Who the Joe Hill is Cornel West?

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Unpaid campaign worker for Trump: On the Democratic Party side, something very unusual happened in Campaign 2000.

Only two candidates sought the party's nomination for president—and each was a major figure! When the Democratic debates began in October 1999, there were no vanity candidates cluttering the stage with their desperate need for attention and their need to waste lots of time.

By then, this was already an unusual state of affairs. By now, our campaigns are full of people who are running to get more famous.

Unfortunately, these vainglorious pieces of patter keep sending Republicans to the White House. Last night, on CNN, Phillippe Reines told Abby Phillip about it.

Cornel West's name was mentioned. Phillip has just interviewed this latest attention-starved hopeful, who's pretending to run for president on the Green Party line. In part, her subsequent conversation with Reines went like this:

PHILLIP (9/28/23): And Philippe Reines is back with me to respond. 

So Philippe, I want to start with the comments that [Professor West] made about President Biden and his union record. He said his heart is not in it. What do you say to that?

PHILLIPPE REINES, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It looked like his heart was in it, but I think you made the point that this is a step in a long series of things that Joe Biden has done over his career. 

I would understand what Dr. West was saying if Joe Biden parachuted in at a nowhere, had never done anything for American workers or for labor or for average Americans, or whatever you want to call it. But he's showing up after decades of doing that, and he will do it for the rest of his life. 

[...]

But more importantly, you know, Dr. West will not be president of the United States. He might prevent Joe Biden from being president of the United States, the same way that Ralph Nader prevented Al Gore, and the same way Jill Stein prevented Hillary Clinton, and no coincidence, Joe Biden did not face any kind of meaningful third-party challenge in 2020.

PHILLIP: I assume you think he needs to drop out. How soon do you think that would need to happen?

REINES: What he's doing is pointless. I mean, but you asked him ten different ways. He's not answering. It doesn't make a difference what I think. He's not going to drop out. And he's also whipping people up. They're not going to work for Biden. They're not going to donate to Biden. They're not going to get out the vote.

Now, if it's just people in Massachusetts, okay, that's not so bad. I feel pretty good about it. But tamping down enthusiasm or by attacking the nominee of our own party, no good comes from that. And I just can't believe that he would want Donald Trump to emerge from that, but he has to realize, as a student of history and for bearing witness, as he said, all these years to what happens, he has to know that he's walking a very dangerous path.

PHILLIP: We'll see if he does. Philippe, thank you for staying around.

REINES: No, thank you for having me.

We don't know Cornel West. Over the years, there have been things we've very much liked about him—but then, along comes this.

Stating the obvious, West is an attention-starved pseudo-academic who can't get a lot of attention based on the strength of his academic or political work. In recent years, a certain kind of attention-starved person has learned that pretending to run for president is one way to acquire a lot of eyeballs and clicks.

As Reines correctly noted, West is working hard to return Donald Trump to the White House. Our blue tribe is so pathetic, so hopelessly dumb, that we will almost surely sit back and politely allow him to do it. 

Where do these needy beings come from? Why do we tolerate this?