An Unreasonable Man

I will second Robert Kuttner's excellent article about the new Ralph Nader documentary, An Unreasonable Man, which I saw Saturday night. It's a great film that does not paint a hagiographic portrait of the 3-time candidate for President. That's why it's to Nader's credit that he presented the film at my screening.

(Side note: he was eating in the same Mediterrenean restuarant as me before the film. I knew that he was a terrorist sympathizer! And he's Lebanese-American! Deport him! Hezbollah!)

He said that he "takes his lumps" in the film, but that it was important to hear all sides of the story and present a full portrait. This stands in contrast to the megalomaniac that many Democrats consider Nader in the aftermath of his "stealing" the 2000 election.

I have a conflicted relationship with Ralph Nader. I voted for him in 2000, volunteered, did lit drops, had many arguments with friends and at information tables. At the time I wanted to see the Greens get 5% of the vote to qualify for ballot access and federal matching funds. I then as now believe that third parties are generally good for democracy, though their import would be much improved by innovations like Instant Runoff Voting. I was in a safe blue state and was involved in the "vote-trading" efforts that popped up spontaneously to deal with Nader's impact on the swing states. Gore won the election anyway, and Nader's blame for the result has been exaggerated by those who needed a scapegoat.

The problem is that his performance in 2000 (and 2004, which is far less defensible) nearly wiped out a lifetime's work:

For people younger than I, it's too easy to forget who Ralph Nader was -- and still is. As a lawyer not yet 30 years old, Nader began writing about a subject that literally did not exist as a public issue until he invented it -- cars that were dangerous by design. Detroit had popularized a one-liner that the leading cause of accidents was "the nut behind the wheel." By definition, death and disfiguring injury had be to the driver's fault, not the automakers'.

When Nader exposed the systematic dangers in Detroit's cars, first in magazine articles, then in his 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, General Motors Inc. put detectives on his tail, tried to set him up with women, investigated whether he might be gay or smoked pot, pretended to be conducting job reference interviews.

An incensed Senator Abe Ribicoff called GM President James Roche to testify. Roche defended GM's "legal right to ascertain the facts." Ribicoff shot back that Nader's sex life had nothing to do with his criticisms of GM's cars. Roche huddled with his lawyers, apologized to the committee and to Nader, and later settled an invasion of privacy lawsuit. The proceeds, deliciously, went to underwrite the Center for Responsive Law, soon made famous as Nader's Raiders.

The David vs. Goliath saga, deftly shown in the film, put Nader and auto safety on the map. Just two months after the Ribicoff hearings, Lyndon Johnson signed the nation's first auto safety bill.

In the aftermath of Nader's abortive presidential runs, it's easy to forget all that he accomplished. It's also easy to forget that Nader was a relative conservative in an era of radicals. He and his raiders were the clean-scrubbed idealists determined to make the system work. Seat belts alone, according to government statistics, saved 195,382 lives over 30 years.

One by one, dozens of landmark pieces of consumer legislation resulted from Nader's efforts. An Unreasonable Man preserves that remarkable record, in entertaining and witty fashion.

This is the finest part of the film, showing Nader's impact on a host of consumer-protection legislation throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was one of the country's most trusted men and most unassailable critics of government.

And he squandered that reputation in a 10-year permanent campaign which still continues. The film and Kuttner make the point that big business had gelded Nader's Raiders by the late 1970s by countering his public pressure for change. But I can't help thinking that all of the fine work by Public Citizen and good-government groups have been left to rot while Nader tilted at windmills. His frustration with corporate influence in both parties led him to this decision; but Nader's great successes came when he was OUTSIDE the tent; I don't understand why he felt such a need to be inside it. Who is speaking today for the American consumer? Where is the organization that can channel grassroots energy in a positive and goal-oriented direction. It's almost like Nader abandoned one cause to take up another that even he knew was unrealizable.

Everybody in the film gets an opportunity to discuss the 2000 election; some favorably, others unfavorably. My favorite moment in the film is when Eric Alterman, who pounds on Nader in soundbite after soundbite, says "I think he's a Leninist, he believes things have to get worse before they get better." And you know what, that's kind of worked out as this presumption predicts:

On the other hand, one of the memes floating about in the Nadersphere has, I think, been vindicated: Namely the basically Leninist idea that a Democratic loss and a period of Republican governance would pull the Democrats in a more progressive direction in terms of, for example, questioning "Washington Consensus" globalization. At the time, that argument didn't make sense to me. And in some important ways I still don't think it makes a ton of sense logically. But it does seem to be what's happened. Now, was that a price worth paying for the dead in Iraq, the torture, etc.? I don't really think so.

I agree that it's too high a price to bear. But it's clear that we have a Democratic Party that has rejected Third-Way DLCism in favor of a politics of contrast (seems to me, though, that this came about more from the 2002 election and its aftermath than 2000). And it's clear that the core issues that Nader spoke about in 2000 - issues like global warming, universal health care, alternative energy, labor law changes - are the EXACT issues put forward by most of the 2008 field of Democrats. it's not clear that Nader cost anybody anything in 2000, nor did he apply sufficient pressure to effect this change. He does make the good point in the film that he wasn't let in the debates because he "wasn't a factor," only to be chastised by Democrats for being the deciding factor.

It's a complex situation which makes for great drama and discussion, which is why I highly recommend the film. It remains to be seen whether Nader will run in 2008: more than a few in the audience of my screening appeared to want to see that happen. I would rather see him return to his roots and work with this more-progressive Democratic Congress to protect and defend the American consumer. And maybe, just maybe, we can reverse the outcome of the 2000 election by making Al Gore President.