While the article is a self aggrandizing storm of cliches, I did like this ending:
>“It’s still ‘We the people’ in the constitution. It’s not ‘We the Congress’ or ‘We the Corporation,’” Nader said. All we need is “the people to just get off their ass”.
If you want something done you have to do it yourself. Waiting for some random politician to spontaneously fix it while you watch isn't it. Even if you don't like Nader he at least tried to do things in real life.
I’d argue that Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, and governor of Florida during the 2000 election, FL Secretary of State Katherine Harris who halted the recount and personally campaigned for GWB, John Ellis, cousin of GWB and first person to call GWB the winner while working for Fox News, and John Roberts, personal legal advisor to Gov Bush during the 2000 election, later Supreme Court justice appointed by President GWB, and the justices who decided Bush v Gore, are way better people to blame for the trajectory of this country for the last 25 years.
Correction. I screwed us. Along with a couple hundred fellow Floridians who voted for him.
It's the biggest mistake of my civic life. The blood of dead middle eastern and Americans is on my/our hands.
Just like there is blood on the hands of anyone who didn't vote for Kamala OR said anything online or elsewhere that could have influenced anyone in a battleground state to do the same. Including the victims of ICE and the Palestinians they claim to advocate for.
I will never, ever, ever vote third party again or abstain for protest when there is an obvious binary choice of lesser of two evils.
There will always be third-party candidates that wind up playing spoiler until the US' horrible system is rebuilt. If only the DNC could ever figure out why the largest vote-getters usually seem to be to the left of their party... 🤔
The DNC, and the neoliberals that believe the Democratic Party can do no wrong, will always blame the minorities of various stripes. It wasn't that Harris kept the same position on Israel in 2024, it was the Arab voters. It wasn't that Clinton was seen as more of the same establishment in 2016, it was that Stein took 1% of the vote. It wasn't that Gore picked Joe-fucking-Lieberman in 2000, it was the 3% of the voting electorate that went for Nader. Pundits, armchair and paid alike, continue to blame the one bloc of voters they should be attempting to court and then wonder why they continually lose.
>If only the DNC could ever figure out why the largest vote-getters usually seem to be to the left of their party...
What the hell are you talking about?
>will always blame the minorities of various stripes
That's rich coming from the crowd that blames "low information voters" for Bernie Sanders losing the southern states.
>It wasn't that Harris kept the same position on Israel in 2024
Harris encouraged diplomacy instead of a total wipeout, unlike Trump. Trump called for a total Muslim ban, unlike Harris. The Arab voters have no excuses for willfully ignoring Trump's bigotry.
>It wasn't that Clinton was seen as more of the same establishment in 2016,
Well, Clinton did support overturning the Citizens United ruling, so the people who saw Clinton as more of the same establishment were just being dishonest.
>It wasn't that Gore picked Joe-fucking-Lieberman in 2000
This is like scolding FDR for picking that conservative southern democrat John Nance Garner. You're just looking for excuses.
>Pundits, armchair and paid alike, continue to blame the one bloc of voters they should be attempting to court
They DID attempt to court you people multiple times, but you have proven time and time again to be dishonest and unreliable as a voting bloc.
> Harris encouraged diplomacy instead of a total wipeout, unlike Trump. Trump called for a total Muslim ban, unlike Harris. The Arab voters have no excuses for willfully ignoring Trump's bigotry.
> That's rich coming from the crowd that blames "low information voters" for Bernie Sanders losing the southern states.
> They DID attempt to court you people multiple times, but you have proven time and time again to be dishonest and unreliable as a voting bloc.
Courting? What courting? Yeah, nice courting when Democratic Party stacked the deck against Sanders in 2016. The most they do is propose a single piece of legislation for progressives. Clinton had Citizen's United. Didn't happen, obviously. Biden finally floated loan forgiveness. Nope, gotta follow the rules, gotta play nice. Obama had Medicare for All but JOE FUCKING LIERBERMAN killed it.
