Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Trump

  • The Coup is Complete

    Our YouTube pundits still think the great question of our time is, Does Donald Trump know Putin is using him? But I think it’s clear that Donald Trump is a willing errand boy for the entities who purchased his presidency and continue to enrich him. In other words, the worst has already happened. The coup is complete.

    Yet we continue to hope. Therefore, it’s important to think in detail about what this means. The evidence suggests that the United States has been sold to the highest bidder. Trump’s bowing and scraping to Putin is evidence of this. When Trump whinnies to his MAGA followers about how they’re not going to have a country any more unless… he’s telling lies on two levels. Trump was never concerned about saving the country for MAGA. He wants it for the new rulers of the universe.

    If the Coup is Compete, Can We Get the Country Back?

    What we should be asking is whether we can get the country back from its new owners: Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and various others.

    To answer this, we need to consider how the coup happened in the first place. It took time and planning. The entire enabling structure was already in place before the 2024 election, including the Supreme Court and corrupt members of Congress. However, it is now much worse than we realize thanks to collusion by the legacy press. They make it hard to see the whole picture.

    Trump is the Immediate Danger

    Trump didn’t orchestrate this. He is merely the final piece of the puzzle. However, his presence in the White House is the immediate danger. His very presence in that office is our undoing. Each moment he remains in power we sink deeper into the abyss.

    Why? It’s a Question of Who Trump Serves

    Why do I say this? Let’s look at who Trump serves. He does not serve the people. We know Elon Musk literally bought the presidency for Donald Trump, but we fail to think beyond that point. No one mentions for example that Musk has had regular meetings with Vladimir Putin since 2022, and probably earlier.

    Musk demonstrated what he’s capable of doing and for who when he shut down Starlink during a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022. This cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim. The Ukrainian army’s operation failed as a result, although it eventually reclaimed some of the territory. This is the first known instance of Musk shutting off Starlink coverage over a battlefield during a conflict, and it potentially allowed him to control the outcome of a war.

    Elon Musk’s Russia-Centered Geopolitics

    Also in 2022, Musk proposed a peace plan that echoed Moscow’s positions. Crimea should be formally recognized as part of Russia and votes should be held in Russian-occupied regions under UN supervision. More recently, Musk criticized the provision of US aid to Kyiv and suggested that Ukraine can’t win the war.

    Elon Musk’s Technological and Financial Barricade

    Of course Ukrainian leaders strenuously object to this, but the US isn’t listening. There have been calls for investigations into Musk’s contacts with Russian officials, but according to the BBC, Musk has too much value as a contractor and too much control over critical technologies.

    And it continues. Since the August 2025 summit between Trump and Putin, Trump has been plastering the airwaves with messages about Putin’s dislike of mail-in ballots. This is obviously in line with Trump’s efforts to manipulate U.S. elections.

    Elon Musk, Israel, and Gaza

    The Israeli entity is another influence that contributed to Trump’s success in the 2024 election. Naturally, Musk has been meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at least since September of 2023. Although Netanyahu is a war criminal and Musk openly performs Nazi salutes, they have discussed antisemitism on X, among other topics.

    Musk met Netanyahu again in November of 2023 and visited a kibbutz that was raided by Hamas fighters on October 7. After this trip Musk backed Israel’s war on Gaza.

    While it may be relevant to mention that Musk’s trip to Israel was self-serving, the selfish motives of an oligarch don’t improve the odds that democracy will survive. Musk went to Israel because of a post on X that triggered withdrawals of advertisements by corporate giants like Apple and IBM. Musk was also allowing advertisements from major corporations to appear next to Neo-Nazi and white nationalist content. Finally, the European Union was probing X because of disinformation and violent content about Israel’s war on Gaza.

    But regardless of Musk’s reasons for this visit, it had real consequences for Israel and Gaza. Musk reached an agreement with Israel ‘in principle’ that internet access to Gaza may only be provided to Gaza with units operated by Israel and with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of communications.

    Additional Enemies

    The Kochs are another part of the coalition that has brought the United States to its knees. The Kochs and the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have had a long relationship. When Mormon apostle Ezra Taft Benson was thinking about running for president in 1968, he had the backing of the 1976 Committee, of which 14 of its officers and members were on the National Council of the John Birch Society. This committee included Fred C. Koch.

