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- [00:01]
Host
Support for Scratch and Win comes from M. Steinert and Sons, guiding musicians of all skill levels to their ideal piano for 165 years. Featuring the Steinway Spirio, the world's finest high resolution player piano. M Steinert.com last week on the show, I had a conversation about the Long Term Movement to challenge the authority of government agencies and push power back down to the people. A Jeffersonian view of democracy. If you were taking notes, today we're bringing you a character study of a highly influential figure in that movement, someone who does not get as much attention as they probably deserve. Unfortunately, I've got some help with this story. It's so good to be in the company of fellow history nerds. First of all, could you introduce yourselves?
- [00:55]
Rand Abdelfattah
Would you like to go first, Ramti.
- [00:56]
Ramtin Arablouei
No, you can go first.
- [00:59]
Host
Meet the hosts of the excellent NPR history podcast Throughline.
- [01:03]
Rand Abdelfattah
Hi, I'm Rand Abdelfattah.
- [01:05]
Ramtin Arablouei
I'm Ramtin Arablouei.
- [01:07]
Host
Rand and Ramtin have been making history stories together for almost 10 years now. So they've got a deep catalog. And one of my favorites is the story of Ralph Nader. Okay, so I guess my question is, before the Ralph Nader story, what did you know about Ralph Nader or what was your, like, ambient background knowledge on him?
- [01:30]
Rand Abdelfattah
I mean, for me, honestly, he was the guy who kept running for president and kept losing as a third party candidate. Like, that's the Ralph Nader that I knew.
- [01:38]
Host
Yep.
- [01:38]
Ramtin Arablouei
And I remember one of the first elections I really started paying attention to was the 2000 election. Right. And that was for sure where he was being accused of being a spoiler. But I think in a lot of ways, he occupied like a Bernie Sanders like place and had this kind of uncompromising approach, like he was not trying to compromise with anyone politically, which was unique at the time.
- [02:02]
Host
During that 2000 election, the PBS News anchor Jim Lehrer once asked Nader, do you believe you have the experience and background to run the vast agencies and bureaus and departments of the United States government? Nader's response? Well, I don't know anybody who has sued more of them. And that response says everything. Before he was a perennial candidate, Nader was a consumer protection lawyer. He knew the government from the outside as a challenger, a reformer. He knew the government by suing it, and he changed the government by suing it in profound ways.
- [02:46]
Ramtin Arablouei
So for me, it was a discovery. Right. Just like for Ryan, I didn't understand the extent to which he played a role in consumer protection. So ever since then, I think Maybe all the time. I bore my son by repeatedly saying, whenever we get in a car, you know why you wear that seat belt? Right? This guy named Ralph Nader years ago. And so for me, that's the. That's a reminder every day I get in a car to, like, go run an errand or take him to school. It's a reminder that, like, the only one of the reasons I'm wearing this or I'm required to wear this in this way is, is because of Ralph Nader's advocacy.
- [03:17]
Host
I was curious just before we got on. I was like, what is the first line of Ralph Nader's Wikipedia page? Is it the spoiler candidate or is it the consumer protection? And they kind of try and split the difference. It's sort of like he's a political activist. Yeah, he ran for president a lot. But his book Unsafe at Any Speed really changed the way we regulate cars. So you could tell they're. They're trying to thread the needle on that one.
- [03:45]
Ramtin Arablouei
Well, this is what our show is all about. We tried to take things that are familiar and reframe them for the audience to give them a new way of seeing it. And the fact is, like, we're millennials, right? Like, for a lot of us, we didn't get the complete story of Ralph Nader. So our hope was that for our audience, many of which who are millennials and younger, they're being introduced to the full Wikipedia article. Right. They're gonna read down the page and understand who this man is in his own words. Exactly.
- [04:19]
Host
I think that's a great segue. Let's. We'll tee up the episode.
- [04:23]
Rand Abdelfattah
Great.
- [04:23]
Ramtin Arablouei
Cool.
- [04:25]
Host
Today, Rund and Ramtin bring you Ralph Nader, consumer crusader. That's coming.
- [04:52]
Rand Abdelfattah
Part one.
- [04:54]
Host
Life is a highway.
- [04:57]
Narrator
Certainly freedom of the road. When you were in the car driving, you were the queen or king of the car.
- [05:06]
Rand Abdelfattah
In the 1950s, the car was becoming as much a symbol of American freedom as the bald eagle.
- [05:12]
Narrator
And what you did in the backseat was no one else's business. And listen, outside, a rambler. Horsepower the pound, pound, pound as the wheels hit the ground. Domination. With the famous rocket engine, new hydraulic drive and Futuram. Hey. They love it, these dream boats. Psychosexual vehicles. Sing it, Mel. What a thrill to take the wheel of a rocket. Oldsmobile in performance. It's a stall. It was all revolting to me.
- [05:52]
Rand Abdelfattah
Ralph Nader was born in 1934.
- [05:55]
Narrator
Well, my parents were immigrants from Lebanon and they sailed past the Statue of Liberty that took it seriously. Which means that it isn't just freedom they were after. They wanted freedom to make a difference.
