Powerful corporate interests, Nader argued, are largely to blame for these distortions of politics and public policy.
He said that America takes the Home Shopping Network for granted, never questioning why commercialism dominates the public airwaves.
"We don't have a citizens' channel. We don't have a labor channel. We don't have a students' channel," he said.
"You buy the politicians," Nader told the crowd. "And if you can't buy them, you rent them on the installment plan."
Nader targeted rising income inequality and the persistence of poverty as further symptoms of a democratic system that he repeatedly called "grotesque" and "beyond satire."
According to Nader, 20 percent of American children live in poverty. Only three percent of children in the Netherlands are in poverty, he said.
"And they're ashamed about it!" he exclaimed.
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