    More recently, Mike Lee, Congressman from Utah, raged over Trump’s loss in 2020. Then, when a man impersonating a police officer killed Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Lee chortled on X that this is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way. The assassin was not a Marxist. He was not even a Democrat.

    The Federalist Society

    Mormon leadership was instrumental in establishing the Federalist Society. This is the organization that has filled the Supreme Court with right-wing justices who indulge Trump. They have aided his destruction of American immigration law, election law, education, and medicine. Yet the Church continues to enjoy tax-free status.

    To the Oligarchs and Their Minions

    This article is not a condemnation. It is a reckoning. I have no doubt that those of you who are tearing down our institutions and terrorizing our citizens are on the wrong track. For one thing, you are unrealistic about the nature of leadership and authority. The ideal leader, whether king or president, rules with the consent of the people under his rule. Barking orders and causing physical harm are the actions of brutes, not leaders. Your behavior is not admirable and it won’t inspire the loyalty of those you rule.

    You seem to be trying to emulate dictators of times gone by, but all you communicate, other than your own fury, is fear and loathing. What is your ideal world? We see no light at the end of the tunnel. Do you? You seem to have no vision other than your own supremacy. Meanwhile, in your determination to be supreme, you violate the creeds you claim to live by and encourage your loved ones to follow you in this behavior. There is no justification in law or religion for your actions.

    Do you have in mind a common, mean, cruel, stingy, sordid, ugly existence that will require your constant vigilance to stay in control? If so, this vision has no redeeming qualities. Even if you carve out a privileged haven for yourself in the midst of this strange creation, the harm you have done will hover over it like a dark cloud.

    Stop this now. Work to undo the harm you have caused and ask the people to forgive you. You can still reverse your course and earn the trust and gratitude of your fellow citizens. Work to foster the new world that is being born. Don’t bring it all crashing down. Give it a chance to bloom.

  • Mercy and Judgment in 2025

    This is an essay for politicians who seem to have forgotten the important relationship between mercy and judgment in 2025. It’s also for their colleagues and loved ones.

    If you’re wondering why I’m picking on politicians, it’s because there is a raging epidemic of politicians who don’t feel they have to answer to anyone, least of all their constituents. Nor do they bother to respond to the pleas of religious leaders begging them to change their ways. This is particularly reckless behavior because it is the duty of religious leaders to care for their immortal souls.

    (more…)

  • Rick Wilson Blames Progressives for 2024

    Rick Wilson’s interview with Harry Litman is just one example of the wrong-headed analyses of Kamala Harris’s loss that have been making the rounds since the 2024 election. For the most part, Rick Wilson blames progressives for 2024. At 21:42 in the video, Litman asks Wilson what the focus should be for rebuilding the Democratic Party. Wilson answers:

    Stop looking over your left shoulder at the progressives because what have they proven to you this year? They don’t f**king care if you win or lose. They don’t care if you win or lose. All the garbage they put this party through and Harris through about Gaza, and the decisive number of democrats who voted for Jill Stein in Michigan because of Gaza..

    Wilson is probably correct about Jill Stein’s part in Harris’s loss. He is not the first to call this out. His claim is based on his organization’s model. The model shows that progressive and Arab Democrats made up enough of he vote that killed her (Harris) in Michigan. Then he continues:

    If these people, if the democratic party doesn’t realize that the progressives are not their ally, that they are a competing party inside their party, just like the Republican Party didn’t realize that MAGA was going to consume them…

    I disagree with this comparison, as I explain below.

    Wilson Says AOC Will Tweet Mean Things About Him

    Wilson laments that he’ll get a lot of sh*t from progressives, and AOC will tweet mean things about him. He insists that he is a practical politics guy, not an ideologue or a pie in the sky whatever. He believes in victory and if you don’t have victory against Donald Trump and his allies in the 2026 cycle, goodbye, it’s over. They [the Democrats?] need to go at the throat [of progressives?] all the time. “There’s no more ‘my honorable friend’ in the house or Senate. They need to go to war every single day to stop every Trump appointee.”

