Anti-Climacus

LINK: I'm violating two of my rules here (not linking to Salon pieces, because of the stupid daily pass system, and not blogging about He Who Must Not Be Named), but Todd Gitlin is really just that spot-on:

"Nader, of course, has grander designs than being a fraction of his previous fraction. Making his announcement, Nader referred to the "100 million nonvoters" he thinks he speaks to and for. It's especially peculiar to think that nonvoters are counting on him at a time when turnout has risen, sometimes impressively, in almost every Democratic primary and caucus so far this year. But leaving that aside, if you take a hard look at the turnout argument, you see that the legions of nonvoters are the spectral cavalry of the marginals -- the phantasmagorical saviors waiting in the canyons. Nader invoked them in 2000. Howard Dean invoked them this year. They are an argument of last resort in political fantasies.

But here's the truth: There's no evidence that nonvoters differ from voters in any radical ideological way. They are not bashful saints biding their time as they hold out for perfection. They are mainly low-income people who want practical results. Their cynicism about politics comes from the lack of precisely that, practical results. They don't want prophecy or a new party. They have no more faith in Ralph Nader's version of the "liberal intelligentsia" than in any other."