Also, unreliable? Progressives have time and time again voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party candidate over third party ones. The two recent candidates to capture the highest share of voter eligible populations were Biden in 2020 with 33.8% and Obama in 2008 with 32.6%. There is not a large shadowy progressive or leftist population that's sitting out -- the vast majority are holding their nose and picking the least worst candidate of the two viable ones.
To top it all off, you folks firmly believe that everyone is supposed to vote strategically and pick the least worst of the two candidates. Not sure how many times you have to hear this, but, "We're not the worst!" is not a sustainable strategy or image you want to have.
But I do like how you literally demonstrated the behavior I called out about blaming everyone else, especially small minority populations, instead of actually looking at improving the DNC and their candidates and positions. You're absolutely pathetic.
Before responding to anything else, will you acknowledge that Clinton's pledge to overturn the Citizens United ruling was an attempt to court progressives?
> Before responding to anything else, will you acknowledge that Clinton's pledge to overturn the Citizens United ruling was an attempt to court progressives?
This is where we're at -- you've moved the goalposts for a single presidential run to get me to agree that was an attempt to court progressives with a singular talking point. Not an overarching strategy, but a single table-scrap to entice folks. You're bargaining and pleading at this point.
Yes, I can agree that it was an attempt to court progressives. But riddle me this: why would I further engage someone who comments non-stop in a dead sub like /r/Enough_Sanders_Spam and /r/AskALiberal? Like, log off and touch some grass brother.
>Not an overarching strategy, but a single table-scrap to entice folks.
She did provide a strategy. She proposed to overturn that ruling by appointing the appropriate SCOTUS judges. What was Bernie Sanders' strategy to implement M4A?
>But riddle me this: why would I further engage someone who comments non-stop in a dead sub like r/Enough_Sanders_Spam and r/AskALiberal?
A better question to ask is why should I or any "establishmnt" dem engage with someone who argues in such a blatantly dishonest manner like you are doing right now?
>Like, log off and touch some grass brother.
Says the guy who made 2,663 posts in 8 months. Not to mention you seem to like to stalk redditors who disagree with you.
If he screwed us and harmed the country by running in 2000 then Biden put the nail in the coffin with his laissez faire, hands off approach to dealing with Donald Trump; we did not get a complete vote tally in the 2000 elections and it's largely in part by Roger fucking Stone - the legitimate perpetual cartoon villan with an actual tattoo of goddamn Nixon on him. Nader was exercising a legitimate right as a citizen of a democracy to participate in the election. Bad actors disrupted our democracy by stealing our election.
Yes, but that doesn't the rest of us can't criticism him when we all knew his role was exclusively to play spoiler. It's why he was in all the swing states. He knew he was taking conservative money in order to play his games.
They arguably did in 2008 but pretty much have lost their way since 2016.
Or rather, they're not lost, but are becoming the "centrist" party they were destined to become after their neoliberal shift to forming a consumer-based economy (rather than worker-focused) in the 1970s.
People have a right to run for office and voters can choose who they want. Blame Gore for being a shitty candidate, and of course the election fraud. I’m so tired of this narrative, almost 30 years later and Dems have only moved further to the right. They know they don’t have to do shit as long as they’re slightly better than the Republican candidate.
>People have a right to run for office and voters can choose who they want.
This is a god awful argument. The same thing could be said about Trump.
>Blame Gore for being a shitty candidate
That wouldn't make much sense, considering he won the popular vote.
>I’m so tired of this narrative, almost 30 years later and Dems have only moved further to the right.
That's an unfalsifiable claim. Purity testers keep using an arbitrary definition of the right. For instance, when Democrats point to the Obergefell ruling and their overall support for LGBTQ+ rights, you dismiss it. When they point to the momentous, life-saving progress of the ACA, you dismiss it. When they try to campaign on implementing the public option as the next step closer to universal healthcare, you dismiss it. When they appoint antitrust enforcers like Lina Khan to the FTC, you ignore it. When they skyrocket the budget of the IRS to tax wealthy people more efficiently, you ignore it. When they appoint worker's unions supporters to the NLRB, you ignore it. When they campaign on raising the minimum wage and overturning the Citizens United ruling, you dismiss it.
