Republican Operatives Swoop in to Help Cornel West This Election
newrepublic.com
”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?
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
I'd vote for Bernie. I'd vote for AOC or Tlaib. I really like Cori Bush. Fetterman is my Senator, and I'll vote for him again even though I disagree with his stance on Israel. Really, I don't agree with anyone on Israel/Palestine, because that situation is far too nuanced to be expressed by a politician in an election year.
Also, if I had a pick, I would go with STAR voting. It's better than RCV in almost every way.
I think you just described Dave Chappelle.
Maybe, but I wouldn't call Chappelle a progressive.
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.
there will be more than two names on the ballot, and write ins are always allowed. this analogy doesn't hold up.
They ask what you want at McDonald's, and you can ask for anything you want. That doesn't mean you'll get it. The analogy is accurate.
but write in candidates can win. McDonald's menu options are disanalogous to voting.
For downballot races? Sure. If you're voting for a state rep or some uncontested local race, every vote counts. But we're talking about a presidential election, and under the current rules, a write in candidate will never win.
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.
Progressives?
Progressives aren't the target demographic. Progressives were so horrified by Trump, they'll vote Biden, no question.
The target demographic are people who were too dumb to know what was going on during Trump's term.
Who do progressives like?
Good question. I think a large part of the problem is there's not a lot of progressive candidates getting out of the state level. Without party endorsements, it's hard to get to any kind of national recognition sufficient to be a candidate.
and lets be honest, the DNC has actively been squashing any attempt at developing candidates who aren't kowtowing to the status quo. even just being not-a-boomer is enough to make it hard.
Several of the people I've personally liked and thought were progressives turned out to be assholes.
I like Bernie. Warren. I can name a few others, but really don't know enough about them to say if I like them or not. and that's a large part of the problem. Even if we ignore the progressive label... outside of a small handful of people, nobody really has the name recognition. and at this point I assume that's intentional to keep candidates like Biden and Hilary... relevant.
Hillary isn’t relevant.
Hasn’t been for eight years.
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?
Sure West is a great guy. He should be president.
.
Bill Maher is a piece of shit. I’m very happy they had a falling out.
.
He's a bit much sometimes. I prefer Bill Lehess.
Isn't it time to delete all your comments again?
.
Cornel West is a Republican operative.
He's being assisted by Republican operatives, he is not HIMSELF a Republican operative.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/operatives-gop-ties-are-helping-cornel-west-get-ballot-key-state-rcna153110
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.
it's a single clause. it's a simple sentence. and it's false.
If West refuses to remove the Republican operatives from his campaign, he's actively working with them.
There is not a lot of daylight between that and saying he's an operative himself.
Is he benefiting? Yes.
Is he aware of who is benefiting him? Yes.
Is he doing anything about it? No.
Substitute Trump and Russia.
Comment stands.
it's objectively false. it took you 50 words to do enough mental gymnastics to stick that landing. I can't wait til .world dies.
It is not "objectively false" if West continues directly working with Republican operatives.
If you want to support West, that's fine, but you need to recognize the reality of the situation.
Inb4, they plan to pose as third-party advocate.
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.
Republicans know that they have to keep voting Republican to make sure the blue guy does not win.
Democrats know that they have to keep voting Democrat to make sure the red guy does not win.
I'm seeing some similarities here.
They both know how FPTP voting works.
They must both be very smart people.
It actually doesn’t take much smarts. Unfortunately it still seems out of reach for some.
“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?
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