Cornel West, the likely presidential nominee for the Green Party, denounced the president, arguing that during his time in the Senate, “Joe Biden contributed to a crime against humanity.”
“Well, I think you’ll think Joe Biden contributed to a crime against humanity when he became the architect of the mass incarceration regime in the 1990s,” the former Harvard professor told the New York Post in an interview published Saturday.
West was referring to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which then-senator Biden of Delaware sponsored in 1994 that earmarked billions of dollars for prisons and the hiring of thousands of new police. “I’ve taught in prison for 41 years. And the the level of barbarity in our prisons has something to do with that crime bill that he [Biden] put forward,” West added.
“Black folks are [a] low priority” to Biden, West argued, criticizing the president for placing “black faces in high places” rather than addressing underlying issues.
The presumptive Green Party nominee gave Biden a “C-“on race relations in America.
The outspoken activist also hammered Biden for allegedly “slowing down” and lacking the cognitive ability to meet the demands of office. “It’s very clear that his cognitive powers are in decline.”
According to an analysis conducted by Politico, in the previous two national elections, the Green Party underperformed compared to Libertarian candidates. In 2016, Jill Stein garnered barely over 1 percent of national votes. Her successor, Howie Hawkins, did even worse, failing to be placed on more than half of state ballots across the nation in 2020.
“West could be more formidable, however. He’s a longtime public figure who could harness some of the liberal dissatisfaction with Biden’s presidency so far — particularly among otherwise solidly Democratic voting blocs,” the outlet argued on Saturday morning.
However, West’s announcement to run for the Green Party nomination in June has spooked many prominent figures in the Democratic Party camp who fear that his candidacy might steal crucial votes from Biden in 2024.
“This is not the time in order to experiment. This is not the time to play around on the margins,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, a close confidant to the president, warned in early July, the Hill reported.
David Axelrod, former president Barack Obama’s chief strategist, struck a similar chord. “In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump. Now, with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again.”