Presidential candidate Cornel West and the Democratic Socialists of America—the leftist organization likely most responsible for the Democratic party’s lurch to the left over the past decade—have a long history with one another.
An honorary chair of DSA, West was an enthusiastic supporter of DSA-backed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election and, since, has remained a pious adherent to the platform he ran on. After declaring his intent to run for president on the People’s Party ticket earlier this year, some openly mused he should have mounted a run within the Democratic Party as an affiliate of the DSA, noting his ideological ties to the platform they and candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman have used to reshape Democrats’ presence on Capitol Hill.
However deep the ties between them, some members of the DSA have begun to make it clear that their support of West’s candidacy is by no means guaranteed.
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In a recent series of dueling columns in the DSA Marxist Caucus’ magazine, Reform and Revolution, two members of the caucus outlined a burgeoning battle within DSA about whether the organization should support West—the candidate most aligned with their values some believe could play spoiler in 2024—or back the more pragmatic choice in incumbent President Joe Biden, a relative moderate with significantly more viability in a general election against a prospective Republican challenge from Donald Trump or Florida Governot Ron DeSantis.
It’s not exactly a new fight for DSA: while Sanders did ultimately endorse Biden in the 2020 election, DSA’s support of Biden against Trump was tepid, resolving at its 2019 convention the organization would “not endorse another Democratic Party presidential candidate should Bernie Sanders not prevail.”
Though DSA tweeted it would hold firm to that pledge after Sanders dropped out of the race the following March, by that October DSA leadership had begun circulating a “pledge” to campaign for Biden in the closing weeks of the election, declaring a Trump loss would be “unequivocally better for the working class and for our movement than a Trump re-election victory.”
While DSA has not yet made an endorsement in the race, the tension between lofty idealism and pragmatic politicking could once again be laid bare ahead of the 2024 cycle between supporters of West and those willing to accept the imperfect vessel of a Biden second term. West, one member wrote for Reform and Revolution, would likely command a large swath of the hundreds of thousands of left-leaning voters who’d previously voted for third-party candidates under tickets like the Green Party, handing the election to a conservative candidate who opposes issues central to the DSA platform, like abortion access.
Particularly as some data previously provided to Newsweek show a third-party run would very likely hand Republicans the election.
“We should focus on the real prize: the vast majorities of people who, despite any political alignment or lack thereof, believe in abortion rights, trans rights, and other progressive reforms for bodily autonomy,” Ruy Martinez, the founder of the Harvard chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America and a campaign organizer, wrote for the caucus magazine. “These issues have majoritarian support and are the bulwark of right-wing attacks on working people.”
Another author for the magazine, Seattle DSA member Stephan Kimmerle, however, sees West’s candidacy as an opportunity to promote the viability of the DSA platform, seizing the opportunity presented by two historically unpopular candidates to present voters with a third option to the moderating politics of a Democratic Party data shows is quickly losing ground with their working-class base.
Should DSA Endorse Cornel West? @stephankimmerle says yes!
The 2024 presidential race is already dominating political debates in the US. The Cornel West campaign is an important chance to make socialist politics visible in this central arena of debate.https://t.co/a7IUIvfKhE
— Reform & Revolution DSA 🌹 (@dsaRandR) July 25, 2023
That said, endorsing West, Kemmerle noted, doesn’t necessarily mean handing the election to Trump: if anything, he said, it’s an expression of the influence of their ideals at a time many of their candidates have succeeded in replacing more moderate Democrats from city councils to congress.
“It’s understandable that, out of fear, working-class voters check the box for Joe Biden and other Democrats,” Kemmerle wrote. “In the 10 or so contested states where the presidential election is decided, it may even be prudent to vote for the lesser evil—but only if we also work seriously toward building an alternative to all evils in the whole country, including those battleground states: a new Democratic Socialist Party.”
Newsweek has reached out to DSA leadership via email for comment.