Sanctimony Is His Strong Suit

Let’s see if I understand the logic: We can hope for an environmental disaster. And maybe an economic implosion too. Meanwhile, we’ll work to oust congressional Democrats in the next round of elections, thereby opening the way for a more secure Republican majority to reshape America for the advantage of business and the wealthy.

Ah, splendid. At last we will achieve the glorious moment. Progressives will unite. There will be a mighty backlash. Workers and environmentalists will seize the day.

What day? How long from now? Years?

What will be the price in the meantime? Who will pay it?

I would feel better about Ralph Nader if he didn’t speak so much like the people he claims to be better than. I’d sympathize with his anti-Washington verbiage if he didn’t exemplify what is lousy about Washington politics.

In an interview published by the Los Angeles Times a week ago, The Spoiler mapped out his ground game for future political success. Apparently it doesn’t matter who gets hurt as long as he comes out ahead.

To quote him on the Greens: “You’re talking about a long-range dynamic of the party working its way upward. And the political situation could always change: There could be recession or an environmental catastrophe that could afford a greater opportunity if the Greens are ready.”

Play that again. An environmental catastrophe ... could afford a greater opportunity. . . .

Gee, one can only hope, eh?

Just what has happened to the man who embodied “public interest” advocacy?

This: He’s spent too much of his life in the capital. It’s got to him. A big man has grown small of heart.

Can we imagine the Nader of old sitting back and encouraging more highway deaths and injuries to build his case against Detroit? That’s what he’s doing now. He waits while his believers lash themselves to the train tracks like so many cartoon maidens to see how much it hurts before Dudley Do-Right gets summoned to the rescue.

To quote Nader again: “The Democrats will get the message, but they’ll have to lose a few seats first.”

That is the knavish thinking we expect of a political consultant, not a public-interest reformer. No wonder that barely half of Americans bothered voting in 2000. Even the virtuous among our leaders are but cynics, casting aside the short-term concerns of Americans for some sanctimonious, long-term dream of political advantage. Little surprise that so many Americans plug their ears to the larger civic debate and allow themselves to be manipulated by preelection TV ads. Who wants to listen to this kind of politics?

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that you agree with Nader that some of our democracy has slipped away into the hands of those who are motivated by self-interest, not the common good. Well, just how is Nader any different?

How many workers will have to suffer the misery of carpal-tunnel syndrome while Nader connives his rise to power? How many square miles of our remaining public forests will be sliced by roads, harvested, drilled and dotted with tawdry concessions while he undermines those who might make a difference? How many businesses and schools will go dark and for how long while the administration wags its free-market finger at naughty California?

You could agree with Nader that Democrats “have been quite namby-pamby in opposing Bush overall.” But at this juncture do they need allies or enemies?

Destroying the village to save it was the reasoning of the U.S. Army in Vietnam. And where did that get us?

Nader delivered the presidency to conservatives in 2000. Now he wants to drag down more Democrats in the mid-term elections as he paws the ground to try again for the White House in 2004.

Perhaps he can keep the balance of power tipped to a minority on the right for eight full years, or maybe 12, before a desperate nation turns to him for salvation--or, let’s be realistic, until he fades away with Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan and the others who let their egos swell up and block their eyesight. That means that workers in their 50s will be retired before his progressives decide to rejoin the American process of political consensus.

The road-builders may very well have penetrated the last of the forest lands still up for grabs before his Greens wake up and count their losses. Today’s high school students will have their own children in school before his dreamy-eyed followers face up to what he’s done.