Crashing The Party
By Ralph Nader
Thomas Dunne Books
$24.95
reviewed by Mike Nardine
Originally In The Reader Weekly
Ralph Nader is a genuine American hero, resolute, courageous, so completely without a price and incapable of compromise that even those who detest his politics are forced to admire his character. Unfortunately this book, like many offspring of great men, is considerably less meritorious. Still to be found in these pages is a reflection of the steel intellect that made him the terror of Wall Street, along with an almost Olympian contempt for individuals and movements—Democrat and Republican—that fail his stringent test of virtue. It lacks the organization and focus that marked his earlier works like Unsafe at Any Speed.
Ralph Nader, the man, is an original. Has there ever been anyone quite like him? But to paraphrase what someone once said about history, his book would be interesting if it wasn’t so repetitious. No one can doubt his commitment to progressive social change. He was there for the poor and the weak long before it became fashionable. No one doubts the corruptive influence of big money on politics, and no one doubts he wasn’t for sale. But after making his points, couldn’t he have spared us a few details about some of the boring campaign trips he took? Certainly there are a lot of excellent organizations and movements going under funded. Of Course there are a lot of fine individuals going unappreciated. Does he still have to depress us by naming them all? Couldn’t this book have displayed more of the pungent wit and verbal judo that has made him the Great American Scold?
Still, some of the stuff in this book is wonderful: “Great societies,” he says in the preface “must have public policies that declare which rights, assets, and conditions are never for sale.” Much of the rest of the book is spent talking about some of those policies and illustrating how they are offered up for auction by the two major political parties. “Politics,” he says “as it is practiced is the art of having it both ways. One party—the Democrats—regularly says all the right thing about campaign finance reform but does nothing. The other party—the Republicans—rarely says the right thing about the corruption of our elections and does nothing.”
His contempt for Republicans is total: Christine Todd Whitman is a “latter-day Marie Antoinette.” George W. Bush, a corporation masquerading as a candidate. But listen to what he says about the archfiend himself: “Would any Democratic politician in 1970 ever have predicted that Richard Nixon would be a favorable standard for comparison with today’s party leaders?” Thirty years ago Nixon offered a national minimum income plan and a national health insurance plan. In the last election the Democratic platform could hardly be distinguished from the Republican. But then “what would a pro-corporate prison, pro-death penalty administration official like Gore say to the mirror-image state administration of George W. Bush?” And what, Nader wants to know, did the Democrats do during their years in power? “So long as they continue to reward the very power brokers whose avarice contributed to the destitution and perpetual social injustice, the Democrats might as well be Republicans.”
By the way, does any of this sound like a man likely to care if his candidacy cost Gore the presidency? He doesn’t seem to hate Gore; he considers him smart but “disingenuous.” He changes himself to fit the polls. In other words, Gore is a politician. Nader has no use for Bush at all. In fact, he has little good to say about most politicians—Senators Feingold of Wisconsin and McCain of Arizona being two notable exceptions. His applause is saved for young seekers after truth and the downtrodden.
Nor does he think much of the way the new media treats the candidates of today. Back in the 60’s and 70’s the candidates had to take tough questions from the likes of Phil Donahue. Today they go on Oprah and the first one to kiss her wins. As Nader told a reporter when the campaign began “I would not be kissing babies.” Unlike most of the generation that flocked to his banner in the 60’s, he still doesn’t kiss ass either.