Cornel West has a compelling message. Instead of running a third-party campaign most voters won’t notice, he should grab the spotlight by challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Too bad the DNC is a private organization that has said there's not going to be any primary debates, and has a clear track record of using everything from funding and marketing to "super delegates" to squash the left flank (cough, Bernie, cough).
I'm glad to see he's moving to the Green Party and trying to build a leftist 3rd party coalition run.
I’m glad to see he’s moving to the Green Party and trying to build a leftist 3rd party coalition run.
i'm unfortunately not super enamored with the Greens either, tbh--they're not exactly a competent party in their own right, nor did the 3rd party coalition approach go all that well for Howie Hawkins in 2020.
All true points. Though Cornel West is wayyyy better known than Howie Hawkins is or ever was. And to me, it's not about winning at this point. We have years of work to do to break the corporate duopoly. In a re-election year for Biden, I think the best we can hope for is making him worry half as much about losing the vote from the left flank of the party as he is worried about the right flank of the party.
I'm no doomer, but realistically, I think the best the left can hope for in 2024 is a vocal challenge from outside the DNC as any challenge from within would surely be muffled. In 2028, I'm all for a hostile takover FWIW.
I’m no doomer, but realistically, I think the best the left can hope for in 2024 is a vocal challenge from outside the DNC as any challenge from within would surely be muffled. In 2028, I’m all for a hostile takover FWIW.
yeah, i'm hoping in the 4 years between now and 2028 someone on the broader "left" is truly able to take the mantle from Bernie and become the front for all of the stuff he's been talking about--and in between that time the broader left is able to build up unions and connections within the unions so there's some sort of apparatus that can be tapped into by a candidate in 2028.
i'm also not under any pretenses that electoralism is the be-all-end-all, but right now it's the reason there's a broader American left worth thinking about. even if we wanted to mostly or entirely abandon electoralism (and i don't think it'd be good to abandon that domain entirely, personally) we just don't have influence outside of the electoral arena like we do within it--and we don't have much electoral influence to begin with!