Jimmy Dore's incoherent criticism of Cornel West reveals his cynical YouTube grift

I may write a separate piece on the phenomenon of Jimmy Dore, a materialist analysis of his brand of YouTube “populist” politics which has yielded him a 2 million dollar mansion in LA’s Studio City, his second LA house, with neighbors like Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney and firmly places him in the 1% of the US elite class, as he continues to larp as some downtrodden beleaguered “pothead comedian making a show out of my garage”. Dore is not an isolated phenomenon who got to where he is, with millions in his bank account and assets of over 5 million at a minimum, based solely on his comedic genius and rhetorical brilliance. No, he’s the product of a particular moment in American society, the coming together of structural factors at the material level, like the establishment of the online media space with the growing prominence of YouTube, and at what Marxists call the superstructural level, meaning the particular nature of the political field that Dore situated himself in post 2016. Take away Bernie, and Dore is still a failing loser comedian doing shows to 6 people (same with Dave Rubin if you take away Trump: the two phenomena are rooted in the same underlying structural factors).

But that is for another day. Now I want to focus quickly with some of the disingenuous, cynical, nitpicking criticisms Dore has levelled against Cornel West ever since he announced he is running for President not on the People’s Party ticket, but switched to the Green Party. When this happened, and RFK Jr. also rose in prominence in the “populist” corner of the online political media space, Dore felt that given his past praises of Cornel West and his cynical uses of him to launder his fake brand of “populism”, he had to take a position with respect to him that would distance himself from the campaign and reaffirm and reassure his right-leaning and straight far right audience of Trump fans and libertarians that he won’t throw them overboard and will keep fleecing them of their money so he can buy a third mansion, perhaps in Florence as he loves the Italian countryside so much. The pizza is excellent, he used to say in between yelling at his wife in a drunken rage live on his show.

How Jimmy Dore recreates “lesser evilism”, except with Trump as the lesser evil

Let’s focus on the content of his criticisms, as they are, to see if there is any substance to them, as his cult followers believe, or if I am indeed correct and it’s all just an elaborate excuse-making project to justify his not aligning himself with West’s campaign like he did with Tulsi Gabbard’s and is now doing with RFK Jr.’s and after he endorses Biden (as he has repeatedly said he will do), with Trump.

Dore’s supposedly principled critique of Cornel West is comprised of two core claims: 1. Cornel West’s attitude toward Trump and Biden, and all that entails, is “a political loser”, meaning electorally ineffective and self-sabotaging, while also revealing Cornel West to be an unclear, incoherent, pseudo-radical, fake leftist, actual Democrat liberal political figure. This is the most supposedly substance part of the critique that his cult fans, including depressingly people with anarchist and hammer and sickle symbols in their bios on Twitter (what the fuck happened to you that you ended up here? Seriously, change your YouTube watch pattern and read some Lenin and Marx, this isn’t good for you), keep repeating to smear Cornel West and thereby doing the Democrat’s job for them, which is hilariously ironic because Dore’s pretense is that he is in fact the real anti-Democrat, as he does free propaganda for them against their main left-wing opponent in the upcoming election, depressing his vote and funneling it instead to Trump as the “real anti-establishment hero”. Dore has repeatedly said that voting for Trump or even Ron DeZionist is the best and only logical option available to people: for example see what he says here and here, and to his cult fans ignore the messengers, focus on what Dore says there and what his output consists of: constant criticism of anyone on the left challenging Democrats as “fake leftists” while never, ever criticizing Trump and Republicans, which by itself automatically primes his audience to vote for them, just as the output of MSNBC and all those pseudo-radical YouTubers who love AOC prime their audience to vote for Democrats by only criticizing Republicans and Trump. This is a conscious choice made by actors in the political media space to appeal to the audiences they have cultivated and which give them their substantial wealth and in the case of Dore propelled them into the 1%.

