Article by:
Jonathan E. MacArthur, Esq.
Let me state my biases right out of the gate. I am a Black, male lawyer with progressive political views. I am almost certainly going to vote to re-elect President Joe Biden in November. He wasn’t my first choice in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary, but I think he’s done a better job than he gets credit for. Still, I deserve better options.
Recently, I learned that, on March 16, 2024, professor, writer, and independent presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West was in Las Vegas, Nevada speaking to audiences on the Historic West Side. I’ve never met Brother West, but I did receive his 1993 book Race Matters as gift from a mentor while I was a sophomore in college. The book was a thoughtful collection of philosophical essays on the Black experience in the United States. My first afterthought thought was that President Joe Biden had already clinched the Democratic presidential nomination contest when he won the Georgia primary only days prior, and the other guy seemed destined to be the Republican presidential nominee no matter what outrageous things he did or said between now and November. And, given our binary two-party system, what did Brother West hope to accomplish by speaking to people who would almost inevitably end up choosing between one of these two candidates, some of whom would cynically refer to that as a choice between the lesser of two evils? I then recalled that Brother West was the first Black person to receive a PhD in Philosophy from Princeton University. My next thoughts were of admiration for a man who cares enough to be doing something instead of merely complaining and helplessly waiting for the next shoe to drop.
French senator and writer Victor Hugo (b.1802 – d.1885) said, “Nothing else in the world… is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” If you’re more into experiences than quotes, Hugo was also the mind that also birthed The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. If a democracy is a system where a people choose their government based on evaluating competing ideas and choosing those that best serve their interests, then an intelligent discussion of those ideas is fundamental to that system. Cornel West understands this, and we would do well to emulate his example. The 2024 Presidential Election somehow feels both like an existential crossroads in the American experiment but at the same time, a predictable presentation of two candidates navigating the easiest route to the White House via two hopelessly polarized constituencies. And that’s precisely the problem.
The Problem
Once upon a time, maybe back when the current presumptive Republican nominee nostalgically thinks that America was great, the voting people of this country were arguably better informed and certainly more civically engaged. When Walter Cronkite gave us the news, it was more factual reporting and less telling us what the corporate ownership of that outlet wanted us to think. Don’t misunderstand – wealth, influence and power rested, as they always have, in the hands of predominantly White, male citizens whose privileges directly or indirectly derived from the systemic exploitation of women, non-white Americans, and immigrants. But there were also conservative and liberal wings of both major parties and fewer instances of gridlock in our national Congress. Key to that functionality was civic engagement where citizens were aware of issues and actively joined groups to lift their voices and exert their power. Have you noticed how today’s popular culture associates being a member of the NAACP, the ACLU, or the Lion’s Club with old people? (Why does caring enough be involved have to be associated with senescence?) Adolescents collected petition signatures and learned to write letters to their congressional representatives. Civics had not yet been stricken from public high school curricula. But I’m not arguing some bygone era to have been the good ‘ole days. After all, groups like the White Citizen’s Counsels (WCC) gave violent race hatred a stubborn suburban legitimacy. Concerned Women of America (CWA) did the same for anti-feminist and anti-gay sentiments. The list goes on. But it’s difficult to argue that the people who actively formed and supported those groups weren’t successful at imposing their preferences upon their fellow citizens via government. And what was true then, remains true now.
Central to the function of these groups was keeping their memberships informed on issues, organizing a response, and both funding and implementing action plans because apathy is and always has been a recipe for loss in a democracy. Labor unions informed and organized employees regarding worker issues. The Sierra Club kept naturalists up to speed on environmental concerns. Anti-war protestors challenged America to think about the morality of the Vietnam War from churches and college campuses. The Children’s Television Workshop operated as a non-profit to help low-income children prepare for school with award winning shows like Sesame Street. Everywhere you looked, there were people trying to make a difference without having to be paid to do it. For his part, Brother West has always been one of those people.
He might tell you that one of the problems of a two-party system is that it doesn’t function well if one or both parties aren’t acting in good faith. Cooperation on core issues is essential to progress. However, if the process becomes a zero-sum game where the success of one party is always perceived as a loss by the other, there can be no common ground. This results in a race to the bottom where using fear and outrage to motivate the base to vote becomes easier and more expedient than fostering civil engagement or the meaningful discussion of issues. If the parties disagree on what makes a tax system fair, that’s fine. But if one party decides that some people deserve fewer rights than others, then what? When that happens, the oppressed demographics have only one voting choice even when they don’t agree with all the remaining, more supportive party’s platform. In fact, persecuted people can become hostages to the less oppressive party, who may in turn take their votes for granted. This is a circumstance that Black Americans are intimately familiar with. The political environment described encourages, even forces, some people to become single-issue voters to survive and with few opportunities to improve their circumstances. Brother West remains hopeful that common folk can unite to become the masters of their own destiny.