- [06:10]
Rand Abdelfattah
Nader came of age during the post war era, a time when peace and economic prosperity collided with looming fears of nuclear war. His parents wanted Nader and his siblings to trust their own instincts instead of blindly accepting what they were told by other authority figures.
- [06:26]
Narrator
One time I came home from school, my dad said, what'd you learn today? Did you learn how to believe or did you learn how to think?
- [06:37]
Rand Abdelfattah
In the heyday of automobiles, amid all these commercials with gleaming tail fins and chrome bumpers, Nader saw through the romanticism of the open road straight to its dark underbelly. The American dream was more of an American massacre.
- [06:54]
Narrator
I lost a lot of friends in car crashes. They were killed or they were permanently disabled. It's far, far worse then than it is today.
- [07:08]
Rand Abdelfattah
Fatal car crashes were nearly five times more common back then, and it seemed like everyone knew someone who'd been in a serious accident. But the prevailing narrative was that this was a matter of user error. People were being reckless drivers, and that didn't make sense to Nader. How could it be that commuting to work or going grocery shopping could amount to a death sentence for so many people?
- [07:33]
Narrator
I kept thinking of people who could be living productive lives today and who were killed in totally survivable crashes. You know, I began looking at the cars and how they were crushed in. And when I was at law school.
- [07:51]
Rand Abdelfattah
He set out to bust the myth.
- [07:52]
Ramtin Arablouei
Of the open road, as glamorous as that may sound, Solving the mystery of these grisly car crash deaths mostly involved a lot of reading of very wonky documents, and I mean, a lot. Nader sifted through court documents and case law. He dug into a whole series of research studies from Cornell Medical College, funded by Ford, Chrysler, and the Pentagon that looked into what could make cars safer. This is a CBS report about that research.
- [08:28]
Host
We're at the scene of a pretty.
- [08:30]
Paul Sabin
Bad smash up here on U.S. highway.
- [08:31]
Host
Number one near Laurel, Maryland.
- [08:34]
Narrator
There were three people in this car, and the driver stayed in the car. But now the other two people hit the windshield, and then apparently they went out of the right hand door.
- [08:45]
Ramtin Arablouei
Like any good detective, Nader even pounded the pavement. What he found was that the auto industry knew that it was cars themselves that were unsafe. Doctors and researchers had repeatedly recommended features to add to the cars to make them safe. Seat belts, padded dash panels, rollover bars. But the carmakers often shied away from putting these features into cars on the market.
- [09:11]
Narrator
It punctured the advertising fantasy of these auto companies.
- [09:17]
Ramtin Arablouei
So Nader set out to take down the auto industry. To do that, he knew he was going to need to harness the power of the consumer.
- [09:27]
Narrator
I've sent to the Congress today a special message on protecting the consumer interests.
- [09:33]
Host
All of us are consumers.
- [09:35]
Ramtin Arablouei
That's President John F. Kennedy speaking in 1962, and he was identifying a powerful new current in American life.
- [09:43]
Paul Sabin
Across the American consumer landscape of this time period is the question of can companies and governments that have become increasingly powerful, can they be trusted to look out for the interest of the individual?
- [09:56]
Ramtin Arablouei
This is Paul Sabin. He's a professor of history and American studies at Yale University.
- [10:02]
Paul Sabin
There's a sense that really there needs to be someone looking out for this consumer.
- [10:06]
Narrator
All of us deserve the right to be protected against fraudulent or misleading advertisements and labels.
- [10:14]
Ramtin Arablouei
There was a growing call for consumers to take up that charge themselves. And Nader was at the front of the line.
- [10:21]
Paul Sabin
I think for Nader, the consumer citizen is an active citizen, one that is investigating, learning, and engaging in political processes. And so he wanted the informed citizen.
- [10:34]
Rand Abdelfattah
But that informed consumer citizen first had to be awakened. And so Nader threw up his bat signal to concern consumers across the nation. It came in the form of a book that he started to write after graduating law school. And the book opened with the case of one car in particular.
- [10:53]
Narrator
You are about to meet a true international beauty. Corvair. The Corvair was a unique design because it had its engine in the rear. Someone once said you were the bumper on the Corvair.
- [11:14]
Ramtin Arablouei
Mrs. Pierini's vehicle was traveling about 35.
- [11:16]
Paul Sabin
Miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone.
- [11:20]
Rand Abdelfattah
These are excerpts from that book. Unsafe at any speed. The designed in dangers of the American automobile.
- [11:27]
Ramtin Arablouei
And then all of a sudden, the.
- [11:28]
Narrator
Vehicle made a sharp cut to the.
- [11:30]
Ramtin Arablouei
Left and swerved over.
- [11:32]
Narrator
It would veer out of control and rol over and kill people.
- [11:36]
Joan Claybrook
He rushed over to the wreck and.
- [11:38]
Ramtin Arablouei
Saw an arm with a wedding band and wristwatch lying on the ground.
- [11:42]
Paul Sabin
Ms. Perini was very calm, only saying.
- [11:46]
Ramtin Arablouei
That something went wrong with my steering.