Now let me address the critique as it is. Cornel West calls Trump a fascist, but he does not call Biden a fascist, so he is thereby doing lesser evilism and undermining his own campaign because that is the liberal Democrat position as well. First of all, Jimmy Dore nitpicking this meaningless semantic difference into a question of all-important political authenticity is provably cynical and a fake contrived concern on his part. How do I know, can I read Dore’s mind? No, but I can watch his stated beliefs, which contradict exactly this point. Look for example to Jill Stein, a candidate Dore loved and promoted and boosted and voted for and never criticized during her campaign or even afterwards. What did Jill Stein say about Trump and what did she say about Hillary Clinton and later Biden? Exactly, word for word, verbatim the same as Cornel West. Jill Stein constantly called Trump a fascist, and Hillary Clinton and Biden neoliberal warmongers. Just look here, here, and here for a small sample. This was the core of her campaign messaging on the question of Trump versus Hillary when every reporter continuously asked her about it, and Cornel West at the time cited the exact same thing when he endorsed her, something Dore loved and praised him for all that time up until suddenly a couple weeks ago when he made the switch from his own grift People’s Party personal branding exercise to the Green Party. Jimmy Dore also did not say a mumbling word on Jill Stein’s distinction between the two in this fashion. Why did he not say it, you may wonder? Easy: Dore himself called Trump a fascist constantly and Hillary Clinton a neoliberal. HE HIMSELF USED THE SAME DISTINCTION ALL THE TIME. On his TYT hilariously titled “aggressive progressives” show his main line was that Trump is an evil horrific fascist, and Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal establishment corporate Dem who will lose to him and that’s why she is a bad candidate and we need, wait for it, ELIZABETH WARREN to take her place in 2020.

That’s what Dore’s entire political project consisted of: We need to make sure to nominate Elizabeth Warren in 2020, because she is the real deal authentic anti-fascist working class hero who will defeat Trump’s fascist evil.

Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself. And once more to the cult fans: ignore the messenger, just tune it out and listen to what Dore himself says there. I know you can’t handle these other people who criticize Dore, it’s all fake Katzenberg money propaganda (btw the same Katzenberg money took as his salary when he worked for TYT: why won’t you give that back? How much Katzenberg cash went into your pockets Jimmy?), so just listen to your YouTube daddy’s own words.

By the way, the coherent and perfectly correct line that neoliberalism caused the rise of far right fascists like Trump and so the only way to stop is to fight the neoliberal Democratic Party from the left was and remains the same principled position of Jill Stein, Cornel West, Ajamu Baraka, Chris Hedges, Briahna Joy Gray, Margaret Kimberley, Norman Finkelstein, and myself.

It is not we who have changed our position, it is Dore who has changed it and done a 180, and now is nitpicking the semantics of who is a fascist and who isn’t, how the real left has to actually defend Trump because he’s being unfairly attacked by Democrats, who are the real fascists, or at the very least just as fascist as Trump is, and actually everyone is fascist because we live in fascism and fascism is corporations and the government working together, so calling Trump a fascist is actually correct but you have to extend to Biden as well, Biden is also by the way a neoliberal, and neoliberalism caused the rise of fascism, which is why especially Democrats must be opposed because they caused Trump…do you see the deranged incoherent jumble Dore has ended up in all because he is desperate to placate his Trump aligned audience, while being salty over Cornel’s departure from the People’s Party ticket.

Ok so if everyone is a fascist, the whole neoliberalism caused fascism line is done right. So why does Dore still refer to it? You lose the ability to utilize that argument for why neoliberal Democrats are bad and should be opposed in relation to Trump. Now you have ended up saying that they’re both the same fundamentally and always have been, so the reason we have to oppose Trump is what exactly? Oh that’s right, now we’re to the real meat of the issue: We don’t oppose Trump. Trump is actually the lesser evil, the lesser fascist than Biden. Please send me more donations Trump supporters who comprise 80 to 90% of my audience, I’m on your side. I’m not even pretending anymore that we have to support a left alternative to Democrats against Trump because neoliberal Democrats caused Trump. No, that period is over, I’m all in now on your guy. Our guy. That’s the real reason that Dore is doing this semantic nitpicking fuckery which is incoherent.

