Two Tuesdays in the past—Cornel West’s final day in New York earlier than Election Day—I went uptown to see him at his high-end condo constructing in Morningside Heights, between Seminary Row and Reinhold Niebuhr Place. He met me within the foyer and greeted me as “brother,” which was additionally how he greeted one in every of his neighbors, a number of doormen, and anybody else he knew or was politely pretending to know, aside from those he referred to as “sister.” “These are some grim and dim instances, brother,” he instructed me, as he walked round searching for someplace to sit down. “How did Twain put it? ‘That damned human race’?”
In a profile that ran on this journal, West was described as “one of the vital talked-about teachers in america.” That was three a long time in the past, and it’s been true ever since. Certainly one of his friends not too long ago referred to as him “undeniably the main American public mental of my era.” He was skilled as a post-analytic thinker, then gained fame for his best-selling books, and his frequent talking-head appearances on cable information, and his cameos in sequels of “The Matrix.” He was additionally an indefatigable political surrogate, crossing the nation to stump for Invoice Bradley, Barack Obama, and Bernie Sanders—all of whom he has since criticized from the left. Final October, after Hamas’s assaults in Israel and the start of the Israeli navy’s retaliatory marketing campaign, a number of members of Congress, together with Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, referred to as for a ceasefire. Nevertheless, “it took Brother Bernie numerous months even to make use of the phrase,” West mentioned. “We’re not speaking concerning the highest stage of ethical heroism—simply to make use of the phrase. So I believe he misplaced some credibility there. I really like the brother it doesn’t matter what—I simply disagree with him.”
Now West is seventy-one, and he’s a professor at Union Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with Columbia—the place he bought his first school job, within the nineteen-seventies, and the place he not too long ago returned after Yale, Princeton, and two tumultuous stints at Harvard—however he’s on depart this semester, as a result of he’s additionally operating for President. “I’ve been at it for seventeen months, and I’ve seen the layers of corruption within the system,” he mentioned. He’s campaigning as an Unbiased, on a shoestring finances, opposing each the “neo-Fascist gangster” Donald Trump and the “multicultural militarist” Kamala Harris. On the path, he continued, “I’ve met a few of the most luxurious human beings on this planet, however they really feel helpless, if not hopeless. They see the billionaire strata reshaping the entire future of the nation, they usually see it in each events.” Based on surveys aggregated by Actual Clear Polling, West had a detrimental favorability score, which wasn’t uncommon—Trump and Harris did, too. (The one 2024 candidates who have been above water have been Tim Walz and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) Extra germane was that, of all of the candidates talked about in these surveys, West constantly had the bottom identify recognition. Even Actual Clear Polling didn’t spell his identify proper.
There’s a personal assembly room in West’s condo constructing, appointed with swanky artwork books and an extended wood convention desk, however it appeared to be occupied. “That’s all proper,” he mentioned, making himself comfy simply exterior the room, in a wingback chair. He typically refers to himself as a “jazzman,” all the time able to improvise—a way that he has utilized all through his life and profession, and particularly in his Presidential marketing campaign. Final June, he introduced that he would search the nomination of the Folks’s Get together, which is taken into account marginal even by devotees of third-party politics. He briefly switched to the Inexperienced Get together, a extra established impartial celebration; however he didn’t get together with Jill Stein, the Get together’s perpetual candidate, and he ended up leaving after a number of months. “There have been moments of dishonesty and disrespect,” West mentioned. (Politico referred to as it “the newest rift throughout the perennially squabbling American left.”)
He’s now the nominee of the Justice for All Get together—established in 2024, by Cornel West. His marketing campaign by no means bought a lot traction. He did plenty of podcast interviews, however only a few on mainstream TV. On Election Day, it looks like he’ll be fortunate if he wins greater than a proportion level in any state. Nonetheless, he’s on the poll in sixteen states, together with Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A number of thousand votes in any of these states—or perhaps a few hundred—may, in concept, be sufficient to tip the election.
Final summer time, The Nation ran an editorial commending West’s “prophetic voice and ethical readability,” however questioning his technique. Why not run within the Democratic main, the place, even when he couldn’t win, he would possibly “present helpful stress by laying out the left different”? West instructed me that operating as a Democrat would violate his beruf—his calling. He referred to Max Weber’s 1919 lecture “Politics as a Vocation,” wherein “he makes the essential distinction between the ethics of conviction and the ethics of duty,” he mentioned. “So that you’ve bought to have concern about penalties”—for instance, operating a marketing campaign that would threat throwing the election to Trump—“with out in any method violating your calling and your dedication to integrity and precept.” I contacted dozens of West’s colleagues, associates, former college students, and associates, asking what they product of his Presidential ambitions; the overwhelming majority declined to talk on the document, or may consider nothing complimentary to say, or each. Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic commentator, took a course referred to as American Democracy, co-taught by West, as a regulation pupil at Harvard. “I used to be keen on him as a professor,” Shroff mentioned. “So far as why he ran, and why he’s nonetheless within the race? My guess could be egocentrism.”
Final September, the political strategist Peter Daou grew to become West’s marketing campaign supervisor. Daou, who had been a high-level marketing campaign staffer for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton earlier than turning towards the two-party system, was by far essentially the most skilled political strategist in West’s circle. I spoke to somebody with data of the marketing campaign’s technique who mentioned that Daou and West mentioned a narrowly focused marketing campaign, maybe focussing on H.B.C.U.s and on Black voters within the South—particularly Black males who have been disaffected with Joe Biden and Harris and leaning towards Trump. Maybe by successful a big share of these voters, the considering went, the marketing campaign may stand up to 10 or fifteen per cent within the polls, and from there it may begin to acquire momentum. West didn’t take this recommendation. “This marketing campaign is dedicated to a 50 State Technique,” he tweeted final 12 months, selling a marketing campaign occasion in Nebraska. “There are not any flyover states, simply america!” Daou lasted a month and a half earlier than quitting.
The marketing campaign has only a few full-time employees members; amongst its most lively unofficial advisers are Annahita Mahdavi West, who can be West’s spouse, and Clifton West, his brother. (“I’ve bought billions of brothers on this planet,” West mentioned, “however he’s my solely buddy.”) Even by the requirements of long-shot campaigns, this one has made some baffling missteps. Final October, it was reported that West had accepted a marketing campaign donation from Harlan Crow, the conservative Texas billionaire greatest recognized for giving undeclared items to Justice Clarence Thomas. “As an impartial candidate and a free Black man,” West wrote on X, “I’m unbought and unbossed. Regardless of my deep political variations with brother Harlan Crow (who’s an anti-Trump Republican), I’ve recognized him in a non-political setting for some years and I pray for his valuable household.” The next day, he introduced that he would return the donation. This August, the Related Press reported that “a gaggle of attorneys with deep ties to the Republican Get together” was working to get West on the poll in Arizona, ostensibly to siphon votes away from Harris, after which reported that related efforts have been additionally underneath method in North Carolina. (One of many attorneys, Paul Hamrick, denied the allegations in an e-mail to The New Yorker, writing, partly, “I’ve had zero involvement with the Republican Get together.”) “A lot of American politics is extremely gangster-like exercise,” West instructed the Related Press. “I’ve no data of who they’re or something—none by any means. We simply wish to get on that poll.”