    Then Wilson goes to his focus on the trans issue. He cites the Trump campaign ads based on Harris’s past support for trans-friendly policies. Wilson doesn’t blame this on the Democratic Party. They were in fear of the left flank. Democrats have to overcome this fear.

    He insists that he’s not telling the Democrats to become Republican light. He’s telling them to be more like Bill Clinton, who won by being a non-traditional Democrat. Or Barack Obama, who ‘came across like a country club Republican’. Wilson’s anti-progressive wish list for the Democratic Party includes things like ditch the radical talk, the progressive fantasy world. Stop thinking you have to go out and campaign to talk to workers about industrial policy and solar panel jobs. Start talking to them where they live (which he implies is not in the trans world). This harangue against progressivism, or against Wilson’s definition of progressivism, continues until 26:31.

    Wilson’s Progressivism is a Straw Man

    It seems obvious that when Rick Wilson blames progressives for 2024, he’s not talking about progressives at all. He’s talking about the progressive fantasy world. And the progressive fantasy world is his own creation. Furthermore, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are not the way forward as he suggests. They are part of the Democratic Party’s past. Furthermore, they lost this election. In recommending them to Democrats, Wilson reveals his irrelevance to both Democrats and progressives.

    The Progressive Response

    Much of what I’ve written since 2016 assumes readers remember the exhilaration of calling out the madness in the Middle East and then discovering Bernie Sanders. I probably should have written about that process in the lead up to this election.

    We suddenly saw that it was time for a new direction. If this sounds overly ambitious, there was reason to believe that our leaders saw it too. Their foreign policy had been a spectacular failure, Libya being the most recent example before Gaza. And there were going to be repercussions that no one seemed concerned about.

    The Importance of Food Systems

    Bombs and white phosphorus were destroying food systems and farmland. Land and water resources and housing were in danger, while the global population was larger that it had ever been. By 2050, the population would reach 9 billion. We declared that it was time to stop the destruction. It was time to prepare for coming generations.

    Rick Wilson Blames Progressives for 2024
    Intervention in Libya, Credit: By Jolly Janner

    This agenda implied self-sacrifice on the part of progressives, but it had an enthusiastic following. I would argue that it was the blossoming of new life in the electorate. But the Democrats chose to cling to their failed worldview. Or perhaps they were clinging to the worldview of their donors. The blindness and arrogance were breathtaking.

    Progressives are the Loyal Opposition

    However, progressives are nothing like MAGA. We voted for Hillary in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. In 2024, I urged progressives to vote for Kamala. Then came 2024. We were told Biden was pressured to drop out of the race because of his health. His policy platform was not part of the discussion.

    However, Harris was consistently asked whether she would continue Biden’s policies. Questions about her policy proposals began to grow.

    This is strange, given the fact that Bernie’s candidacy had been scuttled by Barack Obama. He decided it would be Biden instead of Bernie. We voted for Joe Biden to keep Trump out. And then Biden surprised us by cooperating with the progressives. My point is that we had no reason to think we could hold Harris over a barrel policy-wise. The salient points were that she was young and healthy and not Trump.

    There was also the problem of Gaza. It is a problem. Voters, especially Arab voters, hated Joe Biden for his part in the genocide. Therefore…what? Don’t vote? Vote for Trump? It was a hard decision. However, progressives are not necessarily to blame. Gaza caused everyone anguish in one way or another. How could it not affect the way they vote? No voter should have to weigh the suffering of Gaza when they cast their vote. But that’s what they had to do.

    The Democratic Establishment Fought Progressives. The trans-rights issue came from them, not us.

    In 2016, the Democratic Establishment was thunderstruck that anyone would criticize their policies. They apparently thought everything was going well. Instead of accepting progressive criticism, they fought it tooth and nail. They fought our candidate too. It was almost embarrassing how openly they went to war against Bernie Sanders.

    We knew very little about Bernie back then. As it happened, his focus was not food and water security or foreign policy. It was more about elevating the domestic working class and alleviating wealth and income inequality. For progressives on the other hand, food and water security was tied to foreign policy. It was an internationalist outlook from the beginning. We knew that we can never be secure when so much of the world is in turmoil and so many people lack basic necessities. And this state of affairs was being driven by US foreign policy.

