Abstract

Bush's Useful Idiot

The article criticizes United States presidential candidate Ralph Nader and the ways in which he has aided the re-election campaign of President George W. Bush. Four years ago, Nader professed to want to help build the Green Party into a genuinely progressive alternative to what he termed the corporate-dominated "duopoly." But Nader was no more truthful about his commitment to party-building than Bush was when he decried "nation-building." Today, Nader's party allies consist mainly of the motley far-right collection of Republicans who fund his campaign and collect his signatures, and the remains of the nativist Reform Party. It is true that Nader once represented an important progressive voice in American politics. Nader is actually polling higher than the 2.74 percent of Americans who provided the votes for his 2000 kamikaze mission--high enough to tip key swing states toward Bush in the 2004 election.