- [11:48]
Narrator
I knew it was a book that had dynamite potential.
- [11:53]
Ramtin Arablouei
The tragedy was overwhelmingly the fault of cutting corners to shave costs. This happens all the time in the automobile industry. What was there for General Motors to say.
- [12:07]
Rand Abdelfattah
Publicly? General Motors had nothing to say, but the allegations hit hard because GM was a titan. At the time the book was published, they were the world's largest car manufacturer, responsible for nearly half of all US automotive sales.
- [12:23]
Ramtin Arablouei
Years later, a government study found that the Corvair wasn't any more dangerous than other similar cars. Nader disputed the study, but by that time, there was no turning back the movement Nader had started. In response to the criticism, GM created a position for coordinator of auto safety. But Nader's book wasn't just about exposing a problem with the Corvair or even with General Motors. It was about revealing failures across the entire auto industry.
- [12:53]
Rand Abdelfattah
It didn't take long for Unsafe at Any Speed to start drawing the attention of important people in the capital, including a young woman who would be instrumental in turning Ralph's words into action.
- [13:07]
Joan Claybrook
My name is Joan Claybrook. C L A Y B R O.
- [13:11]
Rand Abdelfattah
O K. At the time, Joan was in Washington, D.C. on a fellowship working with James A. Mackey, a U.S. representative from Georgia.
- [13:20]
Joan Claybrook
He said he wanted me to work on auto safety, which totally dumbfounded me because I didn't know anything about it at all. He gave me Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which had just come.
- [13:30]
Rand Abdelfattah
Out a month before the book hit home for Joan.
- [13:36]
Joan Claybrook
My boss had a Corvair, and she had a car crash shortly after I got to Washington. She was very badly injured.
- [13:46]
Rand Abdelfattah
Joan knew that Nader's allegations against the auto industry were monumental, and Representative Mackey tasked her with tracking down Nader and getting him into the office for a discussion.
- [13:57]
Joan Claybrook
That was easier said than done because no one knew where he lived.
- [14:02]
Rand Abdelfattah
All she had to go off of was a phone number.
- [14:07]
Joan Claybrook
And I called him, you know, like 20 times in the next week, never answered the phone. And finally, in total anger one evening at midnight, I called him, and he answered the phone.
- [14:23]
Narrator
Ralph Nader.
- [14:29]
Rand Abdelfattah
She convinces him to visit Representative Mackey's office. When he walks in, he's a towering presence.
- [14:36]
Joan Claybrook
He's 6ft 4 and lanky.
- [14:38]
Rand Abdelfattah
But when he sits down, he kind.
- [14:39]
Joan Claybrook
Of goes into this mode where you think, he's not so. So tall. He's very shy. Unless you ask him something, he's not going to interrupt you or something, start the conversation. And Mr. Mackey was a very talkative Southerner. And so he Talked for about 45.
- [14:59]
Rand Abdelfattah
Minutes, just a straight monologue.
- [15:02]
Joan Claybrook
And then he looked at his watch and he said, oh, my goodness, I have to go to a meeting in 15 minutes. Mr. Nader, what should we do?
- [15:07]
Rand Abdelfattah
And so Nader said his piece write a bill with teeth that wrangles this wild west auto industry and saves lives in the process.
- [15:16]
Joan Claybrook
And so then he left. And I suddenly realized I only had the roominghouse phone number. So I ran down the hall And I said, Mr. Nader, is there a better phone number to reach you? And he said, no. So I knew I was going to be calling him at midnight a lot.
- [15:31]
Rand Abdelfattah
And with that, their work together really began. And so did the pushback.
- [15:40]
Joan Claybrook
General Motors decided this was a great threat.
- [15:42]
Narrator
They had been unleashing private detectives month after month, following me everywhere.
- [15:50]
Rand Abdelfattah
Nader suspected they were wiretapping his phone. He says he'd get strange calls in the middle of the night, threatening and harassing him.
- [15:58]
Narrator
They used ex FBI agents often for their so called investigation of critics. They tried to seduce me with young ladies.
- [16:10]
Joan Claybrook
They followed him into the Safeway.
- [16:12]
Narrator
I would be shopping and he was.
- [16:14]
Joan Claybrook
Eerie the cookie counter. He loves sweets. And this woman approached him and said, would he like to come up to her apartment?
- [16:28]
Narrator
Another time a young lady came up and she said, you look like a studious fellow. We're forming a study group to study foreign affairs. How would you like to join us?
- [16:41]
Joan Claybrook
And he said, no, thank you.
- [16:44]
Rand Abdelfattah
A private detective who investigated Nader later denied making any attempt to put him in a compromising position with these women. But he did admit to surveilling Nader and trying to dig up dirt on his private life.
- [16:56]
Joan Claybrook
There were just, you know, endless attempts to kind of document he was, you know, a bad person or he was taking money from somebody to do this.
- [17:09]
Ramtin Arablouei
The press got wind of the story along with Congress.
- [17:14]
Joan Claybrook
And so Senator Rubicoff decided to have a public hearing.
- [17:17]
Narrator
And I was invited to testify. I don't want to have a climate in this country where one has to have an ascetic existence and steely determinations in order to speak truthfully and candidly and critically of American industry.
- [17:34]
Joan Claybrook
And he commanded the president of General Motors, whose name was Roach. I love the name roach. He told Mr. Roach to come and testify.
- [17:45]
Ramtin Arablouei
Rotch got up and said that when he first heard of the allegations against gm, he was shocked. He immediately ordered a statement to be released denying GM's involvement. But he discovered, quote, to my dismay, we were indeed involved. Involved.
- [18:00]
Narrator
Let us assume that you found something.
- [18:02]
Host
Wrong with his sex life.
- [18:04]
Narrator
What would that have to do with whether or not he was right or wrong on the car there? Nothing.
- [18:08]
Ramtin Arablouei
Senator Ribicoff declared in front of the Senate committee that Ralph Nader was squeaky clean. He said, quote, they put you through the mill and they haven't found a damn thing out against you.
- [18:20]
Narrator
I want to apologize here and now. The members of this subcommittee and Mr. Nader.
- [18:26]
Ramtin Arablouei
This public apology couldn't have been a better press moment for Nader's crusade. Try to imagine how monumental this would have been. It would be like if Elon Musk apologized for harassing a critic of Tesla. It would be front page news. And it was. People were outraged that a major American corporation would attempt to intimidate a whistleblower. GM's plan to discredit Nader had backfired.
- [18:51]
Joan Claybrook
Ralph became suddenly this national figure. Unlike a lot of people who would just be happy to sell some more books, Ralph wanted this law passed. So he then lobbied.
- [19:06]
Narrator
And that's what I did every day in Washington D.C. it was hard for.
- [19:09]
Joan Claybrook
Him to lobby because he is shy. He had to push himself to go do that.
- [19:16]
Ramtin Arablouei
But he kept at it. And Joan Claybrook and Representative Mackey introduced their bill. And within a few short months, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety act passed into law.
- [19:29]
Narrator
Just think of how fast Congress acted compared to the sluggish indentured corporate gridlock of today. Within six months from March 1966. And in September, I was invited to the signing ceremony at the White House, among others, where he handed out the signature pens.
- [19:51]
Ramtin Arablouei
Six months, Ralph Nader had won his first victory on behalf of the American consumer. And he was just getting started. That's coming up.
- [20:14]
Rand Abdelfattah
Part two, Raider Nation.
- [20:21]
Host
He's an attorney, he's from the nation's capital and recently he's been called the man who makes waves.
- [20:30]
Narrator
What indeed makes Ralph Nader run? The incomparable Mr. Ralph Nader.
- [20:35]
Host
Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader.
- [20:37]
Narrator
Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader. I became very famous for years after.
- [20:42]
Rand Abdelfattah
Nader's very public victory against the auto industry. He seemed to be everywhere.
- [20:47]
Narrator
I was on the COVID of Time, Newsweek, when that meant something.
- [20:50]
Rand Abdelfattah
Newsweek depicted him like a knight in shining armor, the consumer crusader.
- [20:55]
Paul Sabin
He's seen as this honest, good, good guy who is representing the people.
- [21:00]
Rand Abdelfattah
He's on Saturday Night Live as a parody of himself.
- [21:03]
Paul Sabin
It's a hot dog you're eating.
- [21:05]
Ramtin Arablouei
Mm, a hot dog.
- [21:07]
Narrator
Do you enjoy eating rat excrement and rodent hairs?
- [21:10]
Rand Abdelfattah
And he's on all the popular interview shows.
- [21:13]
Narrator
So you sue it and you, you hit it for all it's worth. But it isn't worth anything.
- [21:17]
Joan Claybrook
Mr. Nader, I want you to work on this.
- [21:20]
Rand Abdelfattah
Including one that was briefly co hosted by the countercultural icons of the era.
- [21:25]
Paul Sabin
Welcome to the Mike Douglas Show.
- [21:26]
Narrator
This is John Lemon and Yoko Ono.
- [21:29]
Rand Abdelfattah
Where Mike's co host is featured, who asks him to weigh in on the power of voting.
- [21:35]
Narrator
Democracy means, in a word, self government. And anytime we delegate our responsibilities, it's for convenience to government agencies and other institutions. And I don't think we can afford.
- [21:46]
Rand Abdelfattah
That convenience if people didn't know Ralph Nader's name before. By the 1970s, Nader was a household name.
- [21:56]
Narrator
And my parents said to me in their own folksy way, say, well, Ralph, now you're very famous, so let's see how you endure it.
- [22:06]
Rand Abdelfattah
For Nader, his fame served one purpose and one purpose to continue demanding more protections for consumers.
- [22:14]
Joan Claybrook
He just called all the time. I mean, he loved to use the telephone. So he was checking with me all the time. What's going on? Who's doing this? What's happening?
- [22:22]
Rand Abdelfattah
This is Joan Claybrook again. She stayed in touch with Ralph and continued working on car safety issues.
- [22:27]
Joan Claybrook
I was his inside voice, you know, and so I would tell him what was going on. So that's how he kept up with the auto safety stuff, because now he was onto other tracks.