Some more incoherence from this position: if they’re all fascists, then you have just re-established the lesser evil argument because “progressive” pseudo-radicals will just move the goalpost along with you. Fine, they’re both fascists, but Biden is less of a fascist because of the NLRB, the union rights, the abortion position, the position on trans people and the LGBT community more generally, the position on healthcare, etc. What have you accomplished? Nothing. If Cornel West and the entire left adopts this position, they will still constantly be asked the question of who is worse of the two, and your answer will be infinitely worse than it was before because now you’re arguing that Trump is actually the lesser fascist than Biden, and ergo the lesser evil.

Let me go over some politics 101 for the cult fans that have given their brains over to a deranged YouTube grifter: The reason Jill Stein and Cornel West and the entire radical principled anti-imperialist left does not adopt this line in an electoral campaign is because the main attack line against us from liberals is that we are puppets of Trump, that we are in league with his campaign, that the real reason for our opposition to Democrats isn’t because we are genuinely to the left of them on healthcare, racism, imperialism, etc. etc., but that that is all pretense for our real MAGA Trump supporting agenda.

Look at all the headlines smearing Cornel West now and Jill Stein then, it’s even used against RFK Jr. even though he is running in the Democratic Party and has vowed to endorse Biden. I will get to RFK Jr. again shortly because Dore’s disparate response to him, never bringing up this issue at all, not a single word on it even though RFK Jr. also has said that Biden is better than Trump over and over again and has vowed to endorse Biden, proves beyond any doubt that the entire thing is a contrived bullshit fake nitpicking semantic garbage excuse-masking exercise. But to continue: the common thread in all the smear pieces against West and the Greens is and has always been that they are secret supporters of the Republicans. Why do you think the entire liberal media apparatus is arrayed at disseminating this propaganda line?

Because the voting base of the Green Party are people who identify as more liberal, more progressive, socialist, communist even, and as being to the left of the Democrats. They care about anti-imperialism more, they care about anti-racism more, they care about anti-sexism more, they care about healthcare and taxing the rich more. That is the electoral base of the Greens, so the liberal media apparatus is directly aiming fire at it constantly at all times with the line: “Don’t believe them, they’re liars, they’re frauds, they’re actually Trump supporters, they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing, we are the real liberals, we are the best you have, we are the only real left option to you.”

This is so basic, banal and obvious that I feel embarrassed of even having to say it. And the only reason I have to is because some deranged YouTuber has come up with a convoluted reason to distance himself from Cornel West because he hurt his fee fees over the People’s Party switch, he loves RFK Jr. more because he appeals to Dore’s inner crank even though he’s actually guilty of what he falsely and incoherently accused West of regarding adopting the lesser evil frame, and as I said because his audience that he has cultivated is now comprised primarily of Trump voters and libertarians and they don’t want to see their YouTube daddy advocate for and defend policies that are actually to the left of Democrats on racism, sexism, LGTB rights, economics, anti-imperialism, etc. etc., all of which reveals whenever he does so that their cult leader Trump falls short on all these metrics. They don’t want to hear that, Dore knows they don’t want to hear that and only want to hear criticism of Biden and how he is the real fascist and evil monster, and so he happily obliges because he wants that third mansion in Italy.

How Cornel West brilliantly exposes the cynical hollowness of the “lesser evil” frame

By the way, I assume you are already intelligent enough to have noticed this, but I’m just saying it now because I have encountered the Dore cult fan and I know they love grasping at straws for their YouTube daddy: The response to the charge of Cornel West repeating the Dem liberal “lesser evil” frame, which actually applies to Dore and not Cornel, is the essential point and connection made between neoliberal Democrats and how they give rise to fascists like Trump. The same line Dore used to repeat before his cultivated a different audience and re-situated himself in the online political media space, which again I hope to detail in a separate piece, is exactly how the lesser evil frame was avoided by Jill Stein when she was constantly asked about it in interviews and Dore never complained and in fact happily voted for her and boosted her and said the same thing on this question. That is Cornel’s answer too, and it is the single most effective, actually coherent, principle way to avoid the lesser evil frame.