    If we had analyzed our differences with Bernie, we would have supported him anyway. Compared to the neocons and Conservatives, Bernie was like rain in the desert. However, we did have one thing in common with Bernie: none of us was even thinking about the trans issue or same-sex marriage.

    The Indiscriminate and Undiscriminating World of Alternative Media

    The term ‘woke’ appeared quite early in our conversation. I don’t know where it came from. I would guess that the woman who first uttered it was a manifestation of establishment (probably Democratic) consultation.

    From the Republican side, a fear campaign was launched against the term ‘social justice’. I once used this term in reference to Bernie’s agenda. I didn’t realize it had negative connotations from the World War II era. But during World War II, this term was not used by the Democratic Party–progressive or otherwise. It was associated with Father Charles Coughlin, an American right-wing supporter of Adolf Hitler. Of course the Republicans didn’t mention that in 2016.

    Leading up to the 2016 election, YouTube pundits began encouraging progressives to vote for either Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein. I objected in their video comments and on my blog. I said that telling young voters to choose between two candidates is not a strategy. But they continued.

    Jill Stein has been lauded consistently over the last decade by Chris Hedges. Hedges appears to be a progressive but he always seems to be working against the Democratic Party.

    Trans Rights

    No one has ever explained to me how same-sex marriage and trans rights are progressive. At least not in the sense of 21st century progressivism. Our focus is the survival of the human race, which is threatened by war and unsustainable agricultural systems. We’re not just promoting the survival of the human race. We are in search of a fulfilling and productive existence for everyone.

    But the celebration of same-sex marriage and trans rights seemed to appear on the scene as part of a full-scale blitz. Certain ‘progressive’ YouTube pundits suddenly appeared with over ten thousand followers and they immediately joined in the celebration.

    We support policies that fight discrimination. This includes discrimination against same-sex couples and trans people. But same-sex marriage and trans rights do not take precedence over survival in the progressive agenda.

    The 2024 Election

    When Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Gaza in spite of Americans’ warnings and objections, I predicted that he would continue to pound the people of Gaza until the election. And that’s what he did. Today everyone agrees that Israel’s behavior hurt Joe Biden’s chances in the 2024 election. Of course it did. It was meant to hurt Biden. Netanyahu wanted Trump to win the election.

    Wilson blames Progressives
    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages

    The voters were herded like cattle on market day. That’s how Trump won the presidency. and it didn’t happen in a media vacuum. Influencers on YouTube and in Michigan pushed the strategy of punishing Biden in the election. It was obvious to most people that helping Trump get elected would not be good for Gaza, but the influencers continued anyway. These influencers included Benjamin Netanyahu, Chris Hedges and Jill Stein.

    It’s not the first time voters have been herded. However if Trump has his way, it will be the last time. No elections, no voters. I could lecture you that strategic thinking and voting is important in a democracy. However, even if a majority of Americans could be influenced by such arguments I would be closing the barn door after the cows got out.

  • There Are Worse Things Than Losing a Primary

    Hillary put herself in a very bad place when she shut Bernie out of the primary. Now there are stories that confirm our worst suspicions. Like the one about how her donors threatened to call it quits if she lost Nevada, and her brilliant plan to cheat Bernie in Nevada, because what could go wrong?

    Try as she might, Hillary won’t be able to undo the outcome of the election. True, there may be more to the Trump-Russia narrative than the pundits give her credit for, however she knew about his ties with Russia from the beginning, and they were only indirectly related to the election. Worse for her, Trump can’t be impeached for his Russia ties because the actions in question took place before he was president. It’s all in Geoff Gilson’s Book, Maggie’s Hammer. Or you can watch Ed Opperman’s interview here. Gilson’s part ends at about 48:00:
    https://youtu.be/dHDi0D6kGrk

    Hillary Clinton’s behavior in this election has handed Donald Trump a blank check signed by the United States of America. That will be her legacy.

  • Standing Rock: U.S. Government Genocide

    Update: This is the kind of thing that drives people apart and makes them give up.

    Can anyone back up these claims?

    February 19, 2017:

    I published these videos after they showed up in my YouTube feed. Sorry to say, I wasn’t suspicious about them until after I published them. As you probably know by now, this YouTube channel supports Donald Trump.   Now I see that my suspicions were justified.  Since Trump owns shares in the Dakota Access Pipeline it’s not likely his supporters would be concerned for the water protectors–it’s more likely they would try to scare them off.

