The Democratic Party is “beyond redemption,” according to a far-left presidential candidate.
On Tuesday, Cornel West went off on Democrats, saying that they don’t have the ability to meet the “needs of poor people and working people.”
West, who is 70 years old and is a presidential candidate running in the Green Party, made those comments as part of an interview he gave with media outlet The Hill this week.
He was asked about Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders endorsing President Joe Biden, and how the independent progressive senator said Biden is the only presidential candidate who can “preserve American democracy.”
West replied:
“I think that Brother Bernie’s being consistent. You know, he said that all along, and I can understand the argument. I think it’s a plausible argument. I just don’t think it’s a persuasive one.
“I think that the argument he’s making means that there’s never any possibility for breaking the corporate duopoly, that there’s never any possibility of trying to speak to the needs of the poor working people.”
West then added that while he was on the campaign trail in Mississippi, he witnessed officials who “are dealing with issues that the Democratic Party won’t touch, which [are] issues of poverty and intense police brutality. And we haven’t even got to the military adventurism abroad.”
So, while West said that he understands the argument that Sanders was making with those comments, he added that he believes the Vermont senator knows that his party “has no fundamental intention of speaking to the needs of poor people and working people.”
He commented on the Democratic Party at large:
“They are dominated by the corporate wing. They’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy, and that [Sanders] and AOC (New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and the others are going to be, in a certain sense, window dressing at worst, and at best, people to appeal to every four years.
“But, the Democratic Party is beyond redemption at this point, when it comes to seriously speaking to the needs of poor and working people.”
That should be a major concern for the Democratic Party, which is really going to need that cohort of voters if it wants to hang onto control of the White House and Senate, and potentially retake control of the House in 2024. There’s a very real possibility that liberals could lose control of all three in the next election cycle, which would give complete control to Republicans.
The comments that West made to The Hill only a few days after Sanders officially endorsed Biden for re-election while the senator was making an appearance at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
One day after he gave his endorsement, Sanders said on CNN that he believes it’s important that he supports Biden “in these really very difficult times where there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States.”
He continued:
“Donald Trump is not somebody who believes in democracy.”