No, NYT/Vox/CNN/MSNBC/Chris Hayes/Rachel Maddow/TYT/Sam Seder/Jimmy Dore, and yes Dore is included in that list of smearing Cornel exactly in the same way on this question with the only difference being his conclusion of Trump actually being the lesser evil, the “lesser fascist” (recall his yelling at Cornel: “THERE IS NO GREATER FASCIST THAN BIDEN!”) whereas the others conclude that Biden is the lesser evil—but both are stuck in the same narrow lesser evil frame work. No, says Cornel when he is asked if Biden is the lesser evil than Trump and hence must be supported, and why? Not because Trump is the lesser evil, thereby instantly, in one move, destroying his entire campaign exactly like Dore wants him to so that he can continue fleecing his Trump MAGA audience, because he just accepted the key attack line used against him and Greens by liberals. No, it is because Biden and neoliberal Democrats like him created the conditions for a Trump to exist. They are the reason we have Trump, and we will have more Trumps in the future. That is why even though Biden is maybe not as bad as Trump on this or that particular issue, like union rights, LGBT rights, abortion, class issues from taxes to investments in education and infrastructure, the very that he is part of and beholden to neoliberal imperialist politics means that he creates the conditions for a Trump to exist now and in the future. Just look at the polling, Trump is beating him now. Biden and neoliberal imperialism is the problem, and I am running against it from the left. I am not a Trump supporter. He is a racist, white supremacist fascist. Don’t believe the liberal media hacks who say I am a secret Trump supporter. I am to the left of him and the Democrats, the only principled person running, so vote for me.

That is how Cornel West and the Green Party can be maximally effective in the general election. This is politics 101, a 10 year old knows this, but an alcoholic grifter YouTuber wants Cornel West to turn his campaign into Kanye 2020 and defend Trump against evil Democrats and not talk about racism and LGBT rights alongside class so as to effectively and immediately destroy his campaign.

I will move on to the vaccines shortly, but just to address also the white supremacy line, which is so silly, so obviously fake and cynical and contrived. Cornel West became a renowned academic when he wrote Race Matters. The core of his political output has always been a holistic conception of racism and classism and all forms of oppression combined, as against neoliberal identity politics that only focuses on this or that identity category’s oppression as a means of utilizing it as a shield and weapon against their opponents. Again, Cornel’s entire political output has been to expose this neoliberal conceit, like in his great response to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who had used neoliberal idpol to attack the Bernie campaign on the behalf of his Democratic masters. The same too with regard to Obama, whom he famously called a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface.” See also this piece by him. Go back and look at Cornel’s lectures over the years, to the 90s, where he always talks about the legacy of white supremacy, racism, and how it is intertwined with capitalism and imperialism. This is his entire appeal to especially the black community, where he can harm Democrats most and where they are most frightened of him of and are desperate to paint him as a secret MAGA Trump supporter.

Dore wants Cornel West to stop talking about racism and white supremacy and rebrand his entire political persona artificially for some deranged lunatic YouTuber who is looking for excuses to shit on him, to accomplish what? The only objective result of that won’t be some grand working class multi-racial uprising behind Cornel West, this fake fantasy that cunt sells to launder his disingenuous cynical nitpicking as being actually radical and really leftist. No, the result as anyone who knows politics 101 understands is that he will destroy his credibility with the people he is most popular with and form his natural constituency, he won’t gain any Trump or Biden voters because they are already locked in, and it’s depressing but true as proven by the last decade of elections with Corbyn and Bernie and the Greens, non-voters are impossible to transfer to voters in one election cycle, it has and can never happen, and anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you. Just look at the Bernie and Corbyn results and how exceedingly marginal the rate of turnover from non-voters to voters was, and those was much larger campaigns with infinitely more resources and in both cases aligning exactly with Dore’s magic bullet prescription of “class first political messaging”. He literally cited Bernie as the example Cornel West must follow, again as an excuse to launder his contrived critique, and has been a long-time proclaimed admirer of Corbyn, they did it right according to him. They unfortunately did not lead to a multi-racial working class coalition that upended the entire system. They were destroyed, in Bernie’s case with not that much difficulty, and in Corbyn’s case after a half decade of the most deranged grotesque and depraved smear campaign, “the kind of campaign you carry out in enemy territory” to quote Chomsky in another context. But one fact is clear: non-voters were not turned into voters en masse. Dore and anyone else who claims that doing this rhetoric trick or that rhetorical trick which is the only the real radical leftist one will lead to utopia because non-voters will align with them is lying to you, and I explained in detail why Dore is doing so in this case.

