 Last week Dr. Cornel West announced that he was running for president in the People's Party And I think that the collective response was perfectly summed up by this tweet from the People's City Council of Los Angeles Because we were all just wondering Why? This is a reactionary sham organization comprised of bigoted grifters and his association with them only serves to legitimize this illegitimate pseudo party But Cornel West listened to feedback and he made the following announcements on Twitter quote in the spirit of a broad United Front and coalition strategy I am pursuing the nomination of the Green Party for the president of the United States Go to Cornel West 24 comm for more information to continue to support this unprecedented effort to empower precious poor and working people Here and abroad I think the volunteers of the People's Party for the initial launch So obviously distancing himself from the People's Party was a very wise decision And he explained his reasoning further in an interview with Katie Halper. Let's watch There was so much going on internally and therefore we had to be able to keep the focus where it Belongs and so we're we're still I am still deeply committed to a broad Coalitional sensibility and the United Front and so I invite Variety of different organizations and that includes the People's Party But I'm I'm certainly moving in the not just forward but want to look forward to being a part of the nomination process Of the Green Party. Yeah, and you honestly can't blame him if the goal here is to elevate the salience of Substantive political issues then this organization Isn't a conduit to do that now as Dave Griscom pointed out on Twitter The People's Party seems to be taking the Cornel West news Well saying in their announcement of the news that Dr. Cornel West quote folded to pressure from social media and family and Tweeting about how much of a threat to the system its founder Nick Brana supposedly is which would be hilarious If it wasn't so pathetic, but for those of you unaware in my audience about the issues Many people have with the People's Party We'll get into that a little bit But my main concern with Dr. Cornel West running in this party aside from their ideals Obviously was where the money would go because you have so many people who just love Dr. Cornel West rightfully so and They might unknowingly donate to this organization that doesn't use this money wisely I mean, how do we even know that the money would have gone to Dr. West's campaign given the People's Party's past behavior and lack of transparency I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving money to this organization and furthermore as New Republic explains Numerous sources have corroborated sexual harassment allegations against Party founder Nick Brana Last year former party member Paula Jean Swarajin told journalists Owen Higgins and Jordan Charidan that she had witnessed Brana try to force himself Onto former party executive director Zana Day who confirmed the allegations herself Numerous party board members were apparently forced out for encouraging investigations into the allegations and Questioning whether Brana was still fit to lead the party after the allegations were made public the party social media accounts attacked and smeared those questioning the party leadership's actions Other party volunteers and members have accused the party leadership of lacking democratic organizational processes Having opaque finances and being generally disrespectful Manifesting sometimes in ableism and racism and that's only really a small snapshot of some of the issues They also spent $20,000 on a logo, which they didn't even use which is just Insane I said this on leftist mafia, but do you want to know how much I paid for the humanist report logo? $0 made it myself. So $20,000 for a logo that is not the best use of funds Especially for a new party that is trying to engage in grassroots organizing Now I'll also recommend reporting from status coup and activist Renee Johnston on Twitter She's an activist and one of the party's first volunteers who took a lot of heat for speaking out against the organization But as an actual real-life organizer herself She quickly realized that the party just wasn't serious about building a real grassroots organization But to be fair there were other questions that people had about Dr. West's run and these came up in a great panel discussion hosted by my leftist mafia co-host Alimi and also following news that Dr. West switched to the Green Party Tim Black pressed Dr. West on a number of these issues in the interview, which was really great I would highly recommend it all linked to both of these videos down below Tim Black asked some really tough questions But I think he was very fair But I want to address the other elephant in the room and it's this broader conversation surrounding third parties that we have Every four years now. Here's what I said about this initially on the leftist mafia last Thursday If this were the Green Party as Olay said I would also feel better about this because you have the Green Party and the Libertarian Party every single cycle, right? So theoretically speaking, you know, you have Green Party pulling from Dems Libs Libertarians pulling from Republicans but if you add an extra component to that to Hypothetically take more votes away from the Democratic Party. We could be undercutting ourselves and I'm done with the whole Um, you know, well third parties. Maybe there's a chance I've I've been really frustrated with the third party movement because nobody wants to put in the work to actually get A real third party like you have to get electoral reform Like I was under the assumption in 2016 and correctly so that perhaps since Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump We're so unlikable that we could just kind of like Overpowered duverger's law, you know, uh, put aside our first pass the that didn't happen Like as ben said Jillstein got like what one two percent So you you have to you have to actually change the electoral institutions We need proportional representation at a minimum ranked choice voting and I've seen everybody Put the cart before the horse here and you can't do that You've got to change the institutions to get another party and even if in a perfect world We get a multi-party system capitalism is still going to corrupt each and every single one of those parties because the democratic party Used to be a working class system So we need to get to the root cause is if we really want to disempower these elites Now I'll expand my thoughts about third parties more broadly speaking in a moment But with that in mind Do I now feel less worried about Cornell West playing spoilers since he's running in the green party? The answer is an unequivocal Yes, and I say this because the green party Has this base every single election cycle that includes people so disillusioned with the democratic party That these folks probably wouldn't vote at all If the green wasn't an option So unless the democratic party moves back to the left and embraces its working class roots I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon furthermore, even if the green party isn't electorally viable We have two Pretty large third parties in this country the greens and the libertarians And if you accept that the green party is pulling votes From the democratic party, which I don't necessarily believe But if you think that they're directly pulling votes from democrats Then you also have to assume that the libertarian party