Jimmy Dore Exposes Cornel West's Fatal Flaw: Enemy Identification

Cornel West appeared on Jimmy Dore’s show a few days ago, and the interview caused quite the kerfluffle in leftist and leftish communities. It got heated at times, though it appeared to me that it was West who went in determined to force a confrontation, which is unlike how he approaches most interviews.

Or perhaps West was simply uncomfortable with the first questions Dore asked, which was why he endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 but is running against him now, and why he calls Donald Trump a “neofascist” while referring to Biden as a “milquetoast neoliberal.”

You can see the entire interview below if you wish, but suffice it to say that West’s answers to those questions were completely out of touch with political reality. According to him, Trump is a dangerous neofascist who attempted to overthrow the US government on 1/6/2021, whereas Biden, in spite of exhibiting “dimensions” of Fascism(whatever in the galaxy that means—I don’t think he was talking about the space-time continuum or geometry), provided a “caretaker” administration that somehow serves as a bulwark against Trump’s somehow worse, or more real, Fascism.

Fascism. What is it? Well, I like old Benito Mussolini’s definition of fascism as the merger of corporate and government power, and will apply it to both Trump and Biden.

Is Donald Trump a believer in the merger of corporate and government power? Well, yah, if and only if it benefits Donald Trump his own self personally. Perhaps Due Dissidence’s Russell Dobular said it best when he called Trump a carnival barker. I always saw him as a perfectly good used car salesman born into too much damned money.

Instead of selling cars, Trump sells himself, his brand, and to a lesser extent his family and friends. He may be a narcissist, and a puffed-up con artist most deserving of a good old-fashioned tarring-and-feathering, but that doesn’t make him a Fascist. In fact, while he was President he did a couple of very un-Fascist things, like refuse to start at least two wars and leave the Covid mandate decisions to the states.

Joe Biden, OTOH, is the poster boy of American Fascism and corruption. He was the Senator from MBNA. He pushed the crime bill that specifically targeted Black men for lengthy incarceration(not to mention slave labor to be exploited by the prison-industrial complex), and brags about it to this day. He supported George W. Bush’s bankruptcy reform, which makes it much costlier and difficult to file for bankruptcy on anything, and completely illegal on others(I think that’s unconstitutional, but that’s me.)

Joe Biden has said he would veto Medicare-for-All if it ever reached his desk, and refused to do anything about crushing student loan debt or the Greedflation that is eroding the standard of living of every working class family in the country, except to support the Fed in raising interest rates, making home ownership impossible for tens of millions and plunging just as many deeper into consumer debt.

He has marched us to the brink of nuclear war with both Russia and China, and has increased the militarization of police, censorship, broke a railroad workers’ strike, and truly has weaponized the federal government to criminalize political opponents to both his left and right—as in Black Uhuru and the Cop City protesters to his left, and Trump to his “right.”

None of these facts are in dispute, and Cornel West certainly knows that. Joe Biden clearly believes in and, far more importantly, enables the merger of corporate and government power, specifically the ability of corporate donors to the Democratic Party to determine what the federal government actually does or does not do. His party even demands unquestioning obedience from its voters, and demonizes its opponents as racists, Fascists, agents of foreign powers, ignoramuses, and Really BAD People.

All of the above is a textbook example of Fascism. Jimmy Dore is correct—Joe Biden is a Fascist, period. It’s as obvious as noting that the sun generally rises in the east.

Cornel West has said that he is merely a “moment in a movement,” a working class movement to fundamentally change our economic and political system. To lead a political movement, however, one must understand who one’s enemies are.

The Democratic Party is the enemy of the American working class every bit as much as the Republican Party is. It is controlled by and serves American capitalism, and is insanely promoting wars and environmental degradation for the fun and profit of the few, and death, destitution and servitude for the many.

You cannot defeat the enemy if you can’t even recognize one while he’s smiling to your face and shaking your hand.

By telling people that Trump is a Fascist, while Joe Biden is a “milquetoast,” or implicitly harmless, neoliberal, Cornel West is telling them that it is OK to vote for Biden because Trump is worse, which begs the question: Why are you running for President, Cornel West?

I honestly don’t know anymore, but one thing is perfectly clear—he is not running in order to lead a working class political movement against the oligarchy, simply because the entire oligarchy is the enemy of the working class, not just one section of it.

West’s background provides some clues on what he may really be doing, but that subject will have to wait for another post in the near future.

Thank you for reading and keep your eyes open.