”This helps take away votes from Joe Biden,” the activist told one person at the rally, according to a video posted to X (formerly Twitter) by a Washington Post reporter. “We’re helping the Trump team who’s trying to get him on there,” added a woman by his side.
Does any progressive actually like West?
As a person? He’s a great guy and PHENOMENALLY intelligent. He did the “Philosopher’s Commentary” on the Matrix films, which is worth a listen.
He shouldn’t be running for President though. ;)
Last I looked he was on the ballot in 6 states? It’s 5 months to election day, if you’re racing to get on the ballot at this point, your campaign is over. Pack it up.
I know nothing about the guy, but I just skimmed over about 30 minutes of this and I can’t tell what the hell he’s talking about. As far as I can tell he’s just talking in a funny cadence and listing people he really likes and from time to time touching real lightly on the idea that America does bad things sometimes.
Contrast that with (I just picked a random video from Youtube) Fred Hampton talking for 5 minutes and making simple, coherent, powerful points (among them hilariously enough being “we gonna have to do more than talk.”)
I’m not trying to sit in judgement of West just because I watched one talk and didn’t get anything from it. But I watched one talk and I didn’t get anything from it. Does anyone have like a little TL;DR on what Cornel West believes and wants to make happen in the country?
I’m a progressive. I like it when he debates a moron. He’s good at making an argument, and he’s not wrong about a lot of progressive issues.
But he strikes me as a diva more than a leader. He seems to want to be in the spotlight, and is willing to say something mildly unpopular with the most offensive spin possible. The only reason to do that is for attention. You won’t convince people you’re right with incendiary rhetoric, and it makes it much easier for conservatives and centrists to paint socialists as cranks.
He’s like the anti-Walter Sobchak. He’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole. He’s also often wrong, but that’s not how the line goes. Would Libertarians like Walter if he ran for president? I dunno, libertarians are all cranks so maybe they would.
Anyway, I don’t mind West running now to raise issues, but I wouldn’t vote for him in this election and I don’t know anyone else who will. He’s not siphoning support from Biden, because any reasonable progressive is voting against Trump.
You’ll note I said ‘like’ in favor of ‘vote’… Obviously we need to be voting to defeat trump, and I doubt any credible progressive is going to be not recognizing that.
but can I ask who, if that wasn’t an issue, would you like? Or maybe better way of saying it. If we had ranked choice or similar voting system… who’d be your first pick?
Bernie will always be my first pick as long as he isn’t retired.
They didnt just screw Bernie. They screwed America
a vote for cornel west is a vote against trump.
I don’t subscribe to the belief that third party votes are “owed” to anybody. I’ve voted for third party candidates in the past, hoping to send a message to candidates from the two parties, with almost no success.
For a while, I worked as a realtor, and we would talk about the value of direct mailer postcards. The critical point was that you were trying to send a message to the recipient in the time that it took them to see your postcard and walk it over to their recycling bin. That was your window, and if your message took longer than that to digest, it was wasted.
That’s how I think of the message you send with a third party vote. The message lasts as long as it takes for the party to walk your votes over to their trashcan. Your candidate won’t win. If the message is strong, like say for instance the margin of victory is smaller than the percent of third party votes, they might remember you in the next election. Maybe. But they are just as likely to write it off as a fluke or an outlier, because that’s easier than introspection.
There are two viable parties. You can support one or the other, or neither. But there is a clear difference between the two, and while you might not like everything about one party, there’s going to be one party that stands for everything you hate.
You can vote against the party you hate, but if you don’t, you can’t really complain when they win and do everything you hate. Voting for a third party does nothing at all.
a vote for any party is a vote against all other parties.
Not really. A vote for a third oarty is a vote for nobody.
only a no vote is a vote for nobody. don’t spread misinformation.
If you go to a restaurant, let’s say McDonald’s, and you order something they don’t have, like oysters and pasta, you aren’t going to get what you ordered. It’s as though you haven’t ordered at all, because you won’t get it.
You might think that ordering it could let McDonald’s know that there is a demand for oysters and pasta, and maybe they will change the menu.
That won’t work.
You might think other people in the restaurant will overhear you order it and decide they want that, too.
That won’t work either.
Your order serves no purpose. Technically, you’ve asked for something, demanded it even, but you won’t get it and you never will change the restaurant or the menu that way.
Telling anyone otherwise is spreading misinformation.
Sure West is a great guy. He should be president.
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Bill Maher is a piece of shit. I’m very happy they had a falling out.
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He’s a bit much sometimes. I prefer Bill Lehess.
Isn’t it time to delete all your comments again?
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Instread of punching right, let’s punch left and then pretend we are punching right - liberals.
Let’s pretend we don’t know how FPTP voting works and don’t know what a spoiler vote is
- people LARPing as progressives.
FPTPRCV is already getting banned in multiple states. It is nothing but a carrot to keep you voting for the both sides in power.As soon as it dares to come close to being reality the Democrats will get on board with banning it because “it’s confusing” just like the Republicans.
Cool. How does it work right now?
My bad I meant RCV I was confused with another comment.
The only way to break a two party system that agrees on every major bad policy is to have a third party win. Democrats are just Republicans these days and Republicans have become more hardcore right wingers.
Ok. That still doesn’t address my first reply to you.
What is being spoiled by not voting for Biden exactly?
If anything Democrats are the ones casting the spoiler votes by shooting themselves in the foot and refusing to unite behind a third party.
Oh… maybe you guys don’t actually know how it works.
Even Republicans know. I think I gave “progressives” too much credit.
“Instead of helping keep America from falling into the hands of a wannabe-dictator, let’s suggest everyone do everything possible to allow America to fall into the hands of a wannabe-dictator.”
~ Leftists.
By the way. Didn’t you say you weren’t going to post here anymore after accusing the mods of being Zionist genocide supporters in another thread?
Inb4, they plan to pose as third-party advocate.
Cornel West is a Republican operative.
He’s being assisted by Republican operatives, he is not HIMSELF a Republican operative.
https://newrepublic.com/post/182486/republican-operatives-cornel-west-ballot-north-carolina
it’s flat out misinformation that should be removed.
The fact that there ARE Republican operatives involved in his candidacy makes it not “flat out misinformation”.
It just needed the appropriate correction as to where the operatives are coming from.
I find it incredibly disingenuous for his campaign to say things like:
“not have any specific comments since we are not familiar with them or their affiliations.”
Source: https://newrepublic.com/post/182486/republican-operatives-cornel-west-ballot-north-carolina
You’re runing for President, it’s your JOB to be aware of who is working for you.
the op already makes it clear that it’s discussing other people being Republican operatives. the comment to which you responded is spreading misinformation.
Misinformation would be if there were no Republican operatives at all.
In West’s case, yes, there very much ARE operatives at work, and the campaign is choosing to ignore that fact.
So while West himself is not an operative, he is actively benefiting from the operatives working for his campaign and choosing not to do anything about it.
I wouldn’t remove a comment saying “Trump is a Russian asset” for the same reason.
so the ban on misinformation isn’t an objective rule, just something capriciously moderated.
It’s not misinformation if it’s mostly true.
I suspect West is running as a protest vote against both parties, with a series of principles around his run focusing less into a platform and more into statement for consideration. The dude is a brilliant community organizer and thinker, but not a politician at heart.
I assumed a lot of folks would perceive his run in this way.
With our current 2-Party system!? That’s like voting yes and no for a tax increase…
If they are voting for West they sure as fuck wouldnt vote for Biden if he weren’t running. This is spoiler effect bullshit
