, knew *and predicted* exactly the types of decisions that the Bush administration has made and continues to make. Nader decries the “reverse clairvoyance” that predicted he would throw the race to Bush, and the consequences of a Bush presidency, but he is disingenuous in this critique. Many, many of his former friends predicted this outcome before the election, something which he conveniently seems to have forgotten.
In summation, Ralph Nader ignored recent political history, the advice of his friends, and vast amounts of historic and predictive information about the conservative right, and he did so deliberately to throw the race to Bush (as he admitted in 2000). This is not a man with the best interests of the United States the United States, or the world (given US power and standing in it) at heart.