Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler
By Bob Small
Full disclosure: I’m a registered Green Party member having participated in Green Party presidential campaigns, those of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. I haven’t been active for a while, but Cornell West might just re-activate me.
There’s a lot to know about Dr. Cornell West.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and taught at Harvard and Princeton. He has authored 20 books, the latest being Prophetic Fire, about 20th-century African-American leaders. He’s included in music albums and movies. He is well known for his participation in various protest movements. He is married to a psychologist, Iranian immigrant named Dr. Annahita Mahdavi West, a professor at Long Beach City College.
In June, West announced he was running to be 2024 candidate for the MPP (Movement for a People’s Party), which he founded with other disgruntled Sanders supporters.
However, after some issues arose about MPP, Chris Hedges introduced West to the Green Party and he changed his plan.
“America must be a nation among nations that is committed to justice,” and West. “I’ve said over and over again: if and when I win I’m not going to the White House until everyone has a house.”
Jill Stein, a former Green Party presidential candidate, is managing West’s campaign.
The decision does not sit well with all on the Left. Joan Walsh, writing in The Nation, doesn’t believe West should be running.
I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell anyone not to run for president.
With regard to West possibly taking votes from Trump, Caitlin Johnstone says this on the site formerly known as Twitter: One of the stupidest things all American liberals believe is that if the Green Party candidate drops out of a presidential election the antiwar socialists who would’ve voted for them will go ‘Oh darn, I guess I may as well vote for that warmongering capitalist Democrat then. . . .I guess it has something to do with Democrats believing they’re on the ‘left’. So they see a candidate running on a left-wing platform, and they think ‘Hey, they’re stealing our votes!’ When really they’re just a bunch of closet rightists who real leftists hate.”
Thanks to radical brother John Murphy for sending me this quote.
Last question — why do only Democrats use the term “spoiler” ?
Cornell West Would Not Be A Spoiler
“…I’m not going to the White House until everyone has a house.” That part of Mr. West’s platform is enough to inform everything else. So who exactly is supposed to provide everyone with a house? But here’s the difference between a Conservative view of a far Left candidate and those that claim to be Democrats. He should run if he wants and he should be part of the overall debate, such as it is these days thanks to the Democrat run media’s stifling censorship. Perhaps their censorship of a sincere Leftist like West will help awaken more of the sleeping masses to what is destroying this country – – the erasure of freedom of speech by silencing anyone who doesn’t toe the “mainstream” line. As a true Conservative, I will fight for West’s right to be heard and to run for office as hard as I will fight the “non-Marxist socialist” (i.e. communist) principles he advocates.
100%
Thanks Andrew for your comment.