is pulling votes away from republicans And so long as both of these parties exist and they're at a similar size Then they effectively cancel out the spoiler effect for each other and in fact the libertarian party In theory pulls more votes from republicans if you accept that premise if you accept that libertarians Would vote for republicans if they didn't have that libertarian option So when it comes to the green party playing spoiler, I don't necessarily feel that concerned about it Although having said that though, I want to be very clear that stopping fascism is my number one priority And that should be the number one priority for leftists and voting strategically for democrats to stop fascists in swing states Is an absolute moral necessity in my opinion So even with libertarians canceling out the spoiler effect I personally I would not risk voting third party in a swing state Especially considering how close some of these elections have been in particular states these past couple of years But zooming out and looking at the bigger picture I do think that a liberal a lot of liberals kind of overstate the role that greens play in elections But for years now, um, it's been cleared that the spoiler Effect is an issue that we do have to be concerned with I am worried about the spoiler effect But i'm not necessarily worried about the green party's role in playing spoiler. I'm worried about the role Santrists potentially play As spoilers so in 2016 we had potentially michael bloomberg getting in the race to play spoiler if bernie sanders won And in 2020 howard schultz played that same role and now in 2024 It's looking no different because as politico explains the centrist organization No labels has defended its third party presidential bid by insisting There is a broad voter appetite for a candidate running in the political middle But the group said it would likely exit the race entirely if donald trump doesn't win the GOP nomination Even as far more conservative candidates such as florida governor ronda santus run to trumps right No labels has been flirting openly with recruiting a moderate superstar Like senator joe mansion to lead its ticket such a gambit could dramatically scramble the presidential race and democrat's fear It could siphon votes from their side So first of all imagine unironically thinking that mansion is a moderate superstar I mean that take is uh Hot to say the least now second of all no labels claims that there's no moderate candidate and That's actually true. I do agree with them But it's because joe biden is a center right capitalist and the republican front runners are all far right fascists So we don't actually have a true moderate But their argument is that biden is too far to the left It's not only stupid Uh and unnecessary because the democratic party always kowtows the centrists while giving progressives the finger But that's where i am most worried about the spoiler effect Because I think that the democratic party They pick up a lot of votes from these normie centrists these suburban liberals Who maybe like the republican party but just feel turned off by the extremism But if they had an option to vote for a conservative who wasn't as extreme but still delivered on the economic policies that they wanted I think that a lot of them would Would go for that so I could actually see Centrists pulling votes away from joe biden would it be enough to potentially steal the election? I mean, it's it's really hard to say right Um, but it does concern me because joe biden or joe mansion rather he doesn't necessarily have to get a lot of support I don't think that he would in fact But he just has to get enough to peel off support from biden in certain states To tip the election in trump's favor and that's it and when the stakes are this high They are really tempting fate here But the spoiler effect would go away if both parties just agreed to enact nationwide ranked choice voting But even if they did that it's not the end all be all but it would allow for sincere and strategic voting Which is important the problem is that the duopoly isn't going to willingly give a power to third party opponents So the best way I think to pursue this is through ballot initiatives at the state level But in terms of my feelings about third parties, um, I think that my view Has shifted with time. Uh, when I was a sock damn It seemed like having more representation in the form of more electorally viable parties Would really solve most of our issues But as I kind of moved further to the left and became more explicitly Anti-capitalist around 2019 or so the target changed for me The root cause in my opinion isn't necessarily the lack of representation even though that is a problem The root cause here is capitalism An absolute power corrupts absolutely. So even if in that perfect world We had electoral reform and got a real multi-party system We'd still see the forces of capitalism corrupt these new parties in the same way That they corrupted the democratic party in the same way that they are corrupting third parties around the globe I mean Germany has a really solid electoral system that allows for five to six Parties to be electorally viable and I think that's a really good number because if you get too many parties like brazil Then that kind of waters down their ideology, but if you have about five or six really strong parties that represent at least relatively speaking Most of the political spectrum. I think that's good, but when their green party entered into a coalition They ended up voting for war To stay within the coalition and the base was outraged rightfully so So, I mean capitalism It's always going to corrupt all of these institutions I mean, it's not just political parties that capitalism corrupts It corrupts our entire system and eats away at it like a virus Now that's not to say that we shouldn't pursue electoral reform and strive for a multi-party system And that's not to say that like Oh, you're pro-capitalist if you support Third parties like i'm not trying to make a leftier than thou argument I'm just telling you my perspective and how my thinking has kind of changed and and with that in mind You know, that's why I find it really hard personally to get excited about third parties or any parties and just electoral politics In general because in the context of our capitalist system Uh, the working class isn't going to be able to assume power until elites are disempowered entirely It's a zero-sum game But it's a bit of a conundrum right because in order to empower the working class We have to have power in the first place to take power from elites How do you do that? I genuinely don't know the answer to that question But I do think that it's probably got to start at the bottom and not the top But in conclusion getting back to cornell west. I do think that Running in the green party even though, you know, you may still have criticisms of him and policy disagreements with him I do think that it is commendable that he was willing to listen to criticism And adapt I think that there isn't enough people That are willing to have an open mind when it comes to people criticizing them But cornell west demonstrated that he is willing to listen to his critics And I think that that is really commendable. So we'll leave that there Cornell west ditched the people's party and he's now running for the green party I honestly would be curious to know your thoughts and not just like to farm engagement on youtube Like i'm genuinely curious to know where my audience stands on this particular issue