Cornel West recently announced he is running for president as a Green Party candidate, challenging President Biden in 2024. Some Democrats worry that West’s candidacy could split the progressive vote and help reelect Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee again, as Jill Stein’s campaign did in 2016. However, West has supporters who see his run as a way to push Biden further left on issues. Still, even some progressives acknowledge West could hurt Biden’s chances of reelection. Democrats argue that beating Trump and enacting progressive policies requires electing Democrats first.
Did he switch to the Green Party? When he first announced it was under “The People’s Party” which created some criticism because of the sexual assault allegations of the party’s founder and West’s seeming ambivalence in addressing that.
Honestly I think he’s just looking to spoil the vote. I’m progressive and fully recognize the problems with the conservative/liberal Democrat establishment, I do not like Biden and think he’s an arrogant fool to be running again, but I don’t think what we need right now is an intellectual trying to lead the charge. This isn’t a political climate where that’s a winning look you can sell to the general public who is struggling to make ends meet.
I’m really suspicious of politicians who style themselves as academics and scholars, not because I’m against academics and scholars but because it often comes off as an attempt to create this facade of authority. I get Michio Kaku vibes from people like West. Even if genuine, it’s an impractical mindset for politics and not actually representative of average people and their needs. Academics should serve as advisors to more practical, savvy politicians.
I hadn’t heard about the sexual assault allegations, but I’m not really surprised. What I have heard is that “The People’s Party” is technically not even a political party (and thus doesn’t qualify for ballot access), and that “leftist” “comedian” Jimmy Dore is a prominent member. The fact that West even considered working with them makes me question both his judgement, and his seriousness as a candidate.
Yes, it’s unclear what the angle is since the chance of him winning is close to zero.
There is some value in these kinds of challenges shaping the discussion and getting incumbents to maybe promise to add progressive policies to their agenda, but that’s all it really is; a promise.
Biden promised all kind of things to get the progressive vote, but when the chips have been down he’s not delivered on a lot of those really. Lots of progressive sounding legislative packages, but when you look inside it’s more pork than anything else, or when he does act he does it in these inefficient, roundabout ways that are more likely to fail and get struck down (ex. Student debt)
So in the end, I don’t know if challenging a conservative incumbent at this stage will yield anything real other than the chance for catastrophic failure. Biden chose to run again, so we’re going to be stuck squeaking him under the wire again or ending up with Trump. The margin of error in a Biden v Trump election is shockingly thin, judging from current polls.