Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and consummate presidential-vote splitter, has written another book. The 700-plus page manuscript, entitled Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a work of fiction that features real-life people, such as Barry Diller and Yoko Ono, saving America by following Nader's ideals. Journalists are calling the book a novel. Nader has said that he is uncomfortable with that term and instead calls the book a "fictional vision that could become a new reality" (I'm sure Barnes & Noble will be adding a "Fictional Visions → New Realities" section soon). But as any 13-year-old with sweet lightsaber moves or housewife yearning to be nibbled by Robert Pattison can tell you, Nader's book is something much greater than a novel or even a "vision" - it's fan fiction.
Yup, fan fiction - the stuff that fans write, taking existing characters they love and crafting new stories for them that express the writers' deepest desires. Fan fiction is what has populated the internet with Kirk and Spock sex scenes, led countless people of all ages to write themselves into the Harry Potter universe, and led me at age 13 to write a story in which Fox Mulder puked on someone's shoes. Hilarious at the time.
Nader is doing the exact same thing. Don't believe me? Let me walk you through a hypothetical. For a moment, don't think of Ralph Nader as a 75-year-old man, but instead as a nerdy high-school boy. Sure, Ralph can spout off consumer safety issues like baseball stats, and he's the head of the debate club, but he lacks a few key social graces. And, like any stereotypical high school nerd, Ralph also has a big crush on a celebrity -- Corporate America, the beautiful woman on These United States!, Ralph's favorite long-running TV show.
Ralph and Corporate America - or "Corrie" for short -- don't have much in common. On the show she dates rich bad boys, men like Ted Turner, or, at her wildest, the quirky-but-safe Paul Newman. Ralph doesn't let their differences deter him, though. Since kindergarten he has fantasized that Corrie secretly loves the same things as him - and if she'd just take the time to talk with him, she'd realize it. Thus he's pined after Corrie for years, writing her letters and trying to meet her, without any luck (one time Nader received the book he sent her, Unsafe at Any Speed, back at his doorstep marked with a big "Return to Sender" stamp, the wrapping still on).
By the time Ralph reaches his senior year of high school, he's tired of pursuing Corrie. And while he still wants to make Corporate America his girl, he also knows there's a good chance he won't get her. Maybe some guy like him will, some day - but not him. So at night he vents his frustration and lust by scribbling stories where all of Corrie's precious rich boys tie her up and do her doggie style. In the stories, Corrie realizes what a terrible person she's been and comes crawling to Ralph, asking how she can make things better. Writing the stories doesn't get Ralph what he wants, but his imagination provides him a certain satisfaction.
So now imagine Nader is 75 again, his TV characters are real people (or, in Corrie's case, have corporate personhood), and...everything else is pretty much the same. Actually, I haven't read Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! yet; for all I know, what I just outlined is literally what happens in the book. Hopefully with a good Kirk and Spock sex scene thrown in.
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