Ralph Nader: Why Bernie Sanders Was Right to Run as a Democrat | Hacker News Reader

Ralph Nader: Why Bernie Sanders Was Right to Run as a Democrat

washingtonpost.com

31 pointsacbilimoria11 comments

I love that he skips over the elephant in the room:that without his independent run, we would not have had G. W. Bush as president.

Why is it relevant?

Because one reason why Sanders was right to run as a Democrat rather than as an independent is that running as an independent might have enabled a Republican victory that wouldn't otherwise have happened, in which case Sanders's hypothetical independent campaign might be responsible for making Trump or Cruz president, which Sanders probably doesn't want.

Right? I really don't like that point of view, because it gives the incumbent power structures a legitimacy they don't deserve. I think it is folly to criticize dissenters for dissenting too hard instead of falling in line. The lesser of two evils is still evil. It is not right to judge someone negatively for rejecting two choices they find unacceptable.

Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders are not responsible for the flaws of the system they choose to operate inside or outside of.

That myth was debunked long ago.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/6/1260721/-The-Nader-M...

http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/0803myth/myth.html

http://disinfo.com/2010/11/debunked-the-myth-that-ralph-nade...

The entire purpose of the modern political machine is to take your general discontent and channel it toward individual people, in this case Bush II, so that you will forget the true scope of your oppressors.

Gore, having lost, gets to go down as the better world that could have been. Obama, having won the position of being salesman for the status quo, gets labeled the disappointment. But you'll have forgotten this in 4 years, when it is pressingly important that $REPUBLICRAT not be reelected.

Because if you want anyone to listen to you at all you have to run as one of the two approved parties.

We really need a whole article to state that?

No. Most of the article was supporting evidence from a primary source.

On the other hand, here's Karl Popper's cause for two-party system: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/01/ka...

The irony is that Nader does not even admit his culpability in this equation. Leaving aside the disastrous Bush v Gore thing, Nader destroyed the Green Party's chance at creating a 3rd party movement that could have born fruit about now. He took all of the money that the Greens had socked away for their bottom up strategy, and set back 3rd party aspirations by 20 years.

If you want a progressive party to exist, someone has to step up to try to lead in that direction. Sanders and his supporters are trying.

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