Reading these comments of all these people who didn't read the article and haven't updated their opinions since 2000 helps me understand why the Democrats have never been held accountable for their fecklessness.
Politicians have to realize that when the tiny, incremental changes are prevented from happening, the likelihood of massive, impactful, and sweeping reform increases.
Also, even for a progressive rag like the Guardian, they tended to be overly critical of Nader but left the core of his thesis in...
> Nader remains unapologetic. “The Democrats are scapegoaters on steroids,” he said. “They never look at themselves in the mirror and say ‘How can we not have landslided this bumbling governor from Texas with a horrible record who couldn’t string three sentences together?’” he said, referring to Bush.
> They did it again in 2016, he added, when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. “Imagine blaming Jill Stein, who got a few votes in Pennsylvania,” he added, speaking of the Green party candidate who got 1% of the vote, running on a $15 minimum wage and guaranteed healthcare. “What if you picked up her agenda? You would have won in a landslide, you idiots.”
I literally said as much in a comment above and was met with a predictable response. The powers that be want the Democratic Party to move to the right, while consumers and workers want them to move to the left.
You're the one defending a jackass who spoiled a critical swing state (he also called Kamala Harris an "autocrat"). You don't get to lecture anyone about fecklesssness, let alone expect to be taken seriously. Ralph Nader is nothing more than a bad faith actor who helped ruin this country's age of prosperity alone with it's global standing. That's the only legacy he will leave behind.
No. Hillary Clinton already proposed to raise the minimum wage and overturn the Citizens United ruling, but the swing voters along with the Green Party voters didn't care. The Biden administration supported workers' unions, antitrust enforcement, and tax enforcement on the wealthy, but the swing voters along with the Green Party voters didn't care.
Nope. Nader is and has always been a narcissist who was central to demolishing the New Deal consensus in favor of a world where progressives spend all their energy on outside advocacy groups, which allowed him to have enormous influence without ever having to face the sort of accountability that comes from actually wielding power and having to make decisions.
listenyall | 11 hours ago
My mom is a huge huge consumer rights person and she fucking loves Ralph Nader
BaconJovial | 12 hours ago
While the article is a self aggrandizing storm of cliches, I did like this ending:
>“It’s still ‘We the people’ in the constitution. It’s not ‘We the Congress’ or ‘We the Corporation,’” Nader said. All we need is “the people to just get off their ass”.
If you want something done you have to do it yourself. Waiting for some random politician to spontaneously fix it while you watch isn't it. Even if you don't like Nader he at least tried to do things in real life.
HazyAttorney | 11 hours ago
>All we need is “the people to just get off their ass”.
And hope there's no third party spoiler who is funded by the conservatives to play spoiler.
Leo_York | 12 hours ago
He's still alive???
CursedNobleman | 10 hours ago
Apparently. Currently 92.
He's probably siphoning life from the rage of liberals.
lilbluehair | 9 hours ago
... he is a liberal. He's certainly not a socialist or a conservative
tillandsia | 13 hours ago
He still screwed us, and harmed this country by running in 2000.
readingwritingreefer | 6 hours ago
I’d argue that Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, and governor of Florida during the 2000 election, FL Secretary of State Katherine Harris who halted the recount and personally campaigned for GWB, John Ellis, cousin of GWB and first person to call GWB the winner while working for Fox News, and John Roberts, personal legal advisor to Gov Bush during the 2000 election, later Supreme Court justice appointed by President GWB, and the justices who decided Bush v Gore, are way better people to blame for the trajectory of this country for the last 25 years.
AdmiralSaturyn | 4 hours ago
It's very possible to add third party spoilers into the mix of blame.
NudeCeleryMan | 7 hours ago
Correction. I screwed us. Along with a couple hundred fellow Floridians who voted for him.
It's the biggest mistake of my civic life. The blood of dead middle eastern and Americans is on my/our hands.
Just like there is blood on the hands of anyone who didn't vote for Kamala OR said anything online or elsewhere that could have influenced anyone in a battleground state to do the same. Including the victims of ICE and the Palestinians they claim to advocate for.
