The Accidental Candidates

“Third parties are like bees. Once they have stung, they die”  – Richard Hofstadter, Columbia University popular historian

Every few election cycles, a hero appears on the horizon, giving hope to the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. These Quixotic candidates are invariably mavericks and populists who tap into the yearning for an alternative to the two party monopoly. They appear seemingly out of nowhere, like shooting stars, and like those celestial anomalies, they burn brightly, then disappear forever, leaving only disappointment and broken dreams in their wake. Remember these fallen tributes from our most recent elections – John Anderson (1980, 7%), Ross Perot (1992, 18.6%), Ralph Nader (2000 2.74%)?

This year, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, though not third party candidates (yet), are filling those roles.  Although operating within their party structures (for now), they certainly qualify in spirit, in terms of their outsider appeal. Both were single issue candidates when this horse race began. And they still are. I don’t believe either of them envisaged that they would get the support that they did, to the point that the presidency would be within their reach at his stage of the game. But what they were saying (in Sanders’ case) and the way in which they said it (Trump), tapped into the undercurrent of anger and frustration that is now part of the American Zeitgeist.

Sanders hoped to protest income inequality as a national issue, but found his message resonating to such a degree that his tilt at the Presidential windmill soon became a legitimate populist movement. It pierced the aura of inevitability surrounding Hillary Clinton and now threatens to derail her coronation in November. In just about every debate, or stump speech, he stays remarkably on point. During a February debate, the candidates were asked about race relations in the Obama era. While Hillary Clinton referred to possible areas of improvement, while pointing out that there remained systemic racism that had to be rooted out of society, Sanders pivoted immediately to the “disastrous and illegal behavior on Wall Street”. When asked by moderator Judy Woodruff if race relations would improve under a President Sanders, he responded  “Absolutely.” Why? Because if he’s elected, he would change tax policy to stop “giving tax breaks to billionaires.” At one point he even linked the Flint water crisis to Wall Street. He views every problem through a narrowly focused lens and has admitted as much, saying that the issues that are important to him – economic inequality, an unfair tax system, trade, Wall Street accountability, etc. – fall under the umbrella of a broader issue: rebuilding the middle class.

Similarly, but much more dangerously, Donald Trump has captured the imagination of a certain segment of the Tea Party Republican/ Blue Dog Democrat constituency, which has led to his improbable rise as the putative Republican nominee for the highest office in the land. He appeals to a visceral, throw-the-bums-out anger of the frequently disappointed, and increasingly frustrated mostly right wing electorate. He has made nonsensical pronouncements on immigration, trade national security and abortion. However, he was and remains a single issue candidate. Donald Trump stands for one thing and one thing only – and that is Donald Trump. One could imagine him last June, as he descended the escalator at Trump Tower in New York City, his third trophy wife on his arm, thinking that this would be the ultimate branding exercise – an opportunity to ensure that his name recognition would be unparalleled in any commercial venture he would make in the future. This much was confirmed by a top strategist turned defector who revealed that his initial goal as a protest candidate was to poll in the double digits and come in second in the delegate count.

Except a funny thing happened on the way to the forum – his incendiary rhetoric unfathomably caught the imagination of the white supremacist/rust belt coalition. It spread to the economic populist demographic and then his ego took over. He bought into his own hype and began to entertain delusions of grandeur. But his true nature, as a pitchman for the Trump name, could not be denied. In a bizarre acceptance speech, after he had won primaries in Mississippi and Michigan, he spent several minutes in front of a table covered with product, flogging Trump branded vodka, wine, water, university, golf courses and steaks, like a QVC pitchman on late night TV.   Unfortunately, as Jordan Klepper of the Daily Show pointed out, none of the products being pushed during the extended infomercial could be purchased any longer, since the businesses they represented had all failed ignominiously, consigned to the scrapheap of history.

Now, after his latest series of gaffes ( I know, he has been playing political minesweeper as if the aim is to explode as many bombs as you can), the theory is that Trump, finally realizing he is in over his head, is now trying to sabotage his own campaign, but in such a way that he can still claim “I wuz robbed!”, so that he can go on his merry way selling timeshare or magic mops, or whatever the hell next takes his fertile fancy.

Even if he somehow is still the Republican nominee in July, he will be crushed in the general, with millions of Americans uniting to emphatically disavow him(amongst women of all political persuasions, 7 out of 10 have a negative opinion of him). On the other hand, the sociopathic narcissist in him will say, yes, but look at the millions of Americans who chose to support me – these are my new customers for whatever snake oil I choose to peddle. This presidential campaign will have given him ego boosting sustenance for the rest of his life.

Perhaps these candidates are not so much accidental, as symptomatic of a general malaise in a voting public too long constrained by the entrenched two party system. Some Bernie supporters have pledged not to vote for Hillary under any circumstances, preferring to write Sanders in, or else vote for Jill Stein of the Green party in protest( although Sanders himself would recognize the benefit of keeping a Democrat in the White House).

The Trump demographic, however, would willingly follow him out of the Republican party with their pitchforks, and transform into an insurgent political force. They would be disappointed, however, to discover that Trump’s loyalty is to nothing as grandiose as actual principle, but to something much more mundane (except in his own eyes) – his own tawdry brand.

Like the shooting stars that came before them, they are destined to have their moment  in the night sky, but will end up either as a footnote or punch line.

Nader’s Quixotic Quest

To nobody’s surprise, Ralph Nader has announced his intention to run for the presidency again, stalking Harold Stassen’s record for futility with grim determination (Stassen ran for president 9 times between 1948 and 1992). Although he argues vehemently against the notion, instead blaming Democrats themselves,  Nader likely cost Al Gore the White House in 2000, and gifted America and the world with George W. Bush.  In Florida, Nader drew 97 000 votes, almost all of which would have gone to Gore.  George Bush won that state by about 500. As Hillary Clinton observed, Al Gore would have been the greenest president in history. His commitment to the environment since leaving the White House has been rewarded with the Nobel prize. George Bush, on the other hand has fallen in lockstep with big business and undone most of the environmental protections put in place by the Clinton-Gore administration.  So it is a stupendous achievement on Nader’s part to have delivered the result against the very contituency he purported to represent, and then to wash his hands of all blame.

As an effective consumer advocate, Nader was the conscience of America; as political gadfly, he is a nuisance who no longer even rises to the level of distraction. Like Jesse Jackson, he was more effective as a critic than as a candidate, but now he has allowed his perceived intellectual superiority to get in the way of what he once fought for.  He remains caught up in the drama of David and Goliath, a noble and defiant individual struggling against the military-industrial complex.

He fails to realize that many of the reforms he fought for have been co-opted by the mainstream and that it is time to move on. We would like to remember him as an activist and rebel who taught social responsibility to corporate America.  But as the country song goes – How can I miss you if you won’t go away?