To appeal to the far right, Cornel West adopts Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination and pseudo-censorship platform.
On August 25, independent presidential candidate Cornel West released a short video statement reiterating his support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination and pandemic denial policies.
In the video posted on his X account, West called for a “truth commission” to investigate “not just the vaccine, but also the role of pharmaceutical companies in shaping public policy.”
West added that his “truth commission” would also investigate alleged “censorship” of “diverse voices,” which would “help us understand what is really going on in health policy with regard to vaccines.”
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, anti-vaccination activist and Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has complained that social media companies and various intelligence agencies have colluded with the Trump and Biden administrations to unfairly “censor” him and his anti-vaccination propaganda.
In reality, leftists, socialists and zero-COVID advocates have been banned from major broadcasts and newspapers and censored on social media, while RFK Jr. has been interviewed by Elon Musk on “X” and welcomed onto popular TV shows, podcasts and even into Congress to promote his right-wing policies that increasingly overlap with the fascist “Make America Great Again” agenda of aspiring dictator Donald Trump.
RFK Jr. responded positively to West’s adoption of his right-wing arguments, tweeting to West on August 25: “I am so grateful to you, Cornell (sic), for your commitment to ending corruption.”
The following day, Kennedy retweeted West’s video and commented that he was “so glad a prominent leftist said that.”
Kennedy drew on the identity politics that has been an organic element of the Democratic Party in the recent past of both Kennedy and West, saying, “The most damage that the medical mandates and lockdowns have done has been to the people who have suffered the most… The working class, small business owners, and especially Black people have been devastated – 41% of Black-owned businesses have had to close and have never reopened.”
Kennedy, who wants to eliminate class differences and promote a “red-brown” alliance between workers and fascists, added: “Traditionally, it is the left that opposes corporate profiteering and authoritarian politics, but during the Covid era, this resistance has been branded as ‘right-wing.’ The established powers are trying to divide us into left and right in order to fragment our resistance.”
Kennedy concluded by saying, “It worked for a while, but now we’re coming together again. Kudos to Cornel West for speaking out. That takes courage. If you’re not careful, you’ll soon be labeled a right-wing anti-vaxxer too!”
In response, West retweeted Kennedy’s post, writing, “Thank you my dear brother @RobertKennedyJr – we must fight against all forms of corruption, greed, hatred and genocide! God bless you and your precious family!”
On the same day, August 26, Roger Stone, a senior Trump operative who played a leading role in organizing Proud Boy, Oath Keeper, and other fascist militia elements that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, also responded positively to West’s tweet: “Something significant is happening in American politics I wholeheartedly agree with @CornelWest.”
This is not the first time that the West has turned to far-right conspiracy theorists. Many of them support the positions of Steve Bannon and other fascists who like to blame China for the high death toll and ongoing Covid-19 infections. This is done to further the US imperialist ambitions and distract from the criminal, profit-driven “Let’s Rid” pandemic policy that was propagated under Trump and fully implemented by the Biden-Harris administration.
In an interview with West on the “Jimmy Dore Show,” Dore referenced a statement from the Green Party’s National Black Caucus titled “We Say No to Travel Restrictions,” which claimed that “lockdowns, travel restrictions and passports” are “the most important issue of our time.”
When asked if he agreed with the platform, West replied, “The kinds of concerns that you, RFK Jr. and others have are certainly well-founded on that front.” West added, “I agree with the spirit of what my green-black brothers and sisters are saying,” and, “If I had the chance again, I would side much more strongly with the black faction.”
Since West left the Green Party to launch an independent campaign, Jill Stein has continued to appease far-right anti-vaxxers and pro-pandemic advocates. At last month’s Freedom Fest 2024 debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, Stein endorsed the “Wuhan lab lie” and agreed with libertarians and far-right conservatives that more research is needed into the origins of the virus, more than five years after Covid-19 first emerged.
“I would particularly like to see a special commission investigating the possible lab leak as the origin of COVID,” Stein said. She added that this commission “does not require a trip to Wuhan, although that could be part of it. But there are records here that could go a long way toward elucidating exactly how this virus came about, and it’s important to know not only how that happened, but also what’s coming. If the U.S. is promoting this change-of-function research, it’s potentially extremely dangerous in the future.”
After Stein spoke, Randall Terry, a crazed anti-abortion activist, called for “public executions” as a form of punishment “for those guilty of this COVID lockdown and the fake vaccines. You hide people’s deaths and tell people they can’t get ivermectin.”
Terry added that he got a strike on his YouTube show for promoting ivermectin. When given the opportunity to respond, Stein expressed his sympathy for Randall: “You talked about how it’s not OK that you almost lost your TV show because you couldn’t talk about COVID and this general topic right now. We can’t talk about things and you get banned for all kinds of things.”
In the 2024 presidential election, Socialist Equality Party (SEP) candidates Joseph Kishore and Jerry White are the only ones who continue