I'm not a Ralph Nader fan in light of the 2000 election debacle. If Nader hadn't run, Al Gore would have been President. There would have been no Bush tax cuts, no Iraq war, no John Roberts or Samuel Alito, and no non-response to Hurricane Katrina. Without Roberts and Alito, there is no Citizens United, no gutting the Voting Rights Act, no screwing millions of red state residents out of the Medicaid expansion, no buffer zone ruling, and no Hobby Lobby. The Medicare prescription drug plan would probably be better. He may have started addressing climate change. We would still have had the Great Recession. We would still face a serious economic and environmental crisis.
Al Gore would not have been a perfect President. He would have governed as a post 1984 "New Democrat" and not as a progressive Democrat. In spite of that, Al Gore would have been much better than George W. Bush was.
But what is Ralph Nader doing now?
I ran across this article in "This Week." Mr. Nader wants to join with Republicans in impeaching President Obama, and he encourages liberals to abandon Hillary Clinton and support Rand Paul.
That's all here
he has argued that liberals should "definitely" impeach President Barack Obama, abandon the "international militarist" Hillary Clinton, and instead embrace Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as a possible leader of his dream coalition.
I read that and asked myself "WTF?" After all, Rand Paul would have opposed almost every regulation Nader helped put on the books.
While Alternet has been overall favorable on Nader, they have nothing good to say about his supporting Rand Paul.
But does Nader seriously believe liberals are prepared to sacrifice the other 90 percent of their ideals to rally behind a neo-confederate, Koch brother shill like Rand Paul? Certainly, there is much evidence to support Nader’s claim that Democrats have sold out both the working class and liberals, but Paul’s libertarianism would only exacerbate the two things that trouble Nader and liberals the most: income inequality and the corporate totalitarian state.
Yes, what about the other 90% of the progressive agenda? Bill Scher notes in The Week:
His strategy makes sense if you think smashing the NSA is more important than saving the climate or feeding the hungry. I suspect most liberals would not make that trade.
The above linked Alternet article points out Rand Paul opposes the minimum wage and favors a regressive 17% flat tax. In addition liberals want a Second New Deal, whereas libertarians want to destroy what's left of FDR's New Deal.
Rand Paul also has issues with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Chris Bowers has argued NAFTA almost single handedly created the Green Party but Rand Paul is a free trader. He scores 100 percent on the Cato Institute's free trade index.
Note Rand Paul is on the opposite end of the one issue that created the Green Party and thus Nader's candidacy.
So why would Ralph Nader support him?
I was interested in the comment that Ralph Nader is encouraging liberals to embrace Rand Paul as a possible leader of a "dream coalition." What is Ralph Nader's "dream coalition?"
He recently published a new book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance To Dismantle the Corporate State.
I've read the book. In the book, Ralph Nader believes there is an emerging principled progressive-principled libertarian coalition that will take down the corporate state. He believes that coalition is stronger than people realize.
I agree with Nader it is imperative we take down the corporate state. I'm not opposed working with some libertarians on select issues. I would love it if we could put together a progressive-libertarian alliance to repeal NAFTA, withdraw from the WTO, reduce the military budget, and end the war on drugs. What I'm against is trying to damage the Democratic Party in the process.
However, on the back cover Grover Norquist and Ron Unz have both written positive reviews. Also, Nader has publicly referred to Grover Norquist as someone who "opposes corporatists whether they are Democrats or Republicans." I'm like huh? Grover Norquist isn't an anti-corporatist. He's anti-tax and anti-statist. He supports wealthy interests. He is opposed to almost anything and everything government does. He's publicly stated
I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
Nader considers Norquist an anti-corporatist partly because he opposes corporate welfare, but in
this article admits
“Grover is against corporate welfare, but it’s not where his funding comes from,” says Nader, “and when he goes to work every day, it’s not a priority.”
Why have a "bromance" with someone if it is "not where his funding comes from" and "its not a priority?"
The Republicans war on welfare has been 99.9% about programs for people and not about corporate welfare. How much effort have people like Norquist put into fighting corporate welfare? They think nothing of spending $300 billion on an unneeded weapons system but their new anti-poverty program is to make poor people meet with local "providers" to develop "customized life plans" and to sign life contracts in exchange for assistance. The government would micromanage their lives to make sure they don't get an extra $10.
How libertarian is that? It isn't. They are libertarians when convenient. They are libertarians only when it affects the poor or those in needs. This libertarianism is nothing but a cover to promote the interests of the wealthy.