Apparently, I’m Not the Only One Who Thinks Ralph Nader Is a Big Fat Idiot

[leftofcool]

This is Gloria Steinam on Ralph Nader from 2000. This is why we women don't link to him or believe anything he says:

http://andrewtobias.com/column/apparently-im-not-the-only-one-who-thinks-ralph-nader-is-a-big-fat-idiot/

[cantbeserious]

1. Ever More Anti-Ralph Obfuscation

eom

[pnwmom]

17. You obviously don't know what your fancy word even means. nt

[JTFrog]

24. .

[cantbeserious]

38. In This Case -The Attempt To Distract And Confuse Those That Are History Challenged

eom

[Buzz Clik]

26. Obfuscation? Hardly. Even if you love Nader, this doesn't qualify as obfuscation.

You might want to check out the meaning of the word.

[malaise]

2. I like Ralph Nader

What he did for my safety with seat belts is more than most of us will do in our entire lives

[leftofcool]

3. He should have stuck to consumer affairs and stayed out of politics

[malaise]

4. Why?

Because you believe in democracy so much that you get to decide who participates???

Come on now -the two dominant political parties don't own America.

[marmar]

5. +1000

[baldguy]

7. But one party works to build America up, while the other works to tear it down.

Nader attacks the former & helps the latter.

Fuck Nader.

[leftofcool]

8. Because he is anti women's reproductive rights for one.

I don't have a problem with 3rd parties, I have a problem with him.

[Orrex]

11. ^^That

Whenever someone criticizes Nader, the response is always a screed about the two-party monopoly along with some passing reference to the Corvair.

It is entirely possible to dislike the man for his stance on a number of issues.

[Buzz Clik]

27. Oh, sure. I suppose you want to die in a Corvair driving to the polls ....

.... to vote for a predetermined candidate?????!!!!1111one

[pnwmom]

18. Because Ralph was the single PROGRESSIVE who helped elect Bush,

by drawing 95,000 progressive votes-- in Florida alone --that could have gone to Gore.

[hfojvt]

30. they will always claim Florida was stolen

I tell them that New Hampshire wasn't.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/118

[pnwmom]

32. Florida was the single state that decided that election and Nader was the single "progressive"

who had the most influence on handing Bush a win, by bringing the results so close that the decision went to SCOTUS.

[hfojvt]

40. you clearly did not read my link

the media focused on Florida, but New Hampshire ALSO decided the election.

If Gore had just won New Hampshire (with, say 58% of the Nader vote) he would have been President - irregardless of Florida. So Florida simply was NOT the one and only state that mattered.

Nader defenders can muddy the water with SCOTUS and Jeb Bush in Florida. They cannot do that in New Hampshire (although, like you, they will claim that only Florida matters, (amazing the power of the media, eh?))

[pnwmom]

42. I see. I thought you were going the other way on this. Thanks for explaining . n/t

[KittyWampus]

21. Because he was dishonest in the extreme, and in a two party system

where one party is always going to have less money/media to fight saying they are both the same is dangerous.

Do YOU believe in destroying the country to save it?

Cause that is exactly what Nader's strategy was. His strategy was for things to get worse so they'd eventually get better.

[artislife]

31. +1000

THEY will decide who gets to run for president...now run along like a good little child.

[Major Nikon]

45. He wasn't even that great in that regard

He made his bones alleging the corvair was unsafe when objective testing and statistics showed it was no more so than any other car in its class, effectively removing a perfectly acceptable vehicle from the market that was priced for the working class. He's been a fraud in every endeavor.

[awoke_in_2003]

46. Very true

What he did as an advocate for public safety was great, and his actions saved lives. I admire him for that. He should have stayed out of politics.

[Recursion]

10. I like Norman Borlaug. He saved billions of lives.

Doesn't mean he should have run for President...

[RandiFan1290]

6. Might be time to move on

and ask Democrats to fight harder instead of being so subservient.

[pnwmom]

19. Might be time for DUers to stop posting Nader's worthless opinions on 2016. n/t

[artislife]

33. People don't get excited by musak and that is what the party ran.

In honor of a fallen artist...or maybe I should say rising star joining the universe on a different plane. RIP Bowie.

[marble falls]

9. Anyone who runs a third party campaign in a two party system is an idiot...

he can't win, he can only spoil.

[Jim Lane]

43. Almost anyone.

You're an idiot if, like Nader, you find that one of the two major parties is closer to your views on just about every issue, yet you run as a spoiler anyway.