Also, just another obvious point, what does the criticism even mean in practice? Never say the word white supremacy? Call both Biden and Trump white supremacist? Say class first, then say white supremacy? Are you going to sit there and measure the times Cornel says race and class in every interview, and if the balance is off you scold him and tell him: “NO, MENTION CLASS MORE, THIS IS HOW WE WIN A WORKING CLASS REVOLUTION.” Just on the base level of the content of the criticism it is totally incoherent and asinine, but his cult fans are repeating it mindlessly without even a moment’s reflection. It’s so pathetic.

Anti-vax is a political dead-end

Alright, now vaccines. I can be very brief on this. Anyone who has followed me knows that I don’t give a shit about anti-vax garbage. Maybe I will write a separate piece someday detailing why I believe all those on the supposed “left” like Dore who jumped on that bandwagon did so purely out of self-interest and preyed on the anti-establishment sentiments of people who are on the left for their own monetary gain with no care for their health and well-being. But for now I will just say, I am not a medical expert, and neither is that deranged “pothead comedian” who does shows talking about spike proteins. Are you fucking insane? Some lunatic alcoholic who flunked out of high school is telling you about spiked proteins, and you are taking him seriously? Please do this for me, as I have done when I was doing some amateur research into the current scholarship on cancer a while back: crack open a college level medicine and biology book, go to the chapter on cells and proteins and bodily chemistry, and see if you can comprehend what the first paragraph says, let alone the entire chapter. Jimmy Dore is a fucking idiot crazed freak who is incapable of grasping basic simple political and logical concepts, why are you taking medical advice from him?

His anti-vax position is completely deranged, but more importantly is the political point. Notice how even RFK Jr. does not publicly say that he is anti-vx. In fact the opposite, he says he loves vaccines, but wants more testing, wants them to be safe, doing the whole motte and bailey thing to hide his actual deranged anti-vax views because he knows the liberal media apparatus will destroy him over it even more than they already have. Do you want to know what the electoral viability of an anti-vax campaign is? Look at the RFK Jr. campaign, barely cracking 20% in the primary, which Bernie easily beat, as did Jesse Jackson (btw Jackson’s 1988 run outperformed Bernie’s 2016 and 2020 runs in percentage of the vote as well). Trump and DeZionist are not running on an explicitly anti-vax message like Dore wants either, they’re “vaccine-skeptics”. Why do you think no one is doing that? Because it’s an electoral dead end, no gives a shit. On the list of priorities ranked by people in their voting, it is either far below other ones or not on it at all.

So Cornel West should become an explicit anti-vaxxer, or “vaccine skeptic”, whining about lockdowns and spike proteins, thereby handing again the liberal media apparatus one of their most effective weapons to smear and marginalize him, while gaining zero electoral benefit from it because it’s not a live issue and no one is voting on the basis of it and anyone who is and has it on their list of priorities below others already has a candidate to vote for in the general, namely the libertarian and Trump. Those on the broad left of the political spectrum, who again make up the voting base of Cornel West and the Greens, are the furthest away from that position having any salience for them. It would be pure self-sabotage if Cornel West did what some deranged YouTuber is demanding of him to do.

Jimmy Dore’s cynical, contrived, arbitrary purity standard

That’s all I’ll say on the vaccine issue, but I want to end with a final point proving beyond any doubt, if it hasn’t already been for you because you love your YouTube daddy so much, that Jimmy Dore’s critique of Cornel West is contrived, disingenuous nitpicking for which he has ulterior motives as evidenced by the nature of his output and the content of his critique that directly contradicts what he has stated before, are the height of political self-sabotage, and are totally incoherent.

