Of all the scattered reactions to Ralph Nader's third entry into presidential politics, I found this, as reported yesterday afternoon by the Politico, to be the most conspicuously buffoonish:
"Democrats and bloggers are already reacting with fury, fearing a rerun of 2000, when Nader drained crucial votes from Al Gore."
It wasn't the noted fear, or even the pregnant tone of fury among Democrats and, I presume, Democratic bloggers, that made me chortle. It was, rather, the logical extension of it that prompted such amusement tinged with elemental disgust.
To explain: Of these Democrats and loosely party-affiliated bloggers, roughly half, let's say (likely more, but let's just say half), lean to the progressive camp. And of this subset, we can further reasonably assume that roughly half in turn are, or were, either in the Clinton camp or at least had no fundamental philosophical objections to it. Hillary is, or would have been, just fine with them.
Which is to say, the one "progressive" candidate who openly, stridently, swinishly violated the most fundamental precept of cherished progressive doctrine -- that this nation should never, ever even contemplate war without intolerable provocation -- would be a fine and dandy nominee.
Ralph Nader, however, who openly and stridently opposed the violation of this most fundamental precept, is to be met and countered with fear and fury.
In short, with philosophical respect to this subset of a subset, a progressive candidate who devotedly upholds progressive tenets is to be denounced and ostracized; a progressive candidate who opportunistically spits in progressive faces is to be warmly embraced.
The colossal, back-flipping hypocrisy of it all is not only stunning, it's sadly reminiscent of the very crowd -- the right-wing lunatic fringe -- that so many of these same progressives have smugly ridiculed for decades, and for the same reason.
In the 1980s, for example, when Ronald Reagan and his supply-side nincompoops conjured up the aggressively anticonservative idea that massive federal deficits are, after all, a good thing, the abovementioned progressives were cocksure and confident that the right-wing rank and file would revolt in disgust. Reagan's vast apostasy was so abhorrent to conservative philosophical values, there was just no way, it was thought by many on the left, that the right-wing multitudes would obediently fall in line.
But fall in line they did, in a vulgar rejection of so much of what they had claimed to hold so philosophically dear for so long. The left jeered -- Isn't that just like the ideologically corrupt right? Those clowns will turn on a dime, if it's their guy, or gal, doing the turning. No values. No grounding. No true, inviolable, philosophical core.
And that, of course, is what our progressive subset of a subset is demonstrating in itself these days.
So how to ease the cognitive dissonance? Pretty simple. Just revisit, once again, that right-wing grab bag of tactical distraction, which is to say: change the subject. Ignore that whole inconvenient war-vote thing -- you remember, that violation of the most fundamental precept of progressive doctrine -- and simply deride the progressively conscientious as blind Obama "worshippers" on some kind of unrealistically transcendent high.
And that, to shine the least derogatory light on it, is profoundly amusing.
I, for one, am not even in the Obama camp with both feet, but judging from my email and many pro-Hillary commenters on this site, one would think I've been puffing him from the get-go as a paid staffer, or that I'm indeed in the throes of that otherworldly transcendent trance.
Reality check: Aside from his admirably enduring adherence to the international-relations sensibilities of soft power over hard, Obama is, and has been, merely the one electable candidate who rightly opposed this war. That left him as the only candidate standing worthy of outspoken progressive support. Period. And should he gain the highest office and commence any backsliding, I'll be right there, in the front lines of the outspoken opposition.
Meanwhile, I fear not the exceedingly marginalized Ralph Nader, nor am I furious at his reentry into the political circus. Let him go forth and preach his message of Progressive Puritanism. We need all the help, encouragement, enlightenment and bits of bumping to the left we can get.