He might tell you that having a democracy is like owning a vehicle. When it’s shiny and new, people take care of it. They pay attention to the car’s condition - changing the oil, rotating the tires, and washing it regularly. But there’s a danger in the complacency that comes when there are a lot of miles on the odometer, a dent in the door, and replacing old parts gets expensive. We’re tempted to skimp on needed maintenance when money is short, and times are hard. We forget that when the only car we have breaks down, we can be put in a vulnerable, potentially scary position. The maintenance required in democracy consists of remaining well-informed, civically engaged, and caring about more than just ourselves and our closest relationships. We’re supposed to be thinking about the world we want for ourselves and cooperating with allies to achieve that. We need to be educating each other, organizing, and having intelligent discussions about our options. Brother West is still doing that.
In a perfect world, this is how two-party presidential candidate selection is supposed to work: First, each party presents a field of candidates to vie for the party’s nomination to the presidency. The candidates will then debate each other, presenting ideas and arguing their merits on a public stage. Then, when the primary election (or caucus) occurs in each state, favorite candidates can be expected to rise to the top, while underperforming candidates will eventually end their candidacies as their voter and financial support dwindles. Presumably, this process continues until the last man or woman standing becomes the consensus nominee of their party. Along the way, leading candidates may absorb ideas from their lesser rivals. (e.g., A major candidate has a lot of support, but few new ideas, and not enough delegates to yet become the nominee. That candidate may start repeating talking points made by a talented, but less well known, candidate. When the lesser candidate ends their campaign, his/her supporters may migrate to the major candidate who is now the flag bearer for their issue.) Theoretically, a party’s nominee for president is supposed to be the best qualified from the field, with compromises made to fit as many voters and their favorite issues as possible under one tent. If both parties do this, then their champions will face each other on the first Tuesday of November every four years.
In the real world, however, our two-party political system isn’t working well at all. On the Republican side, the 45th President is leader of a cult of personality. He didn’t even participate in the Republican primary debates, despite not being an incumbent. By the time New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina had weighed in, the writing was on the wall before even half of their sister states had even taken a turn. Rival Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley of South Carolina quickly ended their respective campaigns, leaving the 45th President as the presumptive nominee. Worse, the GOP primary debates were mostly a parade of conspiracy theories, 2020 election denialism, and demonization of immigrants. There weren’t many good ideas to be heard, but quite a few to be afraid of. (e.g., Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal that America raise its voting age to 25, unless young adults first perform military service, work as a first responder, or pass the US citizenship test. A policy that would disenfranchise Gen Z voters, America’s most progressive demographic, while maintaining the vote for those more inclined toward cultural conservatism.)
On the Democratic side, things may be less toxic, but there’s little to be excited about. President Biden drew only two primary rivals, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips. (There’s a decent chance that you’ve read one or both of their names for the first time in this article.) Again, no primary debates have been presented and presently seem unlikely to occur. And that makes sense if, like much of the country, you see President Biden as the nation’s best chance to prevent the presumptive Republican nominee from making good on his promises to exact revenge on people he perceives as having wronged him. “"In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice," he said in March. "And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution."” (DJT - 3/4/23 CPAC; ABC News) When he’s not slandering the staff or family members of the judges presiding over his court cases, using AI created images of himself being adored by fictional Black audiences, or using social to incite his supporters to riot, he remains a genuinely problematic figure to imagine granting the powers of the presidency. Again. But back to President Biden. I prefer unity and compassion over division and talk of civil war but, ideally, I’d cast my vote for a candidate who also shares my vision of what my country could be. While Biden never told me to consider injecting myself with disinfectant during the COVID pandemic, and he did capably bring us victories like the Defense of Marriage Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, I really don’t like that thousands of innocent people have died in Gaza while Israel seeks a brutal revenge against Hamas for the terror attacks of October 7, 2023 using US weapons. It angers me that I have no meaningful hope of voting for a presidential candidate who will bring that loss of life to a halt. We all deserve more than White Christian nationalism on the Right and tired, pro-corporate policymaking with a helping of “one day you can have basic human rights” on the Left. We Had a Dream once.
On the national stage, there are four men running for the presidency. (Don’t get me started on why all of the past forty-six presidents have been men, only one of them non-White, or why the youngest current candidate is 70 years old.)
Joseph R. Biden – Democrat, well-intended, compassionate, past his prime, and too committed to failing corporate capitalism for my taste. 81 years old.
Robert F, Kennedy Jr. – Independent, science skeptic, conspiracy theorist, and fortunate to have a familiar family name. 70 years old.
The Former 45th President – Republican, twice impeached, four times indicted, attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, openly flirts with White nationalism, and uses language reminiscent of 20th century fascism. 77 years old.
Dr. Cornel West – Independent, academic, author, socialist. 70 years old.
