Ralph Nader is running for president, again. But he has a problem: he doesn’t understand the web as well as the web understands him. Message to Ralph: It’s not the 1970s any more. It’s not even the 1990s any more.
In 2000, when Nader made his first serious run for president, he had a substantial base of supporters. (Full disclosure: I was among them.) But that was before the real flowering of the web and the networked public sphere. In 2004, he ran again, but–for obvious reasons–he was far less popular. (You can read some of my criticisms back then here, here and here.) The rationale for his candidacy–that there were no serious differences between John Kerry and George Bush–made sense to few people. Online, Nader was battered: After initially soliciting opinions on his candidacy from visitors to his website, he shut down that option because the tide of opinion was so negative.
Four years ago, Nader told the New York Times that he wasn’t bothered by the fact that he had just a few hundred supporters on Meetup.com, compared to 188,000 for Howard Dean; 45,000 for John Kerry; and 23,000 for his friend Dennis Kucinich. His comment was: “I really don’t deal with the Web. There isn’t enough time in the day to go into virtual reality.” I wrote then that I thought that line should lead his political obituary.
I have a feeling Nader’s view of the web hasn’t changed. In fact, the web gave me the goods to prove it, video and all. Yes, during his appearance last Sunday on Meet the Press, where he announced his new bid for the White House, he told Tim Russert, “I want the people out there just to look at our web site and see how exciting it’s going to be. I’ve been assured by my computer/Internet literate associates–I grew up in the Underwood typewriter age, you know–that this is going to be the most exciting, informative, participatory Web site of any presidential campaign, votenader.org.”
Puhleeze! Nader’s campaign website is hardly anything to write home about. Right now, it mostly reminds me of Joe Biden’s campaign site, which was also overstocked with pictures of The Candidate in his many poses. To his credit, Nader does have a blog, which includes a moderated comments section with a lengthy disclaimer noting that it may take several hours before comments are reviewed and approved. (I’m not sure how one comment that spelled Hillary Clinton’s name as “Hitlery” passed muster, but Nader’s minions do not appear to be censoring comments critical of Nader’s run as of now–we’ll see if that policy lasts.) Nader also has a MySpace page, with about 500 friends, and a Facebook page he launched this morning, it appears. And someone on his team has made a cute YouTube video aimed at recruiting volunteers.
But when Nader goes on Meet the Press, he’s in his pitch mode. After all, this is broadcast politics, which he understands. You have to look at his college visits to find out what he really thinks of the net. Here are two examples: Back in September 2007, he gave an interview to a college paper. Asked how the internet has affected social activism in the 21st Century, Nader replied:
On the one hand, it’s a spectacular form of notification; you can tell people in great numbers at very little cost what is going on. It is also a spectacular form of transmitting information, although not necessarily absorbed by the people it’s transmitted to. Thirdly, as a mechanism of actually getting people to do something – acting, mobilizing – it’s still significantly a snare and an illusion. If you spend 50 hours a week looking at screens – TV, computer, video game, etc. – you’re not out in reality, you’re in virtual reality, you’re not in reality. So, that’s why I say it could be a snare and a delusion because things occur and are achieved in reality when it comes to social change. [Emphasis added.]
Last November, Nader was giving a speech at St. Louis University when a student asked him about Facebook and other social networking sites. You can watch the YouTube video below, but here is my rushed transcript of the conversation:
Student: “What do you think about Facebook and the social networking trend today? Is it a threat to our democracy? Are too many college students spending too much time on it? Or would you say that 25 years from now, politicians will have their answer to Facebook?” Nader goes on to complain that people who are listening to music “don’t know you’re there” and “you can’t even get them to sign a petition,” calling this “blocking out, blocking out.” And then he goes on to blame this on corporations who want us to be passive, “pavlovian responders,” etc. etc. Hello, Ralph? Tell me, which corporation invented blogging? Or podcasting? Or RSS? Which consumer movement humbled the world’s most powerful corporation, Microsoft? (It’s called the open-source software movement.) Which consumer movement is fighting the corporate intellectual property movement and the entertainment-telecom complex? (It’s called the free culture movement.) And how did millions of people figure out how to come together, in record time and in record numbers, around such varied causes as marching against the Iraq War on February 13, 2003; or raising record sums for Ron Paul and Barack Obama? It’s called social networking! Once upon a time, Nader was an inspiring leader and effective reformer of the first order. But he doesn’t have a clue as to how the web is changing politics, and at his age and despite his intellect, doesn’t seem interested in learning, either. Nader’s political style was perfected in and for the age of broadcast politics: Issue great muckraking reports, get newspaper headlines, win a policy change from a responsive Congress, raise money, rinse and repeat. That style worked, for a while, and we all know Nader’s record of accomplishment as a consumer advocate in the 1960s and 70s. But Nader never figured out a way to beat the corporate lobbies once they counter-mobilized in the 1980s, and his approach stopped working. However, the age of broadcast politics is ending, and anyone who works at organizing in the networked public sphere can make a difference. (See Josh Marshall’s Polk Award for helping bring down an Attorney General as the most recent example.) Nader’s downtrodden consumers are empowered as never before, as Cluetrain author Doc Searls argued, with characteristic foresight, years ago. And grass-roots activists have flooded into the political arena in recent years, hyper-powered by the Read/Write Web. But Nader’s approach to the web shows no understanding of these changes. Take his seemingly deeply ingrained view of the net as “virtual reality” and “a snare and an illusion.” Tell me, Ralph, how are pixels on a TV screen or ink drippings on a sheet of newspaper any more “real” than glowing lights on a computer monitor? I’ve never heard Nader criticize people who spend a lot of time reading magazines or newspapers or watching serious political talk shows as spending too much time in “virtual reality,” and yet everyone one of these media are as much an artificial creation as the web–and the web is far more interactive, participatory and democratic. Those three words–interactive, participatory and democratic–are oddly anathema to Nader. He wants to open up the political process, which is good, but he doesn’t want to listen when people use our open political process to tell him that his candidacy is a snare and an illusion. Personally, while I think third-parties have played (and can still sometimes play) a valuable role in expanding the political debate in America and in introducing vital and neglected ideas and constituencies into the mainstream, and I would like to see the artificial barriers erected by the major parties to third-party participation torn down (and I oppose the heavy-handed use of ballot access rules to keep people like Nader off the ballot), it seems to me that in the internet age, there are plenty of more effective ways to lead protests and make change happen–whatever your issues. It’s a shame that Nader, who once made so many positive contributions to society, can’t see that. Nader is at most a Web 1.0 candidate in a 2.0 era, seeing the web as a cheap tool for broadcasting (“transmitting”) his views to others and missing entirely the power of the network. He may argue that all sorts of issues are being ignored by the major party candidates, but the tools for mobilizing people around neglected issues have never been more potent–if you are willing to work in concert with others, give up some control of your message and embrace the democratic public sphere that we are all collectively building. In 2008, he may well benefit from people using the net to support his quixotic campaign, despite his ignorance of the net’s promise. He will also be hindered drastically by all the people who will use the net to argue against his candidacy–and since Nader is a terrible listener who doesn’t seem to want to do much more than amplify his voice and those of people who agree with him, he will find the net to be a significant obstacle.
Nader: