The world according to Ralph Nader

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.5 • 11.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2019

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ralph Nader needs no introduction. But if your knowledge of Nader mostly consists of his 2000 campaign for the presidency, his career does demand some context. Nader is one of America’s truly great policy entrepreneurs, and arguably one of its great ideologists. The consumer safety movement he founded and led has saved, literally, millions of lives. His idea of what it means to be a public citizen is deeply rooted in American traditions, but largely, and lamentably, lost today in national American politics. And Nader is still active. Writing books. Writing columns. Releasing podcasts. He’s never stopped. He has led, and continues to lead, one of the most fascinating lives in American political history. In this conversation, we talk about everything from his theories of the media to his approach to political change to how he hired and advised “Nader’s Raiders.” We discuss Howard Schultz’s third-party presidential campaign, whether America is a better country than it was 50 years ago, the differences he sees between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and which parts of life he believes should be de-commercialized. I’ve long wanted to interview Nader, to ask him about the parts of his career, and of his philosophy, that I knew less about. It was a pleasure to get the chance. Book Recommendations: The CEO Pay Machine: How it Trashes America and How to Stop It by Steven Clifford The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis Impeaching the President: Past, Present, and Future by Alan Hirsch Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:16.7	As Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, Brad Smith is front and center to some of the most important developments in technology today.
0:23.4	And on his podcast, Tools and Weapons, he will ask guests to share how that will affect us today.
0:29.0	Guests include businessmen strive for my CEO, Microsoft's CEO, Satu Nadella, and journalist, Cara Swisher.
0:36.3	Season 2 of Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith is now streaming wherever you get your podcasts.
0:45.6	The fundamentals of a democratic society are being closed out.
0:50.1	The elections now, they're wealth elections.
0:53.4	They are elections that allow unlimited money to nullify votes.
0:59.1	And if they can't nullify the votes by sheer money in terms of the candidates who they espouse, they will do it by voter suppression.
1:20.0	Hello, welcome to the blind show on the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:23.0	My guest today is Ralph Nader, who of course, you know, of course you've heard of.
1:27.3	I'm fascinated by Nader.
1:29.5	He has had, I think, one of the most interesting lives and one of the most important lives of any American around today.
1:36.5	I think people of my generation, including me, mostly know him for the 2000 and 2004 presidential runs.
1:44.0	But before that, he created, like, a willed into being this remarkable consumer movement that has affected almost everything in our lives.
1:52.9	What is in the cars we drive?
1:55.0	How the food we eat is checked?
1:56.4	I mean, it's one of the most remarkable examples of policy entrepreneurship that there is in existence.
2:02.7	He was named one of the most 100 influential Americans by life and by the Atlantic and by time.
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