    I guess this is nothing new—lies have been filling up the airwaves these days. What really gets to me is the gleeful way the lies are carried out. The monetary rewards alone can’t explain it in my opinion. None of the things we’ve been seeing make sense in the context of what we were trying to accomplish in this election.

    Maybe they assume we’re as cynical as they are and that we didn’t mean what we said. Or maybe they don’t need an excuse. Maybe they just enjoy making mischief.

    (more…)

  • Bernie’s Supporters Could Throw Everything Away

    The YouTubers are still plying their trade, dwelling on sob-stories, ominous polls, and adding to the general rudeness and confusion any way they can. My concern is that we can be led astray regardless of where we look for our news, so we have to be clear about why we’re supporting our candidate and not be swayed by bad news. I for one, have had enough of the turmoil.

    I’m surprised to find that Bernie’s endorsement has had a remarkable effect on my mental state. It’s not what I wanted, but I can see it’s what had to happen. And I also realize that nothing that has taken place in this election should have surprised anyone the way it did.

    I saw some positive signs when Hillary spoke at Bernie’s endorsement news conference and I’m hopeful that she and Bernie will be able to work together. However, it occurred to me that Bernie Sanders will have very little influence if Donald Trump is elected. And that’s where we’re headed if we fall for the third party diversion.  The U.S. system was not set up for multiple parties.  A third party vote never works the way their voters hope it will and in this case it will probably lead to a Trump presidency.  While Trump may not end Bernie’s movement, he will set it back. Trump is a big price to pay for a protest vote.

    By the way, what do you suppose the odds are that just when we find a miracle-candidate with integrity and know-how, we also find a spare just waiting to save us in case he doesn’t work out–Jill Stein! Unfortunately Stein is a member of the party that gave the presidency to George Bush, back when Ralph Nader ran against him.  Of course they say she wasn’t the reason Bush won, but that’s not exactly a great recommendation for trying it again.

    We knew things were bad when Bernie’s campaign started. We knew our democracy was under threat. We didn’t dare to hope he would actually win, but we had to try. Then when it looked like we might succeed we suddenly forgot everything we knew about the forces arrayed against us—forces that have been gathering strength for at least a century. (And so not created by the Clintons.) We forgot for a moment how outrageous our success really was…and still is, and we have yet to fully understand how far we’ve come.

    You could refresh your memory by listening to Bernie’s conference call with his delegates.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na7kjo6VGuw

    For a discussion of third parties in America versus reforming the Democratic Party see: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_egalitarians.html.  The following is an excerpt from that article dealing with Nader’s motives and errors:

    Nader Explains The Nader Campaign

    Thanks to a highly detailed post-election book that Nader wrote to chronicle and justify his 2000 presidential campaign as a candidate of the Green Party, it is possible to show how the critique in this document applies to this most recent incarnation of the egalitarians’ quest for their own third party. Although Nader is now irrelevant as far as future elections, his mentality and rationalizations live on in all those leftists who insist on building a third party despite what Nader wrought in the 2000 elections.

    Nader’s main claim is that the two parties are increasingly the same, and thus there is a need for a new third party that offers voters a real choice. This claim has two dimensions to it. First, the Democrats are far worse than their liberal supporters imagine. They have been collapsing on major issues since the 1970s, forsaking their “progressive” past, and matters only got worse in the Clinton-Gore years. Nader delivers a detailed indictment of these Democratic failures, including all the rejections of his own efforts by Gore and even the Progressive Caucus in the House.

    Second, and even more importantly in terms of justifying a third party, Nader argues that the Republicans are not as dangerous as the liberal Democrats claim. Bush is not exactly “Genghis Khan,” he notes at one point, and then lists the various ways Bush moved to the center in his first year in office. This point was of course laughable by 2005, which is another reason why it is worth reminding everyone of how Nader justified his campaign.

