Vote Nader!

No to “lesser evilism” and “anyone but Bush”

International Left Tendency (October 2004)

In the November 2004 US presidential election, a vote for Ralph Nader is the only option for socialists, trade unionists and opponents of the warmongers.

Nader is the only anti-war candidate.

Kerry is pledged to fighting the Iraq war “more effectively” than Bush. He is pledged to increasing the armed forces by 40,000. He is pledged to retaining the monstrously oppressive Patriot Act. He is opposed to signing the Kyoto treaty. He is opposed to lesbian and gay equality (e.g. opposing gay marriages). He says he will appoint anti-abortion judges. He is pledged to a poverty minimum wage of only $7 an hour. Kerry is backed, and financed, by Microsoft—which says it all.

Yet many intelligent US liberals and social democrats, like Michael Moore, and even some so-called leftists are campaigning for Kerry in order to “get rid of Bush”. These muddleheads have clearly lost their political marbles. How silly they are going to look if Kerry wins and then he enlarges the armed forces and continues the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Michael Moore, who campaigned for Nader four years ago, was even calling, at one point, for a vote for General Wesley Clarke in his book Dude Where is My Country.  Such people don’t seem to realise that there is no such thing as a “progressive” bourgeois (corporate) politician. There are only two types of bourgeois politician—the clever ones and the stupid ones. And Americans have a choice of both in this election. But do we really want to elect someone who might prosecute the war against Iraq more intelligently, that is more effectively, than Bush? To ask the question in this way is to suggest the answer: the only way out of the mess in Iraq is the immediate withdrawal of all imperialist and foreign troops from Iraq--not the more efficient prosecution of the war promised by Kerry. And this includes UN forces also. The Egyptian leader Nasser aptly dubbed the UN many years ago as "collective colonialism". That is exactly what it is. There is no place for the UN in Iraq.

The other side of this question is, of course, that Nader is no revolutionary socialist—he has, for example, some reactionary notions about trade and protectionism. So, why call for a vote for a politician, like Nader, whose programme is far from being consistently revolutionary--some leftists might ask? Nader is after all only a left social-democrat. The reason why socialists should call for a vote for non-revolutionary candidates, like Nader (or even Tony Blair’s New Labour for that matter), is because when they are elected to political office they become an easier target for socialists. In power, they must either deliver the goods or expose themselves as traitors. Out of office, they can posture and bluster—it is much harder for socialists to expose them politically and create a political alternative to them. In office, it is much easier. Lenin put it this way: we support the (British) Labour Party “like a rope supports a hanged man”. Nader defends bourgeois democracy and would oppose, and sabotage, any attempts to go beyond it towards workers’ democracy, towards a workers’ government and a workers’ state. We have to be very clear about this. Thus, when socialists call for a vote for a non-revolutionary candidate in a bourgeois election, it has nothing to do with supporting, or creating illusions in, their inadequate political programme. A call for a vote for Nader is a tactical means of a) giving him the chance to show what he is made of politically and b) exposing his political limitations in practice. It matters little whether we call for a vote for Nader or New Labour. The methodology is the same in both cases. How do we avoid creating illusions in their inadequate or often downright reactionary programmes? By openly explaining and motivating why we are calling for a vote for them.

Trotsky outlined his approach on this question in a discussion with CLR James in the 1930s:

“James: We have had difficulty in Britain with advocating a Labour government with the necessary reservations.

Trotsky: In France in all our press, in our archives and propaganda, we regularly made all the necessary reservations. Your failure in Britain is due to lack of ability; also lack of flexibility, due to the long domination of bourgeois thought in Britain. I would say to British workers, ‘You refuse to accept my point of view. Well, perhaps I did not explain well enough. Perhaps you are stupid. Anyway I have failed. But now, you believe in your party. Why allow Chamberlain to hold the power? Put your party in power. I will help you all I can. I know that they will not do what you think, but as you don’t agree with me and we are small, I will help you put them in.’ But it is very important to bring up the questions periodically. I would suggest that you write an article discussing these points and publish it in our press.”

See: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/britain/ch11.htm

Incidentally, the idea that the British Labour Party has moved to the right in recent years is nonsense. Labour governments have used the army to break strikes and engage in imperialist wars throughout the party’s history. Ramsey McDonald was just as big a sell-out in the 1930s as Blair is now.