Ivy League professor Dr. Cornel West, who recently launched a 2024 third-party presidential bid, said Thursday that both parties are too tied to corporate America to be able to advocate for working-class and minority Americans.
West, who first launched his bid under the People's Party banner, has since switched to the Green Party.
On "The Ingraham Angle," West was asked about his path to his recent announcement, given that he was a prominent surrogate of democratic socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 Democratic presidential bid.
"Bernie got shut down by the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party is so tied to Wall Street, so tied to the Pentagon that I thought it very important to build on the rich legacy that has shaped and molded me, not just the West family, not just the Shiloh Baptist Church [in] Sacramento … this legacy spills over now into electoral politics."
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"I'm thoroughly convinced, my dear sister, that the two-party system stands in the way of the empowerment of precious poor people and precious working people. And I am fundamentally committed to the plight of the least of these…" he said.
West spoke out against "militarism abroad" as well, leading host Laura Ingraham to ask how his support for a drawdown to the Ukraine War somewhat mirrors that of populist Republicans like Donald Trump.
"The Democratic Party has had a long history of being committed to war: You can go back all the way to Vietnam. But unfortunately, we have to tell the truth – the promise would be that NATO would not move one inch toward Russian territory. A few years later, 14 former Soviet [states] are a part of NATO. So you can imagine any empire, the American empire, the most powerful… if there were Russian missiles in Mexico; Russian missiles in Canada, they would be blown to smithereens very, very quickly."
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"Why? Because empires behave that way. Now, if you're a radical Democrat, you have a critique of the imperial overlay of your country – that includes the organized greed at the top with Wall Street, and it includes the war profiteers," West said.
Ingraham later pressed West on how his platform sometimes meshes with the right wing on issues like bureaucracy, middle-class advocacy and law-and-order issues:
"To me, it seems like you're closer in many ways to populist conservatives on those types of issues than you are the modern Democrat Party," she said.
"I know you're running as a Green, but can't you tonight say that Donald Trump did more for African-Americans in the inner city with increased real median income, increased entrepreneurial opportunities, criminal justice reform…?" she asked. "Can't you recognize that he actually was doing his best at the time to stand up for disenfranchised people…?"
West argued in response that "grotesque wealth inequality" remained on the increase while Trump ushered in low unemployment rates.
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He credited Trump with retaining low unemployment but said his "problem" was that of his purported "lies and gangster activity."
"I hate the kind of neofascist language he uses when he trashes Muslims, when he calls Black football players sons of b-i-t(--)s…and he was still tied to big military, still allowing Wall Street to get away. That's where you and I would disagree," West said.
As for President Biden, West said he "hates [his] hypocrisy" and his "neoliberal" governance.
While agreeing with some conservatives' skepticism of the federal "surveillance state," West said his criticism differs from that of the Trump wing of the GOP because he objects to their "trashing the immigrants and trashing too many precious gay brothers and sisters."
"As a presidential candidate, I'm going straight into Brother Trump's country, and I'm going to tell the brothers and sisters of all colors, I want you not to scapegoat the most vulnerable, I want you confront the most powerful."
West also offered a viewpoint on illegal immigration that Ingraham suggested included at least some common ground with conservatives when the professor claimed businesspeople like to seek cheap labor to protect low wages.
"That's why I support not just the trade union movements, that's why I support the various strikes that are on the way this summer to make sure working people gain concessions…"
When Ingraham said West began sounding like Ron DeSantis, West interjected in disagreement, saying the Florida governor adds a "xenophobic dimension" to the argument.
"I want the immigrants and the workers of all colors to come together against the bosses – DeSantis still has too much xenophobia for me. And that's the radical difference between right-wing populists and highly-left-oriented people…"
