Tuesday, June 06, 2023

CORNEL WEST WAS THE PEOPLE'S PARTY'S SECOND CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT. THE FIRST CHOICE WAS JIMMY DORE.

So this happened yesterday:
Cornel West, the progressive activist and professor, announced a presidential campaign on Monday with the People’s Party, a third party led by a former campaign staff member for Senator Bernie Sanders....

In [a] video, Dr. West said he had decided to run as a third-party candidate because “neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about Big Tech.” He called former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, a “neo-fascist,” and President Biden a “milquetoast neoliberal.” ...

The People’s Party was founded by Nick Brana, who worked on Mr. Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, but later broke away.
There's a good chance this will amount to nothing, although some of us still remember Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. As Scott Lemieux reminds us, West endorsed Nader in 2000. He also endorsed Stein in 2016. Lemieux notes that West recently published a Wall Street Journal op-ed that praised Ron DeSantis for signing a bill that allows Florida students to qualify for state scholarships by taking the so-called Classic Learning Test rather than the SAT or ACT. West co-authored the op-ed with Jeremy Wayne Tate, the founder and CEO of the company that administers the test; West is a member of the company's board, along with (among others) Christopher Rufo and the president of the Heritage Foundation.

But West wasn't Nick Brana's first choice for the top of the People's Party ticket. Brana's first choice was Jimmy Dore.


Three months ago, Brana tweeted that Dore had decided to run for president, then changed his mind because his wife didn't want him to run. Brana begged his Twitter followers to contact the couple and try to change their minds, praising Dore for his "unique ability to bring left and right together to stop this war, get health care for all, end homelessness, and raise wages," and saying that a Dore candidacy would be "bigger than Bernie 2016! A real revolution!"

Dore is a stand-up comic and pundit. He's perceived as a leftist, but...
In 2016, Dore informed his [podcast] audience that it should not “freak out about a Donald Trump presidency,” as the Republican’s election would be “even better for progressives in the short term, meaning in the two-year term, and in four years for sure” than Hillary Clinton’s election would be.... And the podcast host’s discernment is further called into question by his promotion of conspiracy theories implicating the DNC in Seth Rich’s death.
In late 2020, Dore demanded that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progress refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House unless Pelosi agreed to hold a floor vote on Medicare for All -- a vote that AOC and anyone else who's reasonably familiar with the U.S. Congress knew would fail. Dore was verbally abusive:
“She is standing between you and health care,” Dore told his viewers.... Responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s argument that it takes years of organizing to lay the groundwork for seemingly spontaneous progressive breakthroughs, Dore exclaimed, “I figured this out in two weeks, AOC! You liar. You coward. You gaslighter.”
In January 2021, Dore broadcast a long and sympathetic interview with a member of the Boogaloo Boys, a movement that had threatened violence prior to Joe Biden's inauguration. In 2022, Dore participated in a protest against vaccine mandates, appearing alongside speakers such as Naomi Wolf and Lara Logan. (He had previously argued that ivermectin prevents and treats COVID.)

More recently, Dore has argued (on Tucker Carlson's show) that the United States "arms Nazis" in Ukraine. In February, Dore participated in a rally against the war in Ukraine co-sponsored by the People's Party and the Libertarian Party. It does not appear to have been a particularly progessive gathering.
The rally, which was moderated by Angela McArdle of the Libertarian Party and Nick Brana of the “People’s Party,” was sold as an opportunity by the organizers and the speakers to “bring together” the “left and the right” to oppose war. In fact, there was no left-wing perspective; the political direction was provided entirely by the right....

The rally featured no less than three speakers from organizations affiliated with the late fascist and anti-Semitic cult-leader, Lyndon LaRouche, including his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. A platform was also provided for Jackson Hinkle, a fascist proponent of “MAGA communism,” and Jordan Page, who wrote the Oath Keepers anthem. Page gave an extended “musical” interlude with far-right anti-vaccine advocate and “bitcoin” enthusiast, Tatiana Moroz....

Pacifist journalist and author Chris Hedges, ... along with Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone, Jill Stein of the Green Party, and comedian Jimmy Dore and a few others were there to give a progressive gloss to the “left-right” coalition and legitimize the extreme right. Their principal message was that unity with the fascistic right was permissible and should be actively pursued. Those who oppose collaboration with the right are viewed as political enemies.
Brana had previously tweeted this:


Cornel West has denounced in U.S. involvement in Ukraine, although he has also called Vladimir Putin a "gangster." However, West regualrly denounces NATO expansion, and Putin would certainly like this view aired in the national media by a well-known presidential candidate:
On his campaign website, one of West's campaign policies—titled "End the Wars"—advocates disbanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance, stopping all foreign military aid, bringing U.S. troops home and investing "those trillions of war dollars into American communities" ...
The fact that the ratfuckers are running a ratfuck fake-Democratic primary candidate (Robert Kennedy Jr.) and a third-party candidate who'll be marketed to the horseshoe left (West) -- and also a No Labels ratfuck candidate aimed at moderates -- suggests that they're really worried that Donald Trump can't make it over the finish line. I wish I were as certain as they are that Trump can't win without assistance like this. (Trump still leads Biden in the Real Clear Politics average, by 1.8.)

I assume that Elon Musk, fresh off last night's Twitter Spaces conversation with RFK Jr., will offer one to West any day now.
Posted by Steve M. at 9:59 AM

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