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In reply to the discussion: Ralph Nader: 'Cowering' Democrats face defeat [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)while actually living in a high end luxury home that was put in his brother's name to conceal his actual lifestyle while he played the starving, thrifty passionate "true believer" who eschewed comfort in all its forms and only took a five thousand dollar a year salary.
We knew who Al Gore was--hell, he spent his childhood living in a HOTEL on Embassy Row in DC, attending a tony private boy's school, and when he graduated he went to little old Harvard. His Daddy was a politician. He came from a political family. We KNEW who he was, we KNEW he was rich. We knew he was wired into "the system." This was not a shock. Now, you can disagree with the propriety of that (I don't like it, either) but we can't say that we didn't know that about Al.
But Nader? He played poor, even though he grew up in a beautiful home in Connecticut with intelligent parents to include an activist mother. He never starved. He never had to starve, either. It was all lies, and the purpose of the lies was to keep people thinking that Ralph was a "true believer" and they'd keep giving money to him to support his "Nader's Raiders." Who would give money to a guy living in a luxury home in a great DC neighborhood? He cultivated a phony image in order to get money. Then he took the money and gambled it on the stock market--no, I am not joking. Then he fired and threatened his underpaid, overworked employees when they tried to unionize.
The guy has a very ugly backstory, full of authoritarian conduct and real abuse of his employees and his position at his non-profits. He is not a nice person, and certainly not a progressive. If more people knew his "real deal," they'd be completely un-enthused about anything to do with "Saint Ralph."