Nader Agonistes:
What is it about great people that when they get old they do shit that casts a pall on everything they've done before? The great leftist author John Dos Passos should have been shot in the California desert before he wrote his final works, when he repudiated all of the pro-worker, socialist, anti-authoritarian, kick you in your nuts novels of his early career. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth found his young self foolish and believed his suck-ass later poems superior to his exultant verse. Shit, from the other side, what the fuck happened to George Wallace? Here's a guy who spent his entire life defying federal law, sowing racism and hate, and generally being a huge asshole, even getting shot for his hatred, and then, in the last part of his life, he says, oh, motherfuck, I gotta get into heaven, so I better hug me some negroes. Just like socialists with Dos Passos, you can bet more than one old-time lynchin' racist wondered if George Wallace had lost his mind.

Now, Ralph Nader hasn't abandoned his principles, totally, but what the fuck? His run was relevant last time because many people believed the bullshit that Bush was spouting about "compassion," not realizing that in Bushspeak, "compassion" equals "cruelty with a pretty name" (naming a program that seeks to destroy the atmosphere "Clear Skies" is a little like calling a "paddle spanking" an "ass rub"). And Nader's 2000 run was relevant because if we took Bush at his word (as many people did, not realizing that "honesty" actually means "lie but look like you're telling the truth"), then, no, there was no qualitative difference between Gore and Bush, and someone needed to stand up and say, "Look over here, at the rest of America, we count, too." You don't believe it? Look at the transcript of the second Gore/Bush debate. The Rude Pundit lost count after Gore agreed with Bush over seven times on different issues. So, by Gore's own admission, Nader was right. (And, again, the Rude Pundit believes that Gore defeated Gore by not embracing the Clinton legacy, and Nader was a slight factor, but all those who think that Gore would have won if he had gotten all of Nader's votes ought to factor in the idea that some of those Nader voters would have just stayed home without Nader in the race.)

Goddamn, Nader is a kickass son of a bitch. Look at this Salon profile of him from 1996. The littany of things Nader has accomplished has become legend in America: seat belts, air bags, the Consumer Protection Agency (fuck, even thinking that consumers had voices that industry and politicians would listen to is something we can thank Nader for), Freedom of Information Act, and the Clean Air Act all are in some way directly linked to Nader's activism. Here is someone who decided that the Constitution really meant what it said, and he actually believed that a private citizen has a voice in this country. Motherfuck, we need that more than ever now, you know?

But instead, Nader has squandered that legacy in a run at the White House. This was said in 2000, when he wouldn't drop out at the last minute, but now, like Gore in the debates, we have proof of what is being done to America by the Republicans. And a great deal of it involves dismantling everything Nader has worked for. FOIA? Access reduced or limited to the words of those who the citizens elect and pay. Clean Air Act? See above. Everything this administration does is to wreck those things that Nader has worked his whole life to achieve.

Oh, what Nader has lost. He could have gotten back in the good graces of those who have supported him his whole career. Even he knows that single activists need compatriots, otherwise they are consigned to the street corners, ranting madly into the din of the traffic. Instead, under the cover of activism, saying that "Washington is corporate-occupied territory, and the two parties are ferociously competing to see who is going to go to the White House and take orders from their corporate paymasters," Nader has rendered himself irrelevant. Fuck, sure they're all beholden to interests, but you know what? The Rude Pundit would rather have the guy who at least attempts to do some good and, oh, fuck, maybe doesn't want to isolate America from the rest of the world. Nader could have gone the Howard Dean route and exited the stage to start a movement that the Democrats would have to respond to. But, no, no, sorrowfully no.

George Washington knew how to do it. His time in office done, he walked away. Bill Clinton seems to be doing the same. It's twilight for Nader, and let's hope he doesn't drag the rest of us into his deluded darkness.