Chait Wants to Talk About Real World Impacts of Voting? Okay.
It shouldn’t be news to anyone that Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine is usually wrong. His partisan hackery doesn’t allow for any nuance or in depth analysis beyond “Republicans BAD, Democrats GOOD.” It’s boring, dumb claptrap.
But in his latest article (erroneously blaming Nader for Gore’s loss in 2000, one the stupidest and most offensive tropes in modern US politics), Chait actually manages to say something intelligent.
Naturally, it completely obliterates his entire point for being true and coherent.
Chait’s article, “Ralph Nader Still Refuses to Admit He Elected Bush,” is typical Democratic hack bullshit. I’ve decided to go through it for you so we can get to the moment of actual, rational analysis that deflates the entire article.
Chait says that:
His candidacy helped Bush in three ways. First, by insisting Bush and Al Gore were ideological twins, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” he aided Bush, who was trying to mute the ideological dimensions of the election, cast himself as a successor to Clinton’s agenda, and win on personal character.
Chait absolves Gore of responsibility of making the distinction. Chait also, rather unfairly I think, takes away from Bush’s campaign team’s political abilities. The Bush team did the same thing to Kerry in 04. By the end of the campaign there was nothing left of Kerry but a shell of an opposition candidate with no principles or positions he could seriously claim weren’t just Bush lite.
Second, he forced Gore to devote resources to defending otherwise solid Democratic states.
If the candidate can’t beat back a third party challenger running in the single digits, that’s his problem. Not Nader’s.
And, third, he won enough votes in Florida to put the state into recount territory, allowing Bush to prevail.
I remember something about a recount, faulty voting machines, and a stolen election- or do we not acknowledge those facts now?
Later, Chait dismisses the fact that in 2000, a quarter of a million Florida Democrats voted for Bush as one of a “well-worn list of non-Nader factors that helped Bush.” This “list of factors is merely a banal description of a reality in which Democrats and Republicans did everything within their power to win the election,” says Chait, apparently oblivious of the fact that Nader also had every right to do everything within his power to win the election.
Left wing third party candidates apparently play by different rules when the Democrats might lose.
True to form, Chait waits until the final paragraph of his article to deliver what he must have thought was a real definitive and powerful statement to anyone planning on voting third party in 2016:
In his interview, Nader goes on to defend his idiosyncratic belief that people are under no obligation to consider real-world impacts in their voting behavior.
Huh. “Real-world impacts,” Chait?
Let’s consider just three real world impacts of a Clinton presidency. I feel the obligation to do so after Chait’s finger wagging condescension.
Given that Clinton has raked in millions and millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the financial sector, electing her will result in yet another four to eight years of Wall Street domination of our government
Clinton has promised to forge closer ties with Israel’s Netanyahu government, a neo-fascist government engaged in apartheid that is one of the main contributors to Middle East instability
Clinton’s foreign policy in general seems aimed at continued military involvement around the world, more arming of child soldiers, more coups, and a likelihood of war with Iran.
And there you have it- of course I could go on, but there are just three examples of the real world impacts in my voting behavior if I vote for Clinton. Chait thinks that he’s made a strong, smug point about the realities of electoral politics. He has. Just not the one he thought he made.
