Cornel West’s third-party presidential campaign is stirring up unpleasant flashbacks to 2016 for members of the Democratic Party, some of whom are starting to grow anxious about the effect it could…

Cornel West recently announced he is running for president as a Green Party candidate, challenging President Biden in 2024. Some Democrats worry that West’s candidacy could split the progressive vote and help reelect Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee again, as Jill Stein’s campaign did in 2016. However, West has supporters who see his run as a way to push Biden further left on issues. Still, even some progressives acknowledge West could hurt Biden’s chances of reelection. Democrats argue that beating Trump and enacting progressive policies requires electing Democrats first.

  • SwampYankee@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    “In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump,”

    They’ll blame anything other than the facts of Hillary being unlikable and Wasserman-Schulz being incompetent. Johnson took 3x as many votes from the Republicans as Stein took from the Democrats. In the end, Hillary was an electoral dud and Wasserman-Schulz’ mishandling of the primaries led to faithless electors.

    • raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Yes, ultimately it’s the establishment’s philosphy of trying to scrape by on what crumbs of constituents they can pick up from the right end of the spectrum. It’s a completely unnecessary high-wire act that they do all just to make sure their corporate backed candidates are palletable by comparison.

      Same high risk, short-sighted strategy they played during the last midterms where they helped prop up all these absolute loons in the GOP so that they would have opponents who, only by shocking contrast, made their own milquetoast candidates look appealing.

      In those scenarios even when you win you lose because you give these wingnuts a platform and their ideas spread, undermining the fabric of the electorate even if you got a short-term win out of it.

      It’s very frustrating that Dems learned nothing from Trump’s win, and will flirt with plunging us into literal fascism just to ensure the country doesn’t move towards a centered, progressive direction.