- [22:40]
Ramtin Arablouei
All around him, Nader could see how people were being sold shoddy goods.
- [22:46]
Narrator
The safety of additives in some baby.
- [22:49]
Ramtin Arablouei
Foods was questioned today by Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, and expected to live and work in unsafe conditions.
- [22:57]
Narrator
Even if we stop all mercury dumping into the water and onto the land, the existing amount of mercury will stay with us for up to 100 years.
- [23:05]
Ramtin Arablouei
So Nader used his newly found fame to bring these issues to the forefront and galvanize people into taking action as concealed and form a movement.
- [23:17]
Narrator
I didn't want to be a lone ranger, so where do I go for help? Well, law students.
- [23:33]
Ramtin Arablouei
It started off small, with Nader calling law students, including from his alma mater, Harvard, in search of people eager to make change.
- [23:46]
Narrator
Hey, Ralph Nader's on the phone.
- [23:48]
Ramtin Arablouei
It worked. These students knew who he was, and they wanted in. I couldn't have been more excited if he said it was the Queen of England. Nader had plenty of work for them, and thanks to his settlement with gm, he had money to fund it.
- [24:03]
Narrator
It was a perfect opportunity to get some students interns during the summer, put them on projects investigating the Food and Drug Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and on. And they would have press conferences and they would get great press coverage, and that would get the attention again of members of Congress. You have that virtuous circle.
- [24:26]
Ramtin Arablouei
These young, idealistic lawyers and students came to be called Nader's Raiders.
- [24:36]
Host
Come spring, Naders Raiders will be swooping down.
- [24:40]
Ramtin Arablouei
For now, they're lying back in the.
- [24:42]
Host
Shadows of Ivy League universities gathering ammo.
- [24:47]
Ramtin Arablouei
Funds are low, hours are long, and only intense.
- [24:51]
Paul Sabin
Dedication, determination, and idealism keeps Nader's Raiders going.
- [24:57]
Ramtin Arablouei
Can you get me that other Box.
- [24:59]
Joan Claybrook
It was hot. I mean, Ralph would call each one of these staff people every other day, and then he would ask them to write memos on what they'd found, and he would sort of guide them onto what to investigate.
- [25:12]
Ramtin Arablouei
Joan Claybrook, looking to get out of government work for a while, believed in Nader and joined.
- [25:18]
Joan Claybrook
Oh, definitely. I was one of the raiders. These government agencies weren't doing their job, and we wanted them to do their job. They had authority to do things and weren't paying any attention to it, which was the case in many cases. We were there to badger them and to push them.
- [25:35]
Ramtin Arablouei
They started with the Federal Trade Commission. The Commission does not view American industry.
- [25:41]
Host
As a wild horse at all, but.
- [25:43]
Ramtin Arablouei
Rather as a docile beast who now.
- [25:46]
Narrator
And then needs a mild whoa.
- [25:48]
Ramtin Arablouei
Then they went after the fool Food and Drug Administration.
- [25:52]
Paul Sabin
The FDA has so minimized the dangers from food additives that it has effectively destroyed the letter and spirit of the.
- [25:59]
Ramtin Arablouei
Food Additives Amendment and kept going all the way to the halls of Congress.
- [26:05]
Paul Sabin
Nader and his citizen army of over.
- [26:07]
Rand Abdelfattah
1000 are out to awaken the country.
- [26:09]
Narrator
To Congress's crying need for reform.
- [26:12]
Paul Sabin
He publishes what's effectively a Consumer guide to Congress. And this was a broadening of his definition of consumer.
- [26:18]
Ramtin Arablouei
The responsibility for good government does not.
- [26:21]
Paul Sabin
Rest with our politicians. According to Ralph Nader, it rests with each private citizen.
- [26:26]
Ramtin Arablouei
The driving force of the consumer movement was a reinvigorated view of democracy, where everyone was a consumer and everyone participated. People really responded to this message. Across the country, local consumer groups popped up.
- [26:42]
Narrator
Today, the buying public has awakened and increasingly demands more information about the American marketplace.
- [26:52]
Ramtin Arablouei
It wasn't long before Congress began to respond to Ralph Nader and the public's demands for change.
- [27:00]
Narrator
We got lead out of gasoline and paint.
- [27:03]
Ramtin Arablouei
They got what now might seem like common sense protections passed.
- [27:07]
Paul Sabin
These are things that include, you know, the Clean Air act, the Clean Water act, but it's also things like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration getting created.
- [27:18]
Ramtin Arablouei
Osha, the Clean Air act. Laws that have made American life healthier and safer. And it wasn't just environmental protections. Nader also fought to strengthen the Freedom of Information act, to increase the public's access to federal data and records.
- [27:33]
Narrator
It's a law for the people.
- [27:36]
Rand Abdelfattah
The winds were stacking up for Nader and the consumer movement throughout the 1970s. But not everyone was on board with this growing consumer movement and Ralph Nader's vision of an energized consumer citizen.
- [27:49]
Paul Sabin
I think you see an immediate backlash to him from corporate interest, business leaders.
