There is, however, an available arena where West could still provide useful pressure by laying out the left alternative to Bidenism: the Democratic primaries. On the debate stage, at campaign rallies, and in national media coverage, West, with his prophetic voice and moral clarity—like Sanders in 2016 and 2020—could accomplish a great deal.
D.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation.
Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of The Nation.
As if there will be debates, LOL
At least 2016 and 2020 actually felt like they might be a moment, Bernie was filling stadiums and shit.
2015 was crazy, happened to be in Boston on a weekend when Bernie was in town. 20K people showed up. Then after Trump, and with COVID, and how fucking lost Biden was... 2020 looked pretty good.
It's wild to think how much differently so much shit could have gone. Obviously Sanders would've been pretty knee-capped by Congress, but honestly people like(d) Bernie. He was coming on a little strong to some people, the "revolution" talk was very silly, but there was really nothing impugning his motives... He just presents as a grumpy grandpa who's got about as good politics as you could hope for from someone his age in the US, and must know something to have gotten those ideas into national level electoral politics in this country.
My neighbors are Marxist Leninists in their 90s