Ralph Nader
Left politics seems always to have been shot through with factionalism, division and an antipathy to political unity. From the earliest days of the labour movements in Europe and America, to the divisions that characterised the apex of the social democratic, socialist and communist parties in Germany and France in the first decades of the 20th century, the left has had an odd aversion to embracing what it staunchly advocates in rhetoric: political solidarity.
The return of Ralph Nader to the American political scene he announced his intention to run as an independent on 22 February has triggered much discussion and denouncement on the American left. Supporters of Naders campaign argue that his entrance into the race is an expansion of democratic alternatives since he will be raising issues and themes that the Democrats will not touch.
But the concern is obvious: will the entrance of Nader as a presidential candidate have an adverse impact on the chances of unseating George W. Bush in the next election? And, even if this is so, is it at all democratic to claim that Nader should not run for the tactical reason that another Nader effect in 2004 will compromise the common goal of defeating Bush?
Most liberals and those on the left have repressed any memory of Ralph Nader since 2000 and his public face has been decidedly absent since the 2000 election. The Nader effect of that election is commonly seen as costing Democrats the White House. Nader received 97,488 votes in Florida where Gore lost to Bush by only 537 votes, and there was a similar phenomenon in New Hampshire. The math appears to speak for itself.
But Naders decision to run in 2004 raises a broader set of issues than mere electoral strategy. It presses the issue of politics and political conscience to the surface of many minds on the American left.
Read Todd Gitlin on The Politics of anti-Politics and Democrats Get Real
The politics of third parties in America
The American political system is set up in such a way as to virtually guarantee a two-party system. Political scientists generally refer to this as Duvergers Law, named after the French sociologist Maurice Duverger who formulated it in a series of papers during the 1950s and 1960s.
This law essentially argues that when voters vote for candidates in single-member districts (more commonly known as winner-take-all districts), there is a tendency for such elections to promote two large parties which will capture as many voters as possible. This in turn will inevitably lead to the exclusion of third or fourth parties, since the likelihood of them actually winning is so slight. Voters therefore neglect them in favour of an either/or mentality where they feel their vote will count. This system, and mentality, only strengthens with time and compounds itself by producing a durable, two-party system openly hostile to third parties.
There have been exceptions - the Progressive Party in 1912, the Dixiecrats in 1948 - but not in recent memory on a national scale. That said, it would seem that Naders decision to run for president in 2004 goes against all common sense and, in many ways, it does. But his decision to run is, in the end, not really the point, or the question. Rather, we have to ask ourselves whether or not democracy in America means the constant constriction of political choice between two parties or the expansion of political choices beyond them.
Indeed, this is precisely what Nader supporters are arguing: that there ought to be a debate on what it means to be in opposition to Bush. Naders position is that the Democratic party candidates are no alternative to Bush; that they are the recipients of money from special interests; that they are just as establishmentarian as Republicans and that, as a result, they can offer no policies that are authentically different from that of Republicans. But what are the political consequences of this argument?
Should Nader run?
The problem that Nader poses is therefore not in the substance of his arguments, but in his sheer existence as a candidate a form of anti-politics that is a retreat to political conscience as opposed to the dirty grit of politics itself. Anti-politics is the refusal to deal with the concrete social and political implications of ones own moral convictions or political choices. It is anti-political in the sense that it eschews the public good for moral righteousness and, more often than not, ideological prejudice.
At its base, politics is not an ethical enterprise and any hope of making it so is invariably utopian and defeatist. Naders supporters see his candidacy just as they did during the 2000 campaign: that he is the only true progressive alternative to both liberals and conservatives; that he represents the true interests of most Americans on issues like the environment, health care, corporate regulation and tax cuts.
But in politics, it is not enough to be progressive and not enough to have the most sensible arguments. Politics is a matter of institutions as well as ideologies; it is therefore not enough to claim moral conviction in politics since what is at stake is not something moral but something political: in this case, the transition of the executive branch of the government from a conservative regime to one that is at least marginally more liberal, pluralistic and sensible on all political issues, domestic and international. It is one thing to allow for a debate about what progressive values are and which ought to be put forth by an opposition candidate to Bush. But it is quite another to ignore political tactics and support Naders presidential bid.
So can it be democratic to argue against Naders entry into the race? A truly democratic society, Nader and his supporters fervently argue, will allow all voices to be heard and allow voters to make free decisions based on a diversity of policy choices. But this idealised view of political democracy misses a larger, more important point: Americas democracy is republican in nature which means that although politics is grounded in popular sovereignty, it ought to take note of the broadest extent of the public interest and not the interest of a minority.
American politics has been radically reoriented by a conservative Republican bias that is rooted in corporate interests and fused to a populist southern religious base. Combating this requires neither revolution nor unrealistic political candidacies, such as Naders. What is required is for the American left to embrace politics and unite in support of the most realistic i.e., most politically realisable end that is available to them, and this will be, for quite some time to come, the Democratic party.
This is the most that can be hoped for in contemporary American politics, and the sooner the American left sees that this requires a separation of moral conviction and political action, the more likely they will be able to prevent the continuing excesses of the American right.
