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Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph Nader Radio Hour

By: Ralph Nader
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Summary
 Ralph Nader talks about what’s happening in America, what’s happening around the world, and most importantly what’s happening underneath it all.

www.ralphnaderradiohour.comRalph Nader Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Democracy Without Politicians

    Democracy Without Politicians
    Nov 14 2026

    In the wake of yet another seemingly endless political season awash in dark money, Ralph welcomes self-described “recovering politician” and political theorist, Terry Bouricius, to explain how we can replace America’s fatally flawed democracy with a genuine one through the use of citizen councils. The concept is “sortition” and his book is “Democracy Without Politicians: Government by the People.”

    Terry Bouricius is a political theorist and self-described “recovering politician”. From 1981 to 2001, he served as a City Councilor and then as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives. After a decade working on election reform with the organization FairVote his focus shifted to sortition. He has written influential journal articles on sortition, and helped found the international democracy reform organization, Democracy R&D. He is the author of Democracy without Politicians: Government by the People.]

    I was a politician. And I thought we just needed to fix the voting system, so I worked on election reform, ranked choice voting, and so on. And then I found sortition… And many people, when I first talk about replacing politicians with everyday people, they assume that, “Well, the politicians are experts in lawmaking, aren’t they?” And the fact is—no, they’re not. They are experts at winning elections. Their staff do 95% of the legislative work (with the lobbyists, of course). Lawmakers are not lawmakers. They’re public relations experts.

    Terry Bouricius

    If you let politicians pick the issues, they pick ones that are sexy that they can use to mobilize voters, also that foment fear and hatred. That’s what politicians want on the agenda. But that’s not the kind of issues that we need to deal with. We need to deal with climate change, AI. There’s a variety of issues that politicians keep kicking the can down the road…And with sortition, we can set an agenda that is meaningful. You could have a body that reviews proposals from anywhere in society, and then a large jury listening to the pro and con arguments on the draft bill and voting to adopt or reject the proposed bill.

    Terry Bouricius

    Ralph wants to hear from you! When was the last time you bought anything— a product or a service, based directly on the ad that you read or listened to or saw? We will read and discuss your responses on a future program.



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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • The Blue Wave's Wake

    The Blue Wave's Wake
    Nov 7 2026
    Ralph discusses the results of this week’s midterm elections with America’s #1 Populist Jim Hightower, RootsAction founder Norman Solomon, Rep. Al Green (TX-9), and constitutional law expert Bruce Fein.Ralph wants to hear from you! When was the last time you bought anything— a product or a service, based directly on the ad that you read or listened to or saw? We will read and discuss your responses on a future program.Jim Hightower is a syndicated columnist, national radio commentator, and America’s Number One populist. He is a board member of Public Citizen, and he is a founding member of Our Revolution, an organization inspired by the issues brought up in the Bernie Sanders campaign. He has written several books including Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, and his newsletter The Hightower Lowdown publishes twice a week on Substack.This has been a genuine, grassroots, populist rebellion that has happened in this state. The national media seems to be interpreting this as a rebuke of Donald Trump—which it certainly is—but more fundamentally, it is a rebuke of the power structure that has left working people, and farmers, and environmental concerns, et cetera, off of the national agenda. And people have just put it back on the agenda here in the state of Texas.Jim HightowerThe Republicans have the fat cats, but we have the alley cats. We have the grassroots constituency that has long been ignored (including by the Democratic Party) that’s asserted itself this time around. And that people power took on money power at the most fundamental level, talking to people directly.Jim HightowerNorman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.I have to say (having done a lot of interviews and research in the last few days) that so far, nobody in the House with a “D” after their name has been willing to say that they will challenge Hakeem Jeffries for a speaker. That is just unfortunately the reality. Likewise, over in the Senate, anybody who wants to challenge Chuck Schumer for the majority leader position? Nobody has shown up. Nobody has stuck their heads above the barricades. I think that can only change with an upsurge of outrage at the prospect that after this tremendous victory on Tuesday…that there would be a reversion to the corporate business as usual.Norman SolomonThere are two crucial responsibilities that elected officials have and that really, in a sense, all of us have. One of them is to fight the racists, the xenophobic militarists, the corporate flunkies, the misogynists who have gained control of the Republican Party. That is necessary, but insufficient. The other necessity is to fight for and create and enact a genuine progressive program that takes care of the woeful, terrible deficits in health care, education, housing, environmental protection, diplomacy instead of war. That is the imperative (or among the imperatives) that we need to demand of Congress. It’s not enough to win on election night. We’ve got to win day after day.Norman SolomonAl Green represents Texas’s 9th District in the US Congress. He currently serves on the House Committees on Financial Services, including the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, and as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.I’m grateful to see this happen, and I’m hopeful that [Democrats] will take up affordability and accountability. Affordability obviously has been explained many times, and that has to do with the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, [health care]. But accountability is also about impeachment. I don’t know how we can have leadership and others say that the President has committed impeachable offenses and not take up the issue of impeachment. That’s antithetical to the verbiage that we are using. You’ve got to acknowledge that your words mean something when you say this.Congressman Al GreenWe now see what happens to Republicans when they’ve gone too far in overlooking the will of the people. And I think that the road to impeachment is one that the persons who are seeking the Presidency are going to have to travel. They’re going to have to explain why they are opposed to it or why they support it. I don’t think this is going to just go away.Congressman Al GreenI firmly, absolutely believe that [Trump will] be impeached before he leaves office. I think that it will happen and it should happen. We should not allow the next would-be Trump to believe that he can create a death squad that takes the lives of people with impunity, giving them a license to kill, making them judge, jury, prosecutor, and executioner. We cannot allow that. If we do, it will be a stain on Congress that posterity will forever be critical of.Congressman Al GreenBruce ...
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    1 hr and 55 mins
  • Election Day 2026: The Final Countdown

