A Cornel West Candidacy? The Stakes Are Too High to Ignore Political Reality

Share

Explore Our Galleries

A man stands in front of the Djingareyber mosque on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali. 
Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu on February 4 celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to UN cultural agency UNESCO.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY SEBASTIEN RIEUSSEC / AFP / SÉBASTIEN RIEUSSEC
African Peoples Before Captivity
Shackles from Slave Ship Henrietta Marie
Kidnapped: The Middle Passage
Image of the first black members of Congress
Reconstruction: A Brief Glimpse of Freedom
The Lynching of Laura Nelson_May_1911 200x200
One Hundred Years of Jim Crow
Civil Rights protest in Alabama
I Am Somebody! The Struggle for Justice
Black Lives Matter movement
NOW: Free At Last?
#15-Beitler photo best TF reduced size
Memorial to the Victims of Lynching
hands raised black background
The Freedom-Lovers’ Roll Call Wall
Frozen custard in Milwaukee's Bronzeville
Special Exhibits

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Ways to Support ABHM?

Donald M. Suggs, Word in Black

The only possible impact of West’s “vain, selfish candidacy is to take some votes away” from Joe Biden.

Cornel West, 2024 presidential candidate (Getty Images)

Black Americans need to recognize that we face a disturbing political reality. Despite his avalanche of seemingly intractable legal problems, Donald J. Trump remains the favorite to be the nominee of the Republican Party in the general presidential election in 2024.

That would mean a rematch between President Biden and Trump.

The outcome of that election is likely to be determined by a few tens of thousands of votes. In the 2020 presidential election, the margin of victory for Joe Biden in Georgia and Arizona was less than 12,000 votes.

In stark terms, the winner of the presidential election next year will be sworn in in just 18 months. A second Trump administration will be better thought out and effective than his first — which saw a huge setback to our interests and concerns.

It is this alarming political reality that makes the self-absorbed, narcissistic third-party candidacy of Cornel West troubling.

Notwithstanding his right to run and the idealism he cited in his announcement (much of which I agree with), any measure of political acumen forces one to recall West’s ill-fated support of Ralph Nader’s spoiler campaign against then-Vice-President Al Gore in his race against George W. Bush. There were disastrous consequences of the outcome of that race for people all over this country, in Iraq, and around the globe as a result of Bush’s denial of climate change.

Read the rest of Suggs’ concerns in the original article.

Learn about another Black presidential candidate, Tim Scott, in this Breaking News article.

Find even more Breaking News here.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.

Leave a Comment