Public Citizens by Paul Sabin
Ralph Nader is remembered as the man whose Green Party candidacy helped put George Bush in the White House by siphoning Democratic votes in 2000. In the ‘60s, however, he was a hero to progressives by calling out Detroit for manufacturing cars unsafe at any speed and the coziness of carmakers with federal regulators. Yale University history professor Paul Sabin explores the unintended consequence of Nader’s consumer activism: His critique of regulators provided ammunition for Reagan conservatives and laid the ground for the kneejerk attitudes of Rand Paul and his ilk. Sabin reminds us that the intervention of the federal government helped shape “the broadly shared prosperity of the post-World War II period” even if the benefits weren’t fairly shared across all groups.
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