Liza has just started volunteering for the Ralph Nader campaign, and I couldn't be prouder. He needs 31,000 signatures to get on the ballot in our state, and thanks to one afternoon at the mall he's already 0.1% closer to his goal. I have of course been telling everyone all about this, and they all say the same thing: "Well, that's great. Course I'm voting for Gore because I don't want Bush to win, and we all know Nader isn't gonna beat him."
OK, I'm not a moron; I know Ralph Nader is not going to be the next president of the united states. But I'm voting for him anyway, assuming we can get him on the ballot. But why, you say. Why throw your vote away?
See, you shouldn't ask me questions like that, cause I'll answer 'em.
Voting for Nader is not throwing your vote away. Voting for Gore is throwing your vote away.
Here's why. If you are a liberal, which I am assuming you are if you haven't already fled my page in fear and disgust, you are presumably disturbed by the increasing difficulty of distinguishing a democratic candidate from a Republican one. In terms of labor, the economy, capital punishment, foreign policy, and pandering to big money like painted whores, our two major parties have become virtually identical. Witness Clinton presiding over "welfare reform," fighting to extend permanent free trade rights to China, bombing the shit out of whatever he can reach whenever he has a mind to, and allowing Alan Greenspan to keep unemployment up far enough to ensure a healthy capitalist economy with just the right amount of growth. This is why both parties have been forced to find bogus issues that will distinguish one from the other, such as flag-burning and Elian Gonzales.
So why do we keep voting for candidates who will roll over and stretch out their soft white underbellies as soon as big capital bares its teeth at them? Well, we do it because the one area in which there is still some differentiation is in terms of what they call social issues. Women suck it up and vote for a skirt-chasing, intern-groping, sexual-harrassing swine because he will appoint Supreme Court judges that won't overturn Roe v. Wade. Gays and lesbians grit their teeth and vote for the same lily-livered wuss who backed out of his pledge to lift the ban because at least he doesn't get up in front of huge crowds and demonize us for fun and profit. Persons of color or persons who would like to see persons of color treated right vote for Mr. "Mend It Don't End It" because at least that beats "End It, Then Reverse It."
This is where the "throwing your vote away" logic comes from. We may turn from Gore sickened with long-nourished disgust; but if we vote for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning, then Bush will be elected, and we have the worst case scenario. Whereas if we vote for Gore, and he gets elected, well, things will be slightly less heinous than they might.
I take a different view. I think that we have already reached the worst case scenario, and that the only way to make change possible is to break the lock that these two parties have on American politics. It is true that if you vote for Nader you will not have backed the winning candidate. What you do do when you vote for Nader is give the Democratic Party an incentive to stop betraying its liberal agenda. Especially now that almost nobody is voting these days, the defection of a particular block of voters, even if it's small, is of serious concern to either party. That's why you see George jr. out there whoring himself for the Christian right, just like his father before him. But Gore doesn't whore for the liberal left, because he doesn't have to. He knows that as long as he doesn't actually start talking about criminalizing abortion and rounding gay people up in cattle cars, we'll stick with him just out of fear. Which means we've already lost any power we had. We can't influence the Democratic party's agenda; we can't impact Gore's platform; we can't put any kind of pressure on him. All we can do is concede, concede, concede. Telling ourselves while we do it that it's all right, it could be worse.
So if the point of voting is to get what you want, then for a liberal, a vote for Gore is a vote flushed down the toilet. We're not his constitutents; we're his hostages. If we vote for him, we don't get what we want; we get what he wants. And what he wants is to stay in power while doing a little as possible to rock the boat.
On the other hand, suppose we decide we're fed up with panting after the Democrats like hungry dogs hoping for scraps. Suppose we vote for a candidate who actually advocates things that will address economic injustice, environmental destruction, and whatnot. Can we elect him? Not right now. There's not enough of us to do that. But there are enough of us to screw up Gore's candidacy, and potentially lose him the election.
But wait, you say. Are you nuts? you say. You hate George Bush jr. more than you hate mayonnaise. You want this snot-nosed, brain-dead patrician brat running your country?
No, of course I don't. What I want is for the Democratic party, reeling from a large smack upside the head administered by disgruntled liberal voters, to start thinking about what they will need to do in order to get back into power. And when they unleash the hordes of political analysts, I want them to come running back with huge armfuls of pie charts, pointing to the little wedge labeled "liberal left," and saying, "Here's your problem." Because if the DP starts to believe that it has to pander to us in order to win elections, then it's gonna trip over itself trying. And that's when we get to tell 'em how it's gonna be. And if I have to risk letting Skippy Lite get his hands on the reins of power for a few years, then I'm willing to take that risk. No pain, no gain.
Of course, to be willing to take that risk you have to believe that economic issues are as important, or more important, than issues like abortion. I do, because I believe that when you get down to bedrock, all issues are economic issues. Our national religion is not Christianity; it's capitalism. All the excrescences like bigotry, racism, and Operation Rescue are merely offshoots of that one poisoned root. And I want to elect people who will strike at the root instead of trimming the leaves now and then. So if 30,999 other people in Indiana are half as disgusted as me, I can look forward, come November, to once in my life not throwing my vote away.
The Plaid Adder
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