- [27:54]
Rand Abdelfattah
And of course, the car industry had long been wary of Nader.
- [27:58]
Host
I have some very serious reservations about some of his positions and some of the levels of expertise that he professes to have.
- [28:07]
Rand Abdelfattah
But as the power of the consumer movement grew, a conservative political backlash started to take shape, spearheaded by a soon to be US Supreme Court justice named Lewis Powell.
- [28:20]
Paul Sabin
There's a very famous memo that gets written by Lewis Powell, the Powell memo. Lewis Powell, who becomes a justice, but at the time he is working with the Chamber of Commerce and he publishes this sort of confidential memo at the time which later gets leaked in which he is warning of these threats on the horizon. And Nader is very prominent in that.
- [28:44]
Host
Perhaps the single most effective antagonist of.
- [28:47]
Ramtin Arablouei
American business is Ralph Nader, who thanks largely to the media, has become a.
- [28:53]
Host
Legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans.
- [28:57]
Paul Sabin
The Powell memo is really a calling to action, to conservatives and to business that they need to develop an ideological counterbalance to this new public interest and citizen movement.
- [29:10]
Ramtin Arablouei
Business must learn the lesson long ago.
- [29:13]
Host
Learned by labor and other self interest groups.
- [29:15]
Ramtin Arablouei
This is the lesson that political power.
- [29:18]
Host
Is necessary, that such power must be assiduously cultivated, and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively.
- [29:29]
Rand Abdelfattah
Coming up, Big Business strikes back. Part three we the consumer. It's the summer of 1976. The country is celebrating the nation's bicentennial anniversary and the mood is especially festive in Plains, Georgia.
- [29:56]
Paul Sabin
Carter and his brother, they're all playing.
- [29:58]
Rand Abdelfattah
Softball where Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, a self proclaimed consumer advocate, is playing a game of softball with family Secret Service agents.
- [30:08]
Paul Sabin
And Nader is appointed to be the umpire.
- [30:12]
Rand Abdelfattah
Ralph Nader.
- [30:12]
Paul Sabin
And Nader's behind the base, you know, in a suit, in a tie, jacket and tie. He's a lifelong Yankees fan, you know, calling balls and strikes and things like that.
- [30:20]
Rand Abdelfattah
Nader had traveled down to Georgia to outline what he thought needed to be done to further consumer rights. Number one on that list, create a consumer protection agency.
- [30:31]
Paul Sabin
Carter is cultivating Nader as a candidate would to try to win over his constituency. And Carter declares that he wants to be the great representative of the consumer and he's going to sweep the halls of Washington D.C. clean. And Nader supports him and is very excited.
- [30:52]
Rand Abdelfattah
So back to the ball game. Carter doesn't always agree with Nader's calls. It's a spirited game and in many ways it's a symbolic one too.
- [31:02]
Paul Sabin
Is Nader going to be an umpire or is he going to be a player? You know, so he going to join the administration or is he going to stay on the outside watching over the administration and judging it.
- [31:13]
Rand Abdelfattah
Yeah, not subtle.
- [31:15]
Paul Sabin
And this is, you know, was a real question.
- [31:18]
Ramtin Arablouei
A few months after their softball game in Georgia, Jimmy Carter wins the presidential election. At the election celebration, he promised to be a president for the people if.
- [31:31]
Narrator
We could inside the government. As I've said a thousand times, as.
- [31:35]
Host
Good as our people are, that's all we can hope for and that's all we can expect.
- [31:40]
Narrator
And that's enough. We're going to have a great government, a great nation, and it's because of you, not me.
- [31:48]
Ramtin Arablouei
And it looked like a real win for the consumer rights movement. Many former Naders Raiders actually joined Carter's administration, but not Nader.
- [31:58]
Paul Sabin
He would have easily had a high level appointment in the Carter administration. He decides he's going to be an umpire. He believes in the permanence of this whole sector that he's been involved in creating. And they need to stay outside the government and they need to watch over the agencies and hold even their allies accountable.
- [32:17]
Ramtin Arablouei
Former allies like Joan Claybrook, who he publicly accused of going too easy on the car industry's rollout of airbags.
- [32:26]
Joan Claybrook
He blasted me, having betrayed my own personal standards. And so I didn't talk to Ralph for quite some time after that.
- [32:37]
Ramtin Arablouei
Nader wasn't going to hold back against friends or foes. He was still fighting for the consumer. And his number one goal was to finally get the consumer protection agency he'd been fighting for for years created this.
- [32:51]
Narrator
Little agency that could take other regulatory agencies to court and make them change their behavior, make them go from inaction to action or make them strengthen weak standards into stronger standards. And it would be the voice and the muscle of the consumer movement.
- [33:12]
Ramtin Arablouei
The bill to create it had come close several times, but never quite made it through. The hope was that Carter would be able to push it through.
- [33:21]
Narrator
But unfortunately, the crown jewel of the consumer movement never made it into law.
- [33:27]
Ramtin Arablouei
In 1978, the effort to create the consumer protection agency came to a grinding end.
- [33:35]
Narrator
Looking back on it, that was a high water mark.