I will never, ever, ever vote third party again or abstain for protest when there is an obvious binary choice of lesser of two evils.
nactarious | 12 hours ago
Yes dude blame Nader instead of the democrats doing buzz all as Scotus paused the Florida recount while Bush was ahead by a few votes.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 12 hours ago
There will always be third-party candidates that wind up playing spoiler until the US' horrible system is rebuilt. If only the DNC could ever figure out why the largest vote-getters usually seem to be to the left of their party... 🤔
The DNC, and the neoliberals that believe the Democratic Party can do no wrong, will always blame the minorities of various stripes. It wasn't that Harris kept the same position on Israel in 2024, it was the Arab voters. It wasn't that Clinton was seen as more of the same establishment in 2016, it was that Stein took 1% of the vote. It wasn't that Gore picked Joe-fucking-Lieberman in 2000, it was the 3% of the voting electorate that went for Nader. Pundits, armchair and paid alike, continue to blame the one bloc of voters they should be attempting to court and then wonder why they continually lose.
AdmiralSaturyn | 11 hours ago
>If only the DNC could ever figure out why the largest vote-getters usually seem to be to the left of their party...
What the hell are you talking about?
>will always blame the minorities of various stripes
That's rich coming from the crowd that blames "low information voters" for Bernie Sanders losing the southern states.
>It wasn't that Harris kept the same position on Israel in 2024
Harris encouraged diplomacy instead of a total wipeout, unlike Trump. Trump called for a total Muslim ban, unlike Harris. The Arab voters have no excuses for willfully ignoring Trump's bigotry.
>It wasn't that Clinton was seen as more of the same establishment in 2016,
Well, Clinton did support overturning the Citizens United ruling, so the people who saw Clinton as more of the same establishment were just being dishonest.
>It wasn't that Gore picked Joe-fucking-Lieberman in 2000
This is like scolding FDR for picking that conservative southern democrat John Nance Garner. You're just looking for excuses.
>Pundits, armchair and paid alike, continue to blame the one bloc of voters they should be attempting to court
They DID attempt to court you people multiple times, but you have proven time and time again to be dishonest and unreliable as a voting bloc.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 10 hours ago
> Harris encouraged diplomacy instead of a total wipeout, unlike Trump. Trump called for a total Muslim ban, unlike Harris. The Arab voters have no excuses for willfully ignoring Trump's bigotry.
> That's rich coming from the crowd that blames "low information voters" for Bernie Sanders losing the southern states.
> They DID attempt to court you people multiple times, but you have proven time and time again to be dishonest and unreliable as a voting bloc.
Courting? What courting? Yeah, nice courting when Democratic Party stacked the deck against Sanders in 2016. The most they do is propose a single piece of legislation for progressives. Clinton had Citizen's United. Didn't happen, obviously. Biden finally floated loan forgiveness. Nope, gotta follow the rules, gotta play nice. Obama had Medicare for All but JOE FUCKING LIERBERMAN killed it.
Also, unreliable? Progressives have time and time again voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party candidate over third party ones. The two recent candidates to capture the highest share of voter eligible populations were Biden in 2020 with 33.8% and Obama in 2008 with 32.6%. There is not a large shadowy progressive or leftist population that's sitting out -- the vast majority are holding their nose and picking the least worst candidate of the two viable ones.
To top it all off, you folks firmly believe that everyone is supposed to vote strategically and pick the least worst of the two candidates. Not sure how many times you have to hear this, but, "We're not the worst!" is not a sustainable strategy or image you want to have.
But I do like how you literally demonstrated the behavior I called out about blaming everyone else, especially small minority populations, instead of actually looking at improving the DNC and their candidates and positions. You're absolutely pathetic.
AdmiralSaturyn | 10 hours ago
>Courting? What courting?
Before responding to anything else, will you acknowledge that Clinton's pledge to overturn the Citizens United ruling was an attempt to court progressives?
SaintOrJannikSinner | 8 hours ago
> Before responding to anything else, will you acknowledge that Clinton's pledge to overturn the Citizens United ruling was an attempt to court progressives?