Dore claims to have a purity standard for his output. He claims that this standard is universal. It has to be by necessity, because if it isn’t universal but arbitrarily applied, it exposes him for the grifter he is. No, Dore is a real leftist radical, and when he criticizes others, he does so from a particular standard that he applies to everyone equally because he’s a principled person, the opposite of a grifter.

Now I ask you a simple question: does Dore’s proclaimed standard of purity withstand even the slightest scrutiny when you consider all the cases he has applied it to and continues applying it to? If you are an honest person who cares about facts, this is undeniable. Look at how Jimmy Dore assessed Tulsi Gabbard, then look at Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign platform that she ran on and her positions on Medicare, taxes, student loans, infrastructure investment, the Green New Deal, foreign policy regarding Israel, Iran and other countries, and tell me that he holds her to the same standard of purity as he does Bernie, AOC, let alone Cornel West. On every single issue it was evident that Bernie was to the left of her, and more principled than her. But instead of backing him he played this game of both-sides it and putting out constant pro-Tulsi content even she fell far below his feigned purity standard that he trots out when it comes to others, hilariously now with Cornel West who is far to the left of Tulsi and always has been.

Oh btw, Tulsi endorsed Biden, RFK JR. has pledged to endorse Biden, so the whole thing about why Cornel endorsed Biden in 2020 and how that’s an unforgivable sin is just another made-up bullshit excuse. Incidentally, I criticized Cornel over this, the difference being that unlike Dore I am actually principled on this question, and I’m not a deranged YouTube grifter who will turn this into a huge deal that proves he’s a fake leftist forever so I can placate my Trump audience and my hurt ego over Cornel’s switch from the People’s Party.

And finally on testing Dore’s standard: look at his disparate treatment of RFK Jr. and Cornel West in exactly the same time frame. The things he rants like a lunatic at Cornel West for he is silent to RFK Jr. about, like the endorsing of Biden/Clinton (RFK Jr. has been a lifelong Clinton Democrat, Dore didn’t ask him about this once, he couldn’t care less because he gets his retweets and he called him a genius). And when it came to RFK Jr.’s depraved genocidal rants about Palestinians, Dore just sat there with a happy smile on his voice, expressing no anger, no displeasure, no conceiled bitterness, no just sipping on his alcoholic drink as he lobbed him softball after softball and whenever RFK Jr. said something unhinged like Palestinians are paid to kill Jews, Palestinians are taught to be anti-Semites from the moment they’re born, he let out a whimper: “I don’t know enough about that to push back, so let’s move on.” Yeah sure, you don’t know enough about that. Do a search for “Palestine” and “Israel” on Dore’s YouTube channel, and look for the times he has used that as a purity standard to slam AOC, Bernie and others as being fake leftists.

But now suddenly he doesn’t know enough. He’s a newborn babe in the woods, he can’t conjure up a response. So where’s the yelling? Where’s the alcoholic rants? Where’s that energy? You fucking scumbag alcoholic.

I went over the entire pathetic exchange in detail here.

By the way, the response by Dore cultists is context-specific, meaning they make up whatever reason is convenient in the moment, and then immediately drop it and take op the opposite reason when that’s the more useful one. No principle, no attempt at being coherent, it’s just pure unadulterated cultism: my YouTube daddy said so, ergo it’s right. So for example when Dore doesn’t criticize RFK Jr. and lets him waffle on with deranged propaganda on everything from healthcare to how awesome free markets are to Israel and Palestine, Dore is giving him the rope with which he’s hanging himself. He’s letting him expose himself by not giving any pushback. When it comes to Bernie, AOC, Cornel West, suddenly he’s no longer interested in this genius four-dimensional chess media strategy, but adopts the opposite: he hectors, he rants, he screams, he becomes an enraged lunatic. Once again showing just how smart he really is, because he wants them to be better. He yells at Cornel West and smears him with incoherent garbage because he wants him to be better, you see. So he doesn’t want RFK Jr. to be better? Bernie? No, don’t concern yourself with these trifles like consistency and principle and coherence, that’s for shitlib dem shill DNC fascists. The real smart ones, the real radical leftist populists who believe Trump is the lesser evil, us truly enlightened Dore watchers, we know what he’s really doing.

