Schadenfreude: It's Not Just For the Right Anymore

The avalanche of schadenfreude breaking out among Democrats after eight long years of a Republican presidency need not be limited to the right. Here, for example, is Ralph Nader calling Barack Obama an "Uncle Tom." (ht: Andrew Sullivan) Can you taste that bitterness, Dems? Sweet sweet bitterness....

Nader already lost what little remaining credibility he had back in 2004 when his campaign was largely backed by cynical Republicans. At this point, with his impact on the election virtually nonexistent and a popular, progressive, president-elect co-opting what little resonance his message once had, he pretty much can only draw attention when he makes incendiary remarks like this. How the mighty spoilers have fallen. Enjoy ignoring him every election for the rest of your lives, Democrats!

Update: This seems as good a time as any to add my all-time favorite Nader takedown to the doggy pile, in which an incredibly pissed off Triumph The Insult Comedy Dog makes Ralph his bitch. Highlights include Trumph chanting "You campaigned in the sweeeeng staaates" while Nader tries in vain to exonerate himself for the 2000 debacle.

Comments

[miasm]

Not only was Nader right on the mark. He also gave paranoid whites a history lesson. Nader could easily have said - Will he "Cross the Jordan"? Either way, "Uncle Tom" or “Black betrayal” is not a White person's idea - The idea came from strong, outspoken Black Women who criticized Black men for quitting the Republican Party in the south after the disenfranchisement of the blacks. The term came from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin and was used extensively by blacks during the civil rights decade.

Nader should be supported for being the only politician out there who can speak truth to bullies and turn the other cheek when they spit on his truly commendable legacy. And I applaud his "Political Incorrectness". Nader is not a racist.. after all, let us not forget that Obama worked in Nader's organization before he became a community organizer!

[InjunTrouble]

I don't think Nader called Obama Uncle Tom. He said it remains to be seen if Obama will be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom (to corporate America)

I really doubt if Obama will be any kind of Uncle at all, but Nader did not call him anything other than an unknown.

[MTPockets75]

I refuse to believe that money is the only thing keeping Nader's mesage from America. The truth is, most Americans don't agree. A president can only fix so many problems in the time they are alloted. With America circling the drain, don't you think a little prioritizing is in order? You can harp on Obama for not mentiong the poor during his campaign, but the truth is, most poor don't like being called poor, not to mention that it's highly unlikely that those same poor that he has championed for years as a community organizer, will all of a sudden be forgotten in a Obama administration.

I look at the man, who took up public service over what could have been a lucrative private sector career, who maintains just one relativly modest home, who drives just one hybrid automobile, who doesn't belong to any particularly prestigious family or fraternity who's legacy he needs to extend. I do not believe Obama is in this for the money, or the power, or the fame. He is in this for the people. The change people like Nader represent is far to drastic a step for the country to make suddenly. Those course corrections must be made gradually, or we risk snapping the rudder and losing all ability to steer the ship of state.

[flanardiente]

I supported, voted for and contributed to Obama and the last time I was this happy at the outcome of a Presidential election was in 1960. But, having watched the video, I have to say that my admiration for Ralph Nader, which has been in abeyance for quite a while, has returned full-force. For the knee-jerks, he didn't call Obama an Uncle Tom, though the Fox News slug couldn't get enough of repeating it over and over again. Why do people watch this garbage? Do they get off on watching untalented hacks invite prominent people to their shows just to talk over them every time they try to answer a question? It's like watching third-graders squabble in the sandbox. What Nader had to say was valid, relevant and important. Check it out if you can override the flabby hack's heckling drone. And while I'm on the subject, please, my fellow Democrats--Nader didn't take votes away from Gore in Florida back in '00. They weren't his to lose. If they were, he couldn't have lost them.

[schatsie]

well it was very sad that he chose to go on Fox,,,, how many times have we seen them deride and talk over the progressive agenda...it was Nader's mistake to make and he made it...If he wanted a reasonable interview, he should have gone to Bill Moyers..

I do believe he has a brilliant mind most of the time....

[akarnold]

Amen to everything you said, flanardiente, and very well put. I canvassed for Obama and was overjoyed at his win. I have voted for Nader in the past (1996) but have become increasingly annoyed with him over the years. But thank God for this buzzing gadfly -- may he not be silenced any time soon!
By the way, Ralph was absolutely correct in calling this Shep whathisname (I never watch Fox) a bully for trying to shame him for being politically incorrect. Good for you, Ralph, for not backing down. Somebody needs to constantly remind us of the enormous and scary power corporations hold over our country and the world.

[robXdion]

WRONG. It's race-baiting for a Lebanese man (who could pass as white in America) to even infer, suggest, or imply a racial slur in describing a black man. Especially when said racial slur is irrelevant to the situation and cannot be applied to previous white men who've done the same things. Non-blacks don't get to toss around "Uncle Tom" and think it's just cute and funny. Nader wants attention. And this was a bad way to get it. He just flushed his reputation down the drain because he knows Obama's win ruins his novelty and relevance.