This is where we're at -- you've moved the goalposts for a single presidential run to get me to agree that was an attempt to court progressives with a singular talking point. Not an overarching strategy, but a single table-scrap to entice folks. You're bargaining and pleading at this point.
Yes, I can agree that it was an attempt to court progressives. But riddle me this: why would I further engage someone who comments non-stop in a dead sub like /r/Enough_Sanders_Spam and /r/AskALiberal? Like, log off and touch some grass brother.
AdmiralSaturyn | 7 hours ago
>Not an overarching strategy, but a single table-scrap to entice folks.
She did provide a strategy. She proposed to overturn that ruling by appointing the appropriate SCOTUS judges. What was Bernie Sanders' strategy to implement M4A?
>But riddle me this: why would I further engage someone who comments non-stop in a dead sub like r/Enough_Sanders_Spam and r/AskALiberal?
A better question to ask is why should I or any "establishmnt" dem engage with someone who argues in such a blatantly dishonest manner like you are doing right now?
>Like, log off and touch some grass brother.
Says the guy who made 2,663 posts in 8 months. Not to mention you seem to like to stalk redditors who disagree with you.
AdmiralSaturyn | 12 hours ago
>Yes dude blame Nader instead of the democrats doing buzz all as Scotus
What were the Democrats supposed to do? Ignore and violate Scotus' ruling?
geneticswag | 12 hours ago
If he screwed us and harmed the country by running in 2000 then Biden put the nail in the coffin with his laissez faire, hands off approach to dealing with Donald Trump; we did not get a complete vote tally in the 2000 elections and it's largely in part by Roger fucking Stone - the legitimate perpetual cartoon villan with an actual tattoo of goddamn Nixon on him. Nader was exercising a legitimate right as a citizen of a democracy to participate in the election. Bad actors disrupted our democracy by stealing our election.
HazyAttorney | 11 hours ago
>Nader was exercising a legitimate right
Yes, but that doesn't the rest of us can't criticism him when we all knew his role was exclusively to play spoiler. It's why he was in all the swing states. He knew he was taking conservative money in order to play his games.
BT4US | 10 hours ago
Do you have a source on that?
AdmiralSaturyn | 7 hours ago
>Nader defends GOP cash / Candidate says he's keeping money
AdmiralSaturyn | 7 hours ago
>then Biden put the nail in the coffin with his laissez faire, hands off
Stop blaming Biden for the inactions of the DOJ.
>Nader was exercising a legitimate right as a citizen of a democracy to participate in the election.
So what? His actions had very tangible consequences. Just because you have a right to make stupid decisions doesn't mean should.
[OP] AutomaticPanda8 | 13 hours ago
Yes. Fortunately the dems learned their lesson and starting fighting for all the right things so they would never lose by such a small margin again.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 12 hours ago
They arguably did in 2008 but pretty much have lost their way since 2016.
Or rather, they're not lost, but are becoming the "centrist" party they were destined to become after their neoliberal shift to forming a consumer-based economy (rather than worker-focused) in the 1970s.
BT4US | 10 hours ago
People have a right to run for office and voters can choose who they want. Blame Gore for being a shitty candidate, and of course the election fraud. I’m so tired of this narrative, almost 30 years later and Dems have only moved further to the right. They know they don’t have to do shit as long as they’re slightly better than the Republican candidate.
AdmiralSaturyn | 6 hours ago
>People have a right to run for office and voters can choose who they want.
This is a god awful argument. The same thing could be said about Trump.
>Blame Gore for being a shitty candidate
That wouldn't make much sense, considering he won the popular vote.
>I’m so tired of this narrative, almost 30 years later and Dems have only moved further to the right.
That's an unfalsifiable claim. Purity testers keep using an arbitrary definition of the right. For instance, when Democrats point to the Obergefell ruling and their overall support for LGBTQ+ rights, you dismiss it. When they point to the momentous, life-saving progress of the ACA, you dismiss it. When they try to campaign on implementing the public option as the next step closer to universal healthcare, you dismiss it. When they appoint antitrust enforcers like Lina Khan to the FTC, you ignore it. When they skyrocket the budget of the IRS to tax wealthy people more efficiently, you ignore it. When they appoint worker's unions supporters to the NLRB, you ignore it. When they campaign on raising the minimum wage and overturning the Citizens United ruling, you dismiss it.