    Nader’s lack of concern when contemplating a Republican presidency is very different from the usual egalitarian view of Republicans as their main opponents. It can be appreciated more fully when it is contrasted with right-wing views of the Democrats. Due to their abhorrence of “big government,” labor unions, and/or liberal social values, right wingers generally avoid third parties at all costs because they genuinely fear the Democrats as the worst of all out-groups. A Clinton or a Gore looks tame to left-wing third-party advocates, but not to right wingers, who believe that the Democratic coalition, with Clinton and Gore representing its moderate wing, spells trouble for their worldview. Gore is Genghis Khan to conservatives, but Bush is not Genghis Khan to most left activists, including Nader, and therein lies an important part of the political equation in America. The energy of zealous right-wing activists is used on behalf of the Republicans, thereby uniting all those who are right of center when they step into the political arena, but the great energies and moral fervor of the egalitarians are often used in attacking Democrats as sell-outs, leaving those who are left of center divided among themselves and often demoralized.

    But it is not only that the two parties are about the same according to Nader. He also claims that it is useful for the Democrats to lose if activist groups are to be energized enough to realize their goals through nonviolent direct action and lobbying pressure. Democrats take activist groups for granted once the activists endorse them, and the activists tend to sit back when Democrats are in office. The result, says Nader, is disastrous. The Democrats put activists to sleep; they “anesthetize” activists. Thus, he argues that activist groups often do better when the Democrats are not in power.

    Furthermore, he continues, it may be good for the Democrats to lose once in a while so that they don’t take the citizen groups and social movements for granted. This is necessary because “The only message politicians understand is losing an election.” This comes fairly close to saying that it was time to sink Gore, especially when read in the context of the many extremely negative things he has to say about Gore on a wide variety of issues, and most pointedly environmental issues. Here Nader’s reasoning is based on the-worse-the-better theory.

    The likelihood that Nader wanted to cost Gore the election also can be seen in the fact that he chose to go to Miami to campaign the Saturday before the election. He says that’s because he hadn’t spent much time in Florida, but he did so knowing the race was very close there, and despite the fact that some of his political scientist and sociologist supporters wanted him to draw back in Oregon, Wisconsin, and Florida to assure a Gore victory in those crucial states.

    Although Nader never publicly said that punishing Gore was his motive, that’s the impression one disillusioned supporter received when he talked to a leader in the campaign about withdrawing from swing states like Florida, or asking Nader supporters in such states to hold their noses and vote for Gore in exchange for Nader votes by Democrats in safe states. The idea was that such a move would help defeat Bush while increasing the Nader vote in safe states. This would also vividly demonstrate the importance of Nader and his constituency to a Gore Administration and Democrats everywhere, or so some of his supporters reasoned. In response to this suggestion, one of Nader’s top aides abruptly said “We are not going to do that.” When the surprised supporter asked why not, the aide replied, “Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them.”

    Thus far, few analysts have closely examined Nader’s motives, but a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer also reported that Nader wanted to punish Gore and the Democrats. After meeting with Nader in the Spring of 200l, he wrote: “He (Nader) is not coy about his motives. Just as he ran for president to punish Gore and the Democrats for allegedly betraying their progressive traditions and currying favor with global corporate power, now he wants to knock off congressional Democrats who have committed the same sins.” The journalist is referring to Nader’s plan to run 60 or so Greens in the congressional elections in 2002, which failed completely.

    Nader also claims there are virtues to third parties. They introduce new issues and they bring out new voters, some of whom vote for Democrats in races where the third party does not have candidates. He claims there were a million new voters in 2000 thanks to his campaign, and takes credit for the victory of Democratic senatorial candidate Maria Cantwell in the state of Washington, where she won by 2,300 votes over the incumbent Republican. He also draws on the relative successes of the third-party presidential campaigns by John Anderson in 1980 and H. Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 to support his brief for third parties.

    Nader’s specific arguments about the Democrats and Republicans do not address the structural problem that he understands, but discusses as a mere “obstacle” to be overcome in the slow process of building a movement and a third party. He does not admit that the everyday, short-run interests of the supporters of the Democratic Party, such as low-income workers, women who work outside the home, disadvantaged people of color, and religious liberals, are likely to be ignored as more and more Republicans assume office while the third party is being built. The slant of the Bush tax cuts to favor the top few percent is the most brutal evidence of how shortsighted Nader was on this point.

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