    Election Day 2026: The Final Countdown
    Oct 31 2026
    Ralph speaks to America's #1 Populist Jim Hightower to get the lowdown on some potentially historic races coming up in Texas. Then Ralph is joined by Norman Solomon (co-founder of RootsAction) to get his final take on how this round of Democratic campaigns have played out. Finally, Ralph talks to pollster John Zogby about what we can learn from the latest polls.Ralph wants to hear from you! When was the last time you bought anything— a product or a service, based directly on the ad that you read or listened to or saw? We will read and discuss your responses on a future program.Jim Hightower is a syndicated columnist, national radio commentator, and America’s Number One populist. He is a board member of Public Citizen, and he is a founding member of Our Revolution, an organization inspired by the issues brought up in the Bernie Sanders campaign. He has written several books including Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, and his newsletter The Hightower Lowdown publishes twice a week on Substack.Even the current [Texas] Agriculture Commissioner (who Republicans abandoned, even though he is a right-wing Republican himself) has effectively endorsed Clayton Tucker for that position. And one reason, the main reason, is because Clayton took on early the data center corruption in our state. Where our state government under Abbott got fully behind the building of data centers and the coming AI revolution, saying that we were going to be the centerpiece in the world of data centers. And it turns out that, oops, that’s not a very popular position among Republicans in rural areas of our state, because, of course, they’re going to suck up the water, they’re going to take over the land, take over the local government, etc. And people aren’t real keen on that. So there’s been a rebellion building in the countryside. And I’ve got to say, the Democratic Party did not understand that rebellion and did not adopt it early. But Clayton Tucker did.Jim HightowerPeople are finally catching on, getting fed up, and not just getting mad, but doing something about it.Jim HightowerNorman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.“Tone deaf” from Schumer and Jeffries is part of what they assume to be their job description.Norman SolomonAll too often, people are overly respectful. Sure, you don’t want to go around screaming at your representatives. But the amount of deference, the amount of kowtowing and, “Oh, thank you for all you’ve done. Appreciate it,” it gets translated to, “Well, you’re not a Republican, so thank you very much. You’ve done your job.” No, that’s not your only job. Your job is to represent people against corporate power, against the militarists, against the vicious economic and social system that is crushing millions and millions of people.Norman SolomonWherever you live, if you have somebody in Congress, don’t treat them like a god. Forget about No Kings—don’t treat them like a prince or anything else. They’re there to work for you. And the vast majority of the members of Congress (and that includes Democrats), they haven’t been working for you. They’ve been working for military contractors. They’ve been working for the Fortune 500 and Big Tech. And that has to change. And will change only if we confront them.Norman SolomonJohn Zogby is a public opinion pollster, author, and public speaker. He is the founder of the Zogby poll and the Zogby International poll, and he is founder and Senior Partner at John Zogby Strategies, a consumer opinion survey and political survey company.I’m a little less worried this time around, simply because the Republicans own what’s going on. They can’t blame the Democrats for the lack of affordability, for status anxiety…They own the war in Iran…These are things that they have to defend. In the absence of defending, they blame Democrats for being socialists or blame Democrats for personal foibles. And that may work with some. But the fact of the matter is, what voters really want to know is: What have you done for me lately, and what are you going to do for me next? And they’re not hearing that from Republicans. Now, they’re not necessarily hearing a united message from Democrats either. But the Democrats, at least this time, don’t own the mess.John ZogbyNews 10/30/26* Our top story this week is the shock re-election victory of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, who began his career as a labor leader and dissident under the Brazilian dictatorship, now becomes perhaps the most voted-for individual in the history of the world. Lula placed second in the first round of the presidential election, with his opponent Flávio Bolsonaro coming in first, which makes the reversal in the ...
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    2 hrs
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