Progressives “Owe” Democrats Nothing

I like Eric Alterman – he’s a good, hard-hitting writer. He’s done a remarkable analysis of right wing fantasies about the liberal press (What Liberal Media?). He writes a regular column in the Nation.

What I don’t like about Alterman is his ugly attitude about Ralph Nader. He’s not just a little mad about Gore’s loss – he’s apoplectic. From his blog, Altercation:

All he [Nader] could do is spoil it sufficiently to allow George W. Bush to somehow sneak in. Nader wanted this to happen because he is a deluded Leninist megalomaniac who preferred to lead the country closer to disaster in the hopes that this would somehow make things better in the end. This is why he was willing to lie to his supporters, taking their money while promising not to campaign in contested areas and then doing so right before the election, and why he lied to the entire country about there being not a “dime’s worth of difference” between Gore and Bush. (Can anyone be stupid enough to really believe that today?)

It’s old ground, been covered time and again. One, Gore cost Gore the presidency by running a centrist to right-leaning campaign and failing to ignite the liberals and progressives who could have swept him into the presidency – one that was his for the taking. He screwed up, DLC style. (Does anyone remember his VP choice? Conservative Joe Lieberman from not-so-important Connecticut. What was he thinking?)

But here’s the point that needs to be made again and again: We are stuck with a two-party system. It’s not a good system. Since both parties are financed by essentially the same corporate money, they tend to represent the same colors, differing only in shades. The role of third parties is to blackmail the major parties into acceptance of populist policies. They only way they can do this is to threaten to deprive major party candidates of votes.

It’s a gambit. All Gore ever had to do was to sit down with Nader, to assume leadership on one or two progressive issues. No matter what Ralph did, Al’s Nader problem would have disappeared. But Gore was stubborn, insisting on appealing to centrists and conservatives while ignoring his progressive base. He screwed up.

Democrats demand two things of progressives: Their votes, and their silence. Alterman seems to think we owe centrist and right wing Democrats our vote. But we have every right to withhold our support, to threaten them with election defeat unless they listen to us.

We owe them nothing.