Nader insinuated that he would prefer a Bush victory, but that wasn't because he preferred Bush on any policy grounds. It was because of his (now failed) prediction that, if Bush became President, the Democratic Party would repent of having disagreed with Nader about anything, and would lurch hard in his direction. Instead, we got eight years of Bush that pulled the whole country to the right.

The reason I say "almost anyone" is that some people aren't in the situation described in my first paragraph. In particular, I have sympathy for the Libertarian Party. To us, the most obvious point about libertarians is the way they would ruthlessly shred the social safety net and leave big business unregulated, positions on which the GOP is better for them than the Democrats. What we sometimes forget is that many libertarians are against foreign adventurism (the Cato Institute opposed the Iraq War) and support individual rights against the security state (Ron Paul voted against the PATRIOT Act) and against the Christofascists (many libertarians support reproductive rights and marriage equality). On these issues they would prefer a Democrat over a Republican.

A libertarian could reasonably conclude that a third party is preferable to voting for either major party. The same is not true of someone like Nader or the typical Tea Partier -- someone who, unlike the libertarians, can be placed somewhere on the traditional left-right axis with only minor oversimplification.

[marble falls]

44. Almost no one. Not Trump, Cruz, Clinton or Sanders...

can't think of who - maybe Bill Clinton if his VP is Bernie Sanders. Maybe.

[rjsquirrel]

12. He's become

an eccentric, sexist, narcissistic curmudgeon.

In fantasy America he's still king.

I despise him and will never forgive him for 2000. Spare me the usual defense song and dance. If Nader hadn't run his useless and quixotic campaign we would have avoided two wars and started acting on climate change in time.

Nader exudes The Crazy. He is a creepy old fart.

[DinahMoeHum]

13. Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) also said it back in 2004. . .

http://krupsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2004/09/listen-to-beast.html

(snip)
". . .Ralph Nader is the most arrogant and narcissistic guy I've ever met. I had a meeting with him in the early Nineties. I was jazzed going into the meeting, and I was disgusted leaving. I don't think I've ever met a bigger asshole. If he hadn't run in the last election, we wouldn't be in Iraq and thousands of people wouldn't have died needlessly. . ."
(snip)

[Mike Nelson]

14. He did some good...

...but may have become more interested in Nader than a greater good.

[MattSh]

15. Bored? Slow news day?

Really, who gives a shit about an article from 15 years ago.

[pnwmom]

20. Nader was just on the Greatest Page here, pontificating on 2016. n/t

[KittyWampus]

22. Ideologues appeal to their fellow ideologues. Which is a big reason Sanders

has about 30% of the primary vote.

So easy to throw stones when you don't have to do the hard work of building coalitions.

[Odin2005]

16. Point 7 makes Nader sound like some "brogressive" idiot on Reddit who "hates PC".

[whatthehey]

23. You are WRONG

He's not fat at all. I don't think he's even all that big.

Perhaps if you replaced those words with oh I dunno, "loathsome" and "treasonous" it would be more accurate.

[hfojvt]

36. I was kinda wondering if he had put on weight

I know I have.

He is 6' 3" (according to the web) so that's pretty big.

Somebody apparently didn't know that it is insensitive to use fat as a pejorative, even though it's the idiocy that is supposed to be 500 pounds, rather than the person (maybe, Franken's book, after all, was partly about Limbaugh's weight)

[whatthehey]

41. I stand corrected. Big is back in.

[tabasco]

25. Not as long as I'm alive. n/t

[Gothmog]

28. Nader is a joke and no one should pay any attention to his stupidity

[Archae]

29. Nader is a liar, hypocrite, 1%'er, anti-union, vicious old man.

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

[Anansi1171]

34. Voting for that moron was the greatest mistake of my adult life.

That's why I care about the Democratic Party winning, and I will support that candidate that can win.

[Logical]

35. Lol, it exposed you though! Nt

[Orsino]

37. She made a couple of good points...

...a couple of stupid ones, and a couple of nonsensical ones.

[hunter]

39. Nader's a tool who surrounds himself with sycophants. Always has been.

He's a relief valve on the big corporate pressure cooker. A knob.

U.S. Americans are trained from childhood to "work within the system."

That's not effective activism in a political system that's irredeemably corrupt.

Nader is an intrinsic part of that corrupt system, an active member of the nasty Washington D.C. boy's club.