Last night, I watched the documentary, “Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.” It was interesting, about various parts of his life, but a good portion was devoted to his 2000 and 2004 campaigns for presidency. There were interviews covering various perspectives on his “spoiler” reputation and this reminded me of all the hullabaloo around that time.
Some individuals interviewed spoke vehemently about Nader’s “irresponsibility” and I recall many Democratic leaning folks (including Dan Savage) saying similar dismissive things around that time. This line of argument strikes me as illogical. No one candidate or party ought to feel “entitled” to any one’s votes – no one can “steal” the election by simply campaigning and inspiring people to vote for them.
And yet, we have an entrenched two-party system, where the presidential debates are controlled by corporations (who are significant donors to both Democrats and Republicans) and third parties are shut out, both literally (disallowed from debates and most advertising) and figuratively by a quite successful propaganda campaign that there are only two parties which have a chance of success. And yet only about 50% of eligible people actually bother to vote. I wonder why that is. Continue reading “lesser of two evils”
