Known as one of the most prominent living intellectuals in the United States, the African-American philosopher Cornel West (Tulsa, Oklahoma, 71 years old), who has taught at the most important universities in the world (Harvard, Yale, Princeton), is one of the candidates for the presidency of the Government. He is running independently, through from the Justice for All party (justice for all). For him, the current political crisis is an opportunity to break with the duopoly that has ruled the country for the last two centuries. He opposes both the neofascism that he says Trump embodies and the neoliberalism that he blames on the Democratic Party. Still in the running, albeit tangentially, he has spent the last few months explaining why American society needs the change he proposes: a program based on racial justice, economic equality (with the abolition of poverty as a priority objective) and the reform of the American political system. Decades have passed since this intellectual published Race matters (1993) and Democracy matters (2004), the books with which he became known, but he continues with the same demands.
West grew up in Sacramento, California, where his mother was a teacher and his father worked for the Department of Homeland Security. He was always the most prominent figure in a large family for his continuous achievements (he has a brother and two sisters). At 17, on a scholarship, he managed to enter Harvard, where he graduated with honors. cum laudeHe also earned his PhD in Philosophy from Princeton. The grandson of an African-American Baptist minister, his discourse has a moral aura that is rare in politics.
“As great writers remind us —Moby Dickby Herman Melville; The Iceman, by Eugene O’Neill; Belovedby Toni Morrison—, “America seems addicted to self-destruction!”tweeted last Friday: “The Trumpian fascist takeover of the Republican Party and Biden’s mendacious collapse of the Democratic Party — both committed to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza — have left what remains of American democracy in jeopardy. We are reaping what we sow (…). Only a moral and spiritual awakening with a class and anti-imperialist rethink can win against fascism!”, he wrote.
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Cornel earned many detractors among Democrats by running for office. He had the power to take votes away from President Joe Biden, the only candidate on the left who was thought to be able to stand up to Trump. “If West helps Trump win, it will deal a calamitous blow to all the principles he claims to value: poverty alleviation, egalitarianism, democracy, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, environmentalism, etc.,” David Masciotra, the author of the essay, said by email. Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy (Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy), who has gone from admiring West to becoming one of his critics. “Sanders is down-to-earth, but West has the instincts of an arsonist.” For many, Cornel West is dangerous. He neither makes concessions, bites his tongue nor gives in. To those who question him about harming Democrats, West replies: “Is World War III better than Civil War II?”
In recent weeks, changes have accelerated on the political scene. After the democratic collapse in the electoral debate on June 27, Biden has suffered very serious lapses, confusing Zelensky with Putin and Kamala Harris with Trump. And the attack on Donald Trump has only served to boost the Republican’s support in the polls.
West, who has been divorced four times and is currently married to fellow academic Annahita Mahdavi West, is a controversial figure. During his time teaching at Harvard, he was a podcaster, appeared in the Matrix film series and recorded several albums of his own. spoken word and hip hop. When Larry Summers, then president of the university, publicly questioned West’s commitment to teaching and education, tensions rose. The confrontation culminated in West leaving Harvard and referring to Summers as “the Ariel Sharon of American education.”
He also publicly expressed his disappointment at feeling manipulated by Obama, for whom he says he prayed and whom he ended up considering “the black pet of the Wall Street oligarchs” and “a black neoliberal president of the most powerful empire in the world; never a revolutionary figure like Nelson Mandela.” And he has called Bernie Sanders (whom he had publicly supported in the 2016 and 2020 primaries) “pathetic” for not asking for a ceasefire with Israel and backing Biden’s candidacy, whom he considers “a war criminal” for his position on the conflict in Gaza.
“Her political vision is one of radical inclusivity, shaped by love and a yearning for justice, not just solidarity or formal legal equality,” Wendy Brown, one of the country’s leading political scientists and a colleague of West’s, a professor at the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the partner of Judith Butler, said in an email. “West is unsparing in his account of capitalism as a destroyer of worlds, lives, and spirits, but also clear in his condemnations of patriarchy, homophobia, and all kinds of racism. Her political outlook offers hope in the face of so much cause for despair.”
West, unlike the other candidates, is neither a politician nor a businessman. He is an intellectual who reads Dostoevsky and has spent years teaching courses at elite universities on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German theologian and one of the precursors of the anti-Nazi resistance movement) and James Baldwin (an African-American writer and activist who delved deeply into racial and homosexual issues in the United States). Hearing a politician who fills his speeches with literary allusions and describes himself as a “Chekhovian Christian” can be very disconcerting for some Americans.
Some call him a charlatan, a narcissist. Others find him inspiring and admirable. Scholar and columnist Imani Perry, a professor of Gender and African American Studies at Harvard, considers him her mentor. “He is an extraordinary thinker,” she explains by email, “with an archive of texts in his memory that is unmatched. He remains an impressive and generous intellectual.”
West is holding on. He explains in public appearances that he cannot give up now, at an unprecedented moment in the history of American politics, with the duopoly in crisis. A moment, he stresses, “unpredictable and unknown.” As a motto, he repeats wherever he goes: “We have to be true to ourselves.” According to West, the best of America is embodied by thinkers and activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Heschel, Dorothy Day, Ella Baker and all those who showed integrity, honesty, generosity and knowing how to treat others correctly. “That is the best of America because it is the best of the human species. My campaign is about reconverting America into its best version.”
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