Don’t be fooled by reviews that say “An Unreasonable Man,” the new film about Ralph Nader, criticizes his 2000 presidential campaign. While the two-hour documentary gives face-time to Eric Alterman and Todd Gitlin who blame Nader for electing George Bush, the filmmakers just use them to create an illusion of credibility. Meanwhile, the film gives very short shrift to Nader’s long consumer legacy – where he is portrayed in glowing terms as a saint, while papering over a disturbing trait from those years that explains why he later ran for President.

Rather than “unreasonable,” Nader is a selfish egotist. Accountable to nobody. He burns through his disciples. He believes that any disagreement with him amounts to a betrayal. The film is propaganda at its worst – it pretends to see both sides of the issue, but really props up Nader for his 2008 presidential campaign.

Let’s start with the title. On the surface, it sounds like a criticism of Nader – that he was “unreasonable” to risk the fate of an entire country just to prove a point. But the film starts with the following quote from George Bernard Shaw – “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” In other words, it’s a glowing tribute to Nader. Because he refused to take the world as it is, “all progress” depended upon people like Nader – and therefore we should lionize him as a hero.

For my generation, Nader will always be remembered as the reckless ideologue who gave us the worst President in American history. Which is why I hoped that the film would talk more about his consumer legacy from the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s – when his reputation was unquestioned and his accomplishments were impressive. It does, but not enough to go into detail and critically assess what he really got done – especially for an audience not old enough to remember that history.

Ralph Nader pioneered the practice of non-profit organizations hiring idealistic young workers for slave wages. Because the Nader’s Raiders had jobs “where you can bring your conscience to work,” he found no reason why he shouldn’t demand them to pull insane hours for little pay. It’s honorable to have a legion of disciples who are in love with their jobs, but the manner that Nader worked them at Public Citizen bordered on the sadomasochistic. The film touches on this, but doesn’t explore the disturbing precedent that it has set for all non-profits – and why it’s so hard in that industry today to retain talented college graduates.

Nader treated any of his former employees who deviated from what he wanted as Benedict Arnolds in the highest degree. The most prominent example is Joan Claybrook, who left Public Citizen in 1977 when President Carter appointed her to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA.) After he felt that she was ineffective and insufficiently pro-consumer in her job, Nader publicly called on her to resign – and even disrupted a press conference in her office. It’s a theme that I picked up on throughout the movie about how Nader interacts with others, but I doubt it’s what the filmmakers wanted you to conclude.

The Carter years were the zenith of Ralph Nader’s influence, as the consumer movement finally had an ally in the White House. But as the movie explains, Nader became disillusioned when he didn’t get what he wanted. Carter supported legislation to create a new federal agency for consumers, but it failed in 1978 to pass both houses of Congress. According to Nader, Carter wasn’t willing to do the heavy lifting to get House Democrats to vote for it. By 1981, Nader celebrated the defeat of Jimmy Carter because “Reagan is going to breed the biggest resurgence in nonpartisan citizen activism in history.”

It’s incredible to believe how Nader would lose faith in a Democratic president because he “didn’t work hard enough” to get a piece of legislation passed. Especially when you consider Nader’s overall legacy – the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Health and Safety Association (OSHA), the Clean Water Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, to name a few – losing one legislative battle isn’t the end of the world. As any serious activist committed to a long-term strategy would say – you win some, you lose some, and you can’t let one disappointment at a powerful politician sink your willingness to work with them later.

Ironically, if Nader had prevailed in creating a Consumer Protection Agency, it would have been another bureaucracy that hired his disciples in a Democratic Administration. But in a Republican Administration, it would hire people who would actively fight against the consumer movement and undermine his influence. The fact that he felt that this loss was Jimmy Carter’s ultimate betrayal raises questions about Nader’s priorities.

To call Nader an “unreasonable man” in the context of the George Bernard Shaw quote is dangerously misleading. Nader was a brave crusader at the beginning of his career – when he attacked General Motors for creating unsafe cars – but by the 1970’s he was a vicious egomaniac. It was either his way or the highway – and although we want people like Ralph Nader to advocate passionately for the causes we believe in and stubbornly refuse to give in, they also need to know how to get along with people.

Today, he’s even worse. Beyond “trying to adapt the world to himself,” he has refused to adapt to any reality at all. The world has changed, and everything he has argued about electoral politics has been completely disproven in the last six years. But still, Ralph Nader insists on proving a point – and he doesn’t seem to care how many more people suffer under Republican Administrations. After all, he’s not poor and won’t be hurt by the Bush budget cuts.

But you won’t get this perspective from viewing “An Unreasonable Man.” It’s not a documentary – it’s a puff piece.

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