Putting the vain in vanity campaign
By 
The main contribution Cornel West is making to the republic in 2023-24 is being too lazy to run a full-out ratucking operation:
When Cornel West, famed public intellectual, philosopher, jazz man, pastor, actor and frequent provocateur, told me about his recent divorce from the Green Party, he sounded almost giddy. He was obviously the initiator.
“I do feel freed up, I must say,” he said with a chuckle.
A day earlier, the news had gone public: West was leaving the Green Party to run for president in 2024 as an independent, the second time he’s left a political party in the four months he’s been in the race.
[…]
West made the decision days before the announcement last week, after asking his campaign manager Peter Daou — who was introduced to West’s camp by Stein — to lay out clearly the pros and cons of leaving the party.
Cons: ballot access headaches; continued questions about his seriousness as a political figure; the destruction of a potentially mutually beneficial coalition. Pros: getting to set your own agenda; removing yourself from some of the intractable and unserious elements of the party; crucially, for West, no more need to kiss any ass.
“The moment of transition became clear, given the internal dynamics of the Green Party,” West said. “The procedures and requirements for debate, you have to go to various Green Party events in a variety of different states. … I said, ‘Oh my God, this is a lot of energy and time and effort.’”
West was never the official Green Party nominee; as he mentioned, he bristled at the need to spend the time and effort necessary to secure the nomination at their convention next year. (It should be noted that running on a major party ticket requires jumping through many more hoops than in the Green Party.) But he had essentially already been ordained as such — with Stein as his guru, the party was dedicated to helping him get on ballots and supporting his candidacy across the country. Some state chapters of the Green Party had already set up dedicated teams aimed at specifically helping West’s campaign. With a few phone calls, all that effort was for naught.
Third party presidential campaigns are always based in neoliberal atomism, the idea that the consumer should be able to order a bespoke candidate like a designer three-piece suit. They prioritize individual self-pleasure over collective action and responsibility. But an egomaniac dilettante giving up on running on a party line because even one willing to simply give you the nomination without a competitive primary would require “energy, time, and effort” is a particularly extreme manifestation of the underlying pathology. And remember when West tried an even sillier party out for size?
On June 5, West announced that he would be running for president on the People’s Party line, an organization formed in 2017 by Nick Brana with ballot access in one state: Florida. That same day, West joined Russell Brand on his show “Stay Free”on Rumble [LOLOLOLOLOL –ed.] in his first interview to promote his campaign. In June, West told me that they recruited him to join their ticket and that his campaign was decidedly ad-hoc; he consulted only his wife and his brother before making the decision to run.
Among other things, I resent late-period West for forcing me to concede that Larry Summers was right about something. Having said that, the man is still capable of telling the truth in isolated moments:
“[The Green Party] has had a whole host of different campaigns,” West said. “It’s still very difficult to see the ways in which the movement has flowed from the campaign. … Young people have not been that tied to the Greens at all. Black people have not been that tied to the Greens at all. Brown people, trade union people, they haven’t been that tied to the Greens at all.”
When he’s right he’s right!