- [33:38]
Paul Sabin
The failure of the consumer protection agency, that is his life's work and it fails. And it's a sign that he's no longer on the ascendance. And you're starting to move to a more defensive positioning to try to protect the gains.
- [33:52]
Narrator
People who want to work but can't find jobs are part of today's other bad economic news.
- [33:58]
Rand Abdelfattah
By the late 70s early 80s, the political climate was beginning to change as high inflation, unemployment and gas shortages rattled the country.
- [34:07]
Host
Isn't this disgusting?
- [34:09]
Narrator
Why doesn't anybody contact the president?
- [34:11]
Rand Abdelfattah
Why is he letting this happen to us?
- [34:13]
Paul Sabin
So you have inflation and issues about employment and these things start to get blamed on environmental regulation and safety. If only we would get rid of these regulations, you know, things would be cheaper, the economy would be doing better.
- [34:28]
Narrator
Basically it boils down to the country.
- [34:31]
Host
Is going through the pits.
- [34:35]
Rand Abdelfattah
But it was too late. Carter had lost the trust of the people and Nader's call for more regulations wasn't resonating anymore. In their stead was a new voice.
- [34:50]
Host
Many Americans today, just as they did 200 years ago, feel burdened, stifled and sometimes even oppressed by government that has grown too large, too bureaucratic, too wasteful, too unresponsive, too uncaring about people and their problems.
- [35:08]
Paul Sabin
You start to see the emergence of ideas that would be held more that would be articulated by the Reagan Republicans in the early 80s. But this includes attack on sort of socialistic nanny state government interventions out of control government agencies out of control.
- [35:26]
Narrator
Public interest Americans who have always known.
- [35:29]
Host
That excessive bureaucracy is the enemy of.
- [35:32]
Narrator
Excellence and compassion want a change in public life.
- [35:40]
Rand Abdelfattah
In 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president, he immediately started to roll back many of the regulatory protections that Nader and the consumer movement had fought for, including gutting the EPA's budget and refocusing OSHA to benefit small businesses rather than workers.
- [35:57]
Host
I put a freeze on pending regulations.
- [36:00]
Narrator
And set up a task force under.
- [36:02]
Host
Vice President Bush to review regulations with an eye toward getting rid of as many as possible.
- [36:09]
Rand Abdelfattah
The heyday of the consumer movement was over.
- [36:14]
Ramtin Arablouei
But Ralph Nader wasn't gone from the public eye. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he won some key fights for consumers, like finally making airbags a federal requirement and rolling back steep car insurance rates in California.
- [36:28]
Rand Abdelfattah
And in 2000, he tried to take on an even more public role.
- [36:33]
Narrator
Ralph Nader campaigning in Madison today despite mounting criticism that he might cost Al Gore the election, his top priority is creating a viable third party for the future.
- [36:44]
Ramtin Arablouei
Today, Nader is mostly known for his run for president in the year 2000, which many Democrats say cost Al Gore the election against George W. Bush. From Raiders to Jimmy Carter, many of Nader's long standing allies turned on him.
- [36:59]
Host
Ralph, go back to examining the rear end of automobiles and don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago.
- [37:14]
Ramtin Arablouei
People were angry.
- [37:16]
Host
Thank you Ralph, for the Iraq war.
- [37:18]
Joan Claybrook
Thank you Ralph for the tax cuts.
- [37:19]
Host
Thank you, thank you Ralph for the.
- [37:20]
Joan Claybrook
Destruction of the environment. Thank you, Ralph. For the destruction of the Constitution.
- [37:23]
Rand Abdelfattah
Once hailed as a knight in shining armor, Nader was no longer the heroic consumer crusader. Far from it. He was now the country's nag, the irresponsible spoiler.
- [37:36]
Ramtin Arablouei
And even now, more than 20 years later, Ralph Nader's presidential ambitions still continue to eclipse his past work as a consumer advocate for many people. So when we interviewed him for this episode, we had to ask him about it. You ran for president in 2000. You got a lot of criticism for quote, unquote, I'm putting air quotes here, ruining the election, right, for the Democrats, et cetera. Since that time, we've seen similar attacks to other third party candidates or people who are running outside of the Republican and Democratic system. Do you feel like the results of the elections we've seen ever since where we are today validates your run or further gives way to the people who criticized you?
- [38:27]
Narrator
Scapegoating by the two parties is a form of political bigotry that says to reform minded third party candidates, no, we're not going to let you appeal to the voters. We want the voters. The two parties have got to earn their votes. They don't own the votes, they have to earn them.
- [38:53]
Rand Abdelfattah
Whatever you think of his decision to run for president, that belief that politicians like corporations should be accountable to us, the citizens, it's a big part of Nader's legacy.
- [39:04]
Joan Claybrook
He made it acceptable to criticize big companies again.
- [39:08]
Rand Abdelfattah
Nader's longtime friend and one time enemy, Joan Claybrook.
- [39:13]
Joan Claybrook
I think it's imbued politics in that way that people absolutely do see themselves as consumers.
- [39:19]
Rand Abdelfattah
And with or without him, we're still living in a world that calls for this kind of consumer advocacy.
