Why do "they" blame Nader?

So let me take this a step further. Instead of blaming principled voters who used the ballot to make a genuine cry for real change, why not blame the Democratic Party for making a challenge from Mr. Nader a necessity? Why not blame all of the knee-jerk Democrats who maintained their steadfast, unprincipled and unthinking loyalty, despite the fact that the party was moving further and further to the right, abandoning the unions, abandoning their core working- and middle-class constituencies? The country then deserved and still deserves a real alternative, a choice that aligns with the vast majority of the voting public on most key issues. The Nader phenomenon was created by the gaping void left when the Democratic Party become the Republican Party Lite.

So Democrats, blame yourselves for Al Gore losing the 2000 election! Don't scapegoat a man who has given forty years of his life to unselfish public service, has been a model of integrity, has always been open and honest about his views, never sold out, and has been rewarded with ridicule, mockery and every vile form of abuse our shallow and snide media clowns could whip up between games of Foosball and sniffing celebrity panties.

At the beginning of this article, I said there were two "they" factions who propagate the Spoiler Nader myth. The second set of "theys" is a little more stealthy. Please pay close attention, folks.

I'll tell you who else benefits from this false narrative. The conservatives! The right wing! Because if the public can be convinced that the choice is only between Tweedledee and Tweedledum -- as Nader characterized the Democrat-Republican option -- there will never be a credible threat to their agenda.

The only occasion Democratic candidates -- generally fairly privileged and connected individuals who live more in the stratospheric upper reaches of society -- give notice to the needs of the working and middle classes are when they are challenged from the left. That's why the New Deal became the agenda of the Democratic Party. The country was in turmoil and socialists and even communists were viewed as a legitimate threat at the polls. Same thing at the end of the 19th century with the rise of the Progressives. When there is what is perceived as a real alternative to oligarchic, monopolistic, and corporate control, the Democratic Party must embrace progressive policies or get their butts kicked at election time. It's pure politics.

But ... if everyone can be convinced that voting for a third party is throwing away their votes, voila! No threat from the left. The Democratic Party makes its gradual but certain migration to the comfort and safety of Daddy Warbucks. Big money talks and politicians walk. But with their backs to ordinary citizens like us. With Citizens United and the recent McCutcheon decision by the Supreme Court, that is truer than ever before in our history.

So the other they -- the right wing of this country -- also want you to think there has never been or never will be a progressive option. "See what happens. You vote for those kooks and you end up throwing away the election!"

I'd really like to think we're smarter than this. But it's not encouraging. Third-party voting is a tough way to go. I voted Green the last three presidential elections. As a result I suffer the constant taunts about throwing my vote away and being an air-headed chump. But I don't for one second believe that I in any way furthered the evil juggernaut of the right wing in this country. I like to think -- perhaps too idealistically -- that I'm just part of an awakening, a vanguard for what will turn politics in America around and restore something resembling the ideal of democracy to our nation.

There's one other benefit ...

I can sleep at night.