[OP] AutomaticPanda8 | 8 hours ago
Reading these comments of all these people who didn't read the article and haven't updated their opinions since 2000 helps me understand why the Democrats have never been held accountable for their fecklessness.
SaintOrJannikSinner | 7 hours ago
Politicians have to realize that when the tiny, incremental changes are prevented from happening, the likelihood of massive, impactful, and sweeping reform increases.
Also, even for a progressive rag like the Guardian, they tended to be overly critical of Nader but left the core of his thesis in...
> Nader remains unapologetic. “The Democrats are scapegoaters on steroids,” he said. “They never look at themselves in the mirror and say ‘How can we not have landslided this bumbling governor from Texas with a horrible record who couldn’t string three sentences together?’” he said, referring to Bush.
> They did it again in 2016, he added, when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. “Imagine blaming Jill Stein, who got a few votes in Pennsylvania,” he added, speaking of the Green party candidate who got 1% of the vote, running on a $15 minimum wage and guaranteed healthcare. “What if you picked up her agenda? You would have won in a landslide, you idiots.”
I literally said as much in a comment above and was met with a predictable response. The powers that be want the Democratic Party to move to the right, while consumers and workers want them to move to the left.
Significant-Iron-241 | 4 hours ago
I just can't agree with you, and I'm too young to have ever voted for him, so it's not all about being "stuck in our ways."
AdmiralSaturyn | 6 hours ago
You're the one defending a jackass who spoiled a critical swing state (he also called Kamala Harris an "autocrat"). You don't get to lecture anyone about fecklesssness, let alone expect to be taken seriously. Ralph Nader is nothing more than a bad faith actor who helped ruin this country's age of prosperity alone with it's global standing. That's the only legacy he will leave behind.
[OP] AutomaticPanda8 | 5 hours ago
Thank you for proving my point so vigorously.
AdmiralSaturyn | 4 hours ago
It's very cute that you think that. Just because we disagree with you doesn't mean we didn't read the article.
HazyAttorney | 11 hours ago
>Was Ralph Nader right
No.
Rob71322 | 12 hours ago
Ahhh, 2000s Jill Stein, an ineffective loser who wasn’t smart enough to get out of the way.
AdmiralSaturyn | 12 hours ago
No. Hillary Clinton already proposed to raise the minimum wage and overturn the Citizens United ruling, but the swing voters along with the Green Party voters didn't care. The Biden administration supported workers' unions, antitrust enforcement, and tax enforcement on the wealthy, but the swing voters along with the Green Party voters didn't care.
el_pinko_grande | 9 hours ago
Nope. Nader is and has always been a narcissist who was central to demolishing the New Deal consensus in favor of a world where progressives spend all their energy on outside advocacy groups, which allowed him to have enormous influence without ever having to face the sort of accountability that comes from actually wielding power and having to make decisions.
latswipe | 12 hours ago
yep, everything but how willing Americans were to accept any kinda collectivism for each other's sake
edit: caveat being this article comes from the preeminent British paper, which is where all American bad ideas actually come from
SaintOrJannikSinner | 7 hours ago
> edit: caveat being this article comes from the preeminent British paper, which is where all American bad ideas actually come from
For British rags, Guardian is actually better than most when it comes to progressive causes.
latswipe | 7 hours ago
here's a Guardian headline: Was Jeremy Corbyn right about everything?
SaintOrJannikSinner | 7 hours ago
The problem is that the UK and the US are so far skewed to the right, it's not hard to be viewed as "progressive."
latswipe | 7 hours ago
that sounds like commie talk to me
latswipe | 7 hours ago
agreed, but it's still British. Let's be real: they loooove to point out US flaws
SaintOrJannikSinner | 7 hours ago
> agreed, but it's still British. Let's be real: they loooove to point out US flaws
These aren't "flaws" but rather, gaping wounds.
Yes, it is a little uncouth to punch down on the US, but it's more than valid in hope that us folks in the US actually attempt to unfuck things.