- [39:27]
Narrator
Consumer Reports is pushing for a recall of two bassinets. They say the bassinet may tilt, causing the infant to roll over and possib product.
- [39:37]
Ramtin Arablouei
Recalls reached a seven year high in the US in 2023.
- [39:41]
Narrator
Health officials say there's a possibility of salmonella contaminations.
- [39:46]
Ramtin Arablouei
Almost 50% of the US's tap water could contain forever chemicals which have been linked to certain cancers and decreased fertility with pfas.
- [39:54]
Rand Abdelfattah
If you look for it, you will find it.
- [39:57]
Ramtin Arablouei
So it's worth revisiting the question that Ralph Nader and the consumer movement posed for all of us. What kind of government do we want and what role do we play in it?
- [40:09]
Narrator
Anybody who thinks that our democracy has not deteriorated in so many ways over the last 50 years ought to study how things got through Congress and state legislators in the 1960s, 1970s. It was because a fraction of the citizenry decided to be active, decided to organize communities, decided to buttonhole their members of Congress, decided to march, to demonstrate, to file lawsuits, to lobby, to get the Environmental Protection Agency created, the Occupational Safety Health Administration created to get the critical air and water pollution laws through the drinking water safety law. This was done by less than 1% of the public.
- [41:01]
Ramtin Arablouei
How much of it do you think has to do with the zeitgeist? The culture at that time in the 1960s and 70s, where there was a kind of, what we would call now, a kind of punk rock, anti establishment, we're tired of tradition. We're trying to push through and create a new world culture. Because to me, it feels like I. I didn't grow up as a millennial. I didn't grow up with that similar kind of broader culture. There's a lot more cynicism now toward what is capable of being done, how much change can actually be made, how much of it had to do with the culture of that time.
- [41:38]
Narrator
You just mentioned the word cynicism, didn't you? That's the cop out. That's an indulgence. That's an indulgence of quitters that makes them feel good. Because when you're cynical, you're obviously smart, aren't you? You think you're smart. No, you're not smart. You're playing into the hands of the corporate supremacists. You're playing into the hands of the few who want to control the many, who could easily outvote the few and make the corporations our servants, not our masters.
- [42:12]
Ramtin Arablouei
Paul Sabin says Nader's legacy is complicated and not just because of his political ambitions.
- [42:18]
Paul Sabin
There's a little bit of lack of accountability about the ways in which the public interest movement itself might be flawed and limited.
- [42:26]
Ramtin Arablouei
By becoming the nation's critic, he also helped to sow a mistrust in the government that Reagan seized on and which we live with today.
- [42:35]
Paul Sabin
People are looking to the government to try to do big things. And there's a question of, like, why can't we do these big things?
- [42:42]
Rand Abdelfattah
Trust in the government has been low for decades. A recent Pew study found that less than a quarter of Americans believe in Washington to do the right thing most of the time.
- [42:53]
Ramtin Arablouei
So where do we go from here?
- [42:56]
Rand Abdelfattah
To this day, at 90 years old, Ralph Nader still believes that the answer to a democracy that works lies in us, the consumer citizens of America.
- [43:09]
Narrator
Nothing can surprise the impact of organized citizenry. Year after year, the young generation forgets on how there was a time when Congress worked for us to some degree. There was a time when citizen action was worthwhile and produced results. So as we get a younger generation doesn't have the historical context. The preamble of the Constitution starts with we the people. It doesn't start with we the corporation. It doesn't start with we the Congress starts with we the people.
- [43:55]
Rand Abdelfattah
That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfatah.
- [43:59]
Ramtin Arablouei
And I'm Ramtin Arablouei. And you've been listening to Throughline from npr.
- [44:04]
Rand Abdelfattah
This episode was produced by me and.
- [44:06]
Host
Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya.
- [44:10]
Paul Sabin
Steinberg, Casey Miner, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama.
- [44:14]
Host
Peter Balanon Rosen, Irene Noguchi.
- [44:19]
Rand Abdelfattah
Special thanks also to the producers of Daytime Revolution, Global imageworks and Steve Scrovan for providing us with archival footage of Ralph Nader, as well as Joe Fujimoto of Kodo, Sarah Gilbert, and the North American Taiko Taikai.
- [44:37]
Host
You can find more great stories from the Throughline team wherever you listen to podcasts. They've got episodes about health insurance, presidential power, Sesame street, the anti vaccine movement. Really, it's a great source for a historical perspective on our world today. And truly, it was a treat to work with their team. Finally, our show, Scratch and Win is a production of GBH News and distributed by prx. We're very excited to be back in your feed, I'm going to say within the next year, so take care and stay tuned. Hey, I want to make sure that you know this series you're listening to right now is part of an ongoing feed telling stories from the past to help us understand our present. Our first season is all about infrastructure. The second season is about gambling. And we've got more seasons planned. So if you want to stay on top of what the team and I are doing, go ahead and follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. We've got some really exciting stories coming up and I hope you'll stay with us. Thanks.
- [46:14]
Ramtin Arablouei
From PRX.