Green Party Candidate Cornel West: Democrats ‘Beyond Redemption.’ He had some words for Bernie And AOC Too – Watch
Green Party presidential candidate Cornel West has said that the Democratic Party is “beyond redemption” and that its two most prominent progressives, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are “window dressing.”
West, a prominent scholar and activist, made the comments in an interview with The Hill on Tuesday. He said that the Democratic Party has abandoned its working-class base and is now “the party of the wealthy and the powerful.”
West is being viewed by many Democrats as a potential spoiler for the party since might take away votes from the Democrat’s presidential nominee by appealing to the most fringe voters in the party.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said during an interview on Sunday that Democrats have to “bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump or whoever the Republican nominee will be [and] support Biden.”
West responded to Sanders’ remarks in an interview, saying that he was being “consistent” in his beliefs.
“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,” West said. “I think that the argument he’s making means that there’s never any possibility for breaking from the corporate duopoly, that there’s never any possibility of trying to speak to the needs of poor working people.”
West said that the Democrats won’t touch issues like “poverty and intense police brutality.”
“So I think in many ways Brother Bernie is making a plausible argument, but I think deep down in his heart he knows that the Democratic Party has no fundamental intention of speaking to the needs of poor people and working people,” he continued. “They are dominated by the corporate wing, they’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy, and that he and AOC 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,” he concluded.