You’re in a cult, and your leader is fleecing you as he saves up for his third mansion in Florence.

Do the same with Tucker Carlson, Rob Schneider, all these people who Dore loves and praises endlessly as brave heroic figures in the political space. Find me one criticism of Tucker Carlson by Dore. And it’s not like the two are strangers. No, it’s the opposite: Dore constantly praises Tucker and went on his show to praise him. What happened to your purity standard? Why is Cornel West worthy of being attacked in alcoholic rantings, but Tucker Carlson, a clear Republican political operative, one of those “evils” you claim to oppose even though it’s a “lesser evil”, a “lesser fascism” according to you, who has been the primary instigator and disseminator of the new Cold War against China in the media class is worthy of zero criticism, but only praise. What about Trump. Where is your alcoholic ranting about Trump when he was sending advanced weaponry to Ukraine which is the direct cause of the proxy war? His breaking of the Iran deal and starting a genocidal terror campaign against it, along with Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and continuing it with Libya and Yemen, while being the most lunatic Zionist Israel fanatic in US history, moving the embassy to Jerusalem which even Bush did not do. All of Trump’s overt imperialism is detailed in this thread. Where are your videos post 2016 when he was in power and doing all this? Oh right, the purity standard suddenly crashed against the reality of how to cultivate a loyal audience of anti-liberals and anti-democrats who are on the right, rather than on the left, which is a much smaller market. Dave Rubin knew where the real cash-cow was if you wanted to pivot somewhere as part of the whole 2016 Bernie populist anti-establishment corner of the media space.

I’ll end on this note. I have said before, and I will repeat it now, that Cornel West should be criticized from the left. He should be criticized based on principle and coherent argument. For example, his position on China was bad, though it has improved significantly recently. You can’t just go around and say that China is guilty of genocide, which experts have put into question, as the media and political class across the ideological spectrum is pushing for a proxy war in Taiwan. No, you have to oppose it. You have to call it out, which again he has fortunately now started to do. These critiques come from principled leftist anti-imperialists who understand politics 101 and aren’t just in it for a YouTube grift, and you can tell by the fact that by embracing these criticisms and taking them to heart and changing his positions accordingly, it only improves Cornel West’s political project of running against the Democrats from the left and having to appeal to that particular electoral base. Again, these are people who are more anti-racist, more anti-sexist, more pro-LGBT, and are anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, and want a candidate who reflects these values.

There is no one better placed for this than Cornel West, with his long track record of principled commitment to these values, and with a great deal of personal charisma and brilliance. Anyone who cares about electoral politics, and I respect those who don’t and have written off the whole thing out of principle (though again, this is not what the traditional socialist position has been going back to Marx and Lenin), should support Cornel West’s candidacy in any way they are able to.

Addendum: I just saw the news of the Peter Daou hire to be Cornel West’s campaign manager. I know the guy has changed his politics over the years, but it’s just not a good idea to get him involved in the top position of your campaign given his place in the broad anti-Democratic left who have a long history of bad experiences with him.

Just like with this strange decision of announcing his Presidential run for the People’s Party, which just consists of a Twitter account and Dore’s YouTube channel and would mean he wouldn’t be on the ballot anywhere, something Chris Hedges fortunately stepped in to resolve much to Dore’s chagrin, Cornel West is showing that in terms of the practical aspects of running a campaign he needs assistance from people with experience. Maybe that’s why he hired Daou, but again you have to think of the broader consequences of these decisions. In my opinion the best person to lead Cornel’s campaign is Briahna Joy Gray. I believe she is brilliant, politically astute, and knows exactly what it takes to run an efficient, well-oiled campaign, and will avoid these kinds of mistakes. I’m pretty sure Daou won’t last long in the role and will be replaced soon, I just hope it’s with Briahna, assuming of course she is interested in the position.