(Left to Right) Cornel West and Jimmy Dore (Photo: YouTube screenshot)
Green Party 2024 presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West went head-to-head recently with controversial political podcaster Jimmy Dore.
Dore, a stand-up comedian, political commentator, podcaster, and YouTube personality, hosts “The Jimmy Dore Show,” a humorous and often contentious political talk show on the YouTube platform.
Dore has also gained traction for his coverage of conspiracy theories. But West pushed back at Dore when the two discussed race and class.
Dore asked West how he planned to conduct his campaign and West would avoid conversations about race and white supremacy and instead concentrate on class issues. According to Dore, it would be a campaign misstep to talk about race,
This didn’t sit well with West, who told the podcaster that the two had “profound disagreements” regarding white supremacy.
“When I organize around white supremacy, I am not making some utilitarian calculation,” stressed West.
He added,” I am speaking as a Black man who comes out of a tradition that has been terrorized and traumatized by white elites in the past.”
West continued that there was a connection between race and class and that discussing racial issues “doesn’t mean it takes me away from the class issue…but it doesn’t mean I am putting up with white supremacy.. I’ll never for a moment…for a minute to be silent or not raise my voice against the vicious treatment of Black people or indigenous people, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, or trans. It’s not an either-or.”
West also recently spoke out about the Democrats, whom he has supported in the past.
Considered a third-party spoiler, West remarked that the Democratic party is “beyond redemption” and that progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are mere window dressing at this point, Fox News reported.
During Sanders’ presidential run in 2016 and 2020, West was a passionate supporter.
During an interview on Aug. 29 with The Hill’s “Rising,” West, 70, noted that Sanders’ recent argument that Biden represents progressives’ best hope to stave off authoritarianism wasn’t persuasive.
West continued, “I think deep down in [Sanders’] heart he knows that the Democratic Party has no fundamental intention of speaking to the needs of poor people and working people. They are dominated by their corporate wing; they’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy. He and [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and the others are going to be, in a certain sense, window dressing.”
(Left to Right) Cornel West and Jimmy Dore (Photo: YouTube screenshot, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o253Y8E0QUE)
