Nader accuses Democratic leaders of enabling authoritarianism, hindering progressives

by James J. Devine

As President Donald Trump escalates what constitutional scholars describe as an unprecedented assault on democratic institutions, consumer advocate Ralph Nader is accusing Democratic congressional leaders of willful inaction, charging that the party establishment would rather enable authoritarian rule than allow progressive voices to succeed.

Nader, the 92-year-old lawyer and activist who transformed American consumer protection through his 1965 exposé, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” and went on to found Public Citizen, has spent decades fighting corporate power and government complacency.

The Harvard Law School graduate, who ran for president four times, is now training his fire on Democratic leaders, characterizing House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as “control freaks” whose opposition to impeachment serves corporate interests rather than the will of the people.

“The chronic prevaricator and delusionist, Donald J. Trump, knows the worse his outlaw actions and mouth are, the less likely the Democrats in Congress are to impeach him,” wrote Nader, who was the Green Party presidential nominee in 1996 and 2000 and an independent White House contender in 2004 and 2008.

Nader points to polling showing approximately 60% of Americans favor impeachment, including 84% of Democratic voters, with 59% agreeing with the designation of Trump as “a dangerous dictator.”

Yet Rep. John Larson’s H.Res. 1155, Articles of Impeachment, which details 13 counts, including usurpation of congressional war powers and crippling consumer protection agencies, has languished without leadership endorsement.

“Donald Trump has blown past every requirement to be removed from office. And it’s getting worse. His illegal war in Iran is not only driving up prices for American families — it has cost American lives,” said Larson. “He’s becoming more unstable by the day. His profane and sacrilegious Easter Sunday and subsequent threats, including ‘a whole civilization will die’ and ‘open the Strait…or you’ll be living in hell,’ not only foreshadow war crimes, but put our security at risk.”

“The Democratic leadership says ‘we don’t have the votes’ in a GOP Congress,” Nader wrote. “But to get the votes, you have to mount a relentless drive.”

Nader, whose career was defined by taking on General Motors and winning passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act through relentless advocacy, draws a stark comparison to Republican tactics.

“Republicans, in the minority when the Democrats controlled the House, took their repeal of Obamacare to the House floor over sixty times and lost. Still, they made their point, again and again, until they won the House,” Nader wrote.

The consumer advocate, who has spent more than six decades exposing corporate malfeasance and government failures, argues that Democratic leadership’s resistance to impeachment stems from a desire to avoid conflict and maintain Wall Street connections.

“Another explanation for the Jeffries/Schumer crowd is that pushing impeachment creates conflicts and turmoil that goes contrary to their top-down control discipline,” Nader wrote. “They have their narrow and often flawed strategies to win elections, without alienating Wall Street.”

Nader also points to the party’s complicity in foreign policy as a factor.

“They also don’t want other variables to rock the boat, including an Impeachment article that raises their complicity with the Netanyahu genocide in Gaza/Palestine and the war against Iran,” Nader wrote.

When asked about impeachment, Jeffries replied: “I don’t want to get ahead of that discussion.”

“What?” Nader responded. “The mega arsonist is burning down our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands every day, with tens of millions of Americans suffering and endangered, and their political leaders are saying ‘Now is not the Time,’ contradicting the wishes of the vast majority of their voters.”

Nader, who built his reputation on holding powerful institutions accountable, sees a pattern of diminished public expectations that allows Trump to operate with impunity.

“Trump has mastered pushing expectation levels to their lowest depths in American history,” he wrote. “He can lie, cheat, defame, corrupt, and wreck everything he feels challenges his egomaniacal-driven greed, arrogance, and lust for illegal power and ignorance.”

The former presidential candidate has watched progressive primary candidates win against entrenched Democrats and sees an opportunity for a party realignment. But he warns that Jeffries and Schumer, “perfect foils for Trump,” risk creating “the very cleavage Trump wants” by opposing the reforms that progressive voters demand.

“Why then is the Party leadership so cowardly and corrupt?” Nader asked in a June column, listing what he described as their antidemocratic control tactics and reliance on “corporate-conflicted, incompetent consultants.”

Nader’s advocacy has always centered on the idea that concentrated power corrupts democracy. From his early work exposing automobile safety failures to his campaigns for corporate accountability and government reform, he has maintained that citizens must demand more from their institutions.

Now, at 92, he warns that the survival of constitutional governance depends on whether the public will hold its representatives accountable.

“The consequences of not using your vote to send dictator Trump and his Republican enablers the message that our democracy and the rule of law will not be subjugated by a dictator and his criminal gang,” Nader wrote, “are too grave to contemplate.”