Nader using "Uncle Tom" in this context is no different than if Rush Limbaugh or Don Imus had said it. And if you think Nader didn't adversely effect the 2000 election, then you probably would have been in the 540 FL votes that gave us Bush.

[flanardiente]

I wouldn't vote for anyone named Bush if you held a gun against my head. You do have a point about the inappropriate use of "Uncle Tom" by a white man--which, by the way, Ralph Nader IS, Lebanese or not--but he didn't use this out-of-context so-called racial slur as an accusation but as an apprehension. And of course Nader adversely effected the 2000 election in Florida, and of course I regret that and wish he hadn't. My point is, if Gore hadn't been such a chickenshit, maybe he wouldn't have.

[repatriate]

Yep, Ralph is truly done. This was a shameful, pitiful crack for him to make.

Let's start with the choice he gives; the positive choice is for Obama to be Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam was a recruiting poster for the US military. This is the *good* choice from a supposed pacificist and super-smart guy?

Nader's larger point is indeed a valid one. And it could have been made without the idiography he chose.

Given the chance to drop the nasty racial rhetoric, he said no.

I'm all the sadder that he talked Peace and Freedom into dirtying their years of work to maintain ballot access across the country with his name, then did this.

Buh-bye, Ralph.

[irenede]

Look,
Nader is certainly a jerk, but don't ever think that the Republicans didn't steal the 2000 election without him. It was the Republican plan from the start, and as we all know, Gore was too much of a coward to stand up for Democracy and demand a full-state recount. Bush was never ever elected. End of story.

[tuttlemsm]

I honestly and sincerely wonder if Nader is mentally competent.

[apoyo]

Kudos to Shep. He reduced Nader to irrelevancy even though he had to repeat it several times for Nader to hear it. "Time's up."

[newshawk14]

Nader revives for me a 60's or 70's phrase, called ego aggrandizement. I think he has been right
on many issues, but my feeling is most of it has been lost, in the feeding of his own ego.

[brooklyncitizen]

Yes Obama is not a socialist he is a capitalist and yes the middle class needs all the Obama LOVE we can stand because our numbers are dwindling and we have no recourse.We've been screwed every which way for the last 8 years. IF you are poor (and I am not knocking poor people) there are resources for medical insurance such as medicaid and other programs such as food stamps. Middle class does not qualify for any of this...yes poverty is growing in AMerica mainly from the many middle class families slipping into poverty after major crisis- foreclosures, health problems, unemployment etc.

Whatever. Nader is irrelevant and part of the past and that's his choice.

[Chubbster]

Nader defines self-righteous posturing ego-mania. Sure, he sees reality, his own mental fabrications.

[antaeus]

"Schadenfreude" is shameful joy--the guilty laugh when someone slips on the ice. It doesn't apply here. Nader sounds bitter, envious, petty, and it might even approach sour grapes, but this isn't Schadenfreude.

[AngelaQuattrano]

No, schadenfreude is not "the guilty laugh when someone slips on the ice". It is taking pleasure in someone's real suffering, which seems like divine retribution for their unpunished crimes. Nader sounds bitter, and we are laughing at him. We are the ones experiencing the schadenfreude.

[Phaedrusnyc]

When Obama says ONE WORD about reining in the international corporations that dictate America's policies, about permanently getting rid of the lobbyists who write our laws for Congress to rubber-stamp, and about establishing an electoral system that allows for more than two shrill points of view, you can get away with saying he's "co-opting what little resonance [Nader's] message once had," but until then, Nader has a place in American politics, whether or not he occasionally makes an ill-considered statement like the one you're pushing. The fact is, Obama is more progressive than the alternative, sure- but he's hardly "progressive." And he's hardly likely to criticize the money that's infected the American political process when his win, in large part, came from turning down federal funding.
You don't like Ralph Nader, the person? Fine- that's certainly your right. But Nader being obnoxious doesn't make what he's fought for any less legitimate.

[MizFlagPin]

#1 Obama's campaign was publiclyy financed by "we the people"

#2 What does Nader know about anyyone being an uncle Tom.

#3 After making this slur towards the President Elect, it's safe to say that Rader is through

[Pdubya]

oh bugger off. Goldman Sachs bundled contributions 3:1, Obama/McCain. Zbigniew Bzrezinski's two sons run the foreign policy advisorships in both Obama's and McCain camps.

House wins.

[Russycle]

I'm not a huge Nader fan, but:

#1 yes Obama got a lot of small donations. He also got a lot of corporate money.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

#2. Uncle Tom was a stupid choice of words, but our government (Republican and Democrat) has been Tomin' for the corporations and lobbyists for decades, and probably no one knows that better than Nader. And if you watched the video, he challenged Obama to not become an Uncle Tom. That's not the same as saying he is one.

#3. He's been through since 2000, he really doesn't have much to lose at this point.

Rent Ralph's biography, An Unreasonable Man, some time. He's far from perfect, but there are few men who have done more for the American public.

[wrylass]

Ralph, feel free to retire to any one of John McCain's 12 houses. It's likely they'll never even notice you're there ...