When I call Brother West a socialist, I don’t mean that as an insult. While some hear the word “socialist” and reflexively think of it as a bad thing, those people are usually unaware that public schools, Social Security, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, and natural disaster relief are everyday examples of socialism that we didn’t have before FDR, a polio victim, lifted us out of the Great Depression while seated in a wheelchair.
If it were a fair competition of ideas, the current election cycle would feel very different than the winner-take-all, make-or-break situation that we have. Only two candidates above have a reasonable chance of winning, having the effect of making us less interested in what the less viable candidates have to say. But should that be the case? If we aren’t informed, how might we intelligently discuss policy? If we won’t engage, how else will we make our voices heard? If we aren’t discussing our options, how can we form alliances?
The Solution
I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight some of Brother West’s campaign platform proposals from his campaign website at https://www.cornelwest2024.com/platform. It’s not a complete list, nor did he provide sufficient detail on some bullet points to offer analysis. But it is imperative to highlight that he offers some proposals for discussion that the other three candidates avoid. Next to each topic, I will provide an insight on why we suffer from not discussing them further.
Ending Mass Real Estate Holdings – Following the mortgage collapse resulting in The Great Recession of 2008, private equity companies began buying countless foreclosed single-family homes and making them available as rental properties, contributing significantly to the present housing shortage and the Millennial generation now struggling to afford homes and accumulate wealth.
Require 33% of Corporate Board Members to be Workers – For decades, the primary purpose of corporate boardrooms has been maximizing profits and returning value to shareholders, usually at the expense of living wages, safety, or improving their products.
Slave Reparations – Every year from 1989 to 2017, Representative John Conyers (D – Mich.) presented a bill in the House of Representatives to establish a commission to study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination in the United States to present day. The commission would hold hearings, submit its findings to Congress and recommend "appropriate remedies." It would also consider a "national apology" for the harm caused by slavery. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Tex.) has sponsored the bill most every year since Conyer’s retirement, from 2019 to 2023. The bill doesn’t approve reparation payments if it passes. It merely allows the study of whether such a remedy is warranted or appropriate. The annual effort typically dies in committee to Republican opposition, partly due to the concept not being a part of any President’s legislative agenda.
Universal Health Care – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK each have free, taxpayer funded healthcare systems. The US ranks behind each of them in access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes, but is the most expensive system on the list. Source: Eric C. Schneider et al - Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Other High-Income Countries The US also ranks 47 of 201 countries (just behind Thailand and the Czech Republic) for life expectancy.
Expanding Voting Rights to Convicted People – Why should citizens lose their right to vote merely because they’ve been convicted of a crime? Doesn’t disenfranchising convicted persons incentivize the people who make the laws to criminalize people who vote differently than they?
Supreme Court Term Limits – Lifetime appointments make it easy for one President to pack the court with his own appointees, eliminate a woman’s right to choose (2022), eliminate affirmative action in college admissions (2023), and potentially escape criminal prosecution for wrongdoing in office (2024). For decades.
Reinstate Affirmative Action in Colleges – Opponents argue that affirmative action for underrepresented minorities is race discrimination against the majority. Meanwhile, legacy admissions policies give admission priority to the children of former alums. Princeton University graduated its first African American in1947. Columbia University didn’t admit women until 1983. How is that not discriminatory?
Ending the Nexus Between Education and the Tax Base – The budget of a public school shouldn’t be dependent on the property taxes from its zip code. Within the same school district, why should children living in wealthy suburbs have better schools and more funding than children born a few miles away in the urban core? Funding should be distributed evenly on a per student basis.
Free Tuition at State and Community Colleges – In 1968 (the year MLK was assassinated), a four-year college education in community, city and state colleges averaged only $329/yr. ($2,934 in 2024 dollars) and attendance at a four-year private college was an affordable $1,487/yr. ($13,260 in 2024 dollars). At a speech in which he condemned Vietnam War protesters as “a small minority of beatniks, radicals and filthy speech advocates,” former President Ronald Reagan, then a candidate for governor in California, said he wouldn’t cut state education spending but “complained of the costs of welfare programs,” according to the New York Times’ archives. The nation followed his lead.
Accountability for US Role in Migrant Crisis – Show me a person complaining about immigrants pouring over the southern border, and I’ll show you a person who knows little about US foreign policy in Central and South America. Assassination of democratically elected leaders replaced with pro-US dictators; the US creation of the massive MS13 Gang in El Salvador as a right-wing militia; AT&T and United Fruit (now Chiquita) corporations destroying or preventing infrastructure construction in various countries to maintain monopolies. The people desperately fleeing chaos and violence in those countries are coming here as their next best option, only to be placed in cages and separated from their children.
Yes, We Can Do Better
I would like to thank Dr. Cornel West for coming to Las Vegas and inviting us to reconsider our leadership choices and reminding us that the value of a democracy is often only recognized once it is lost.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jonathan E. MacArthur, Esq. is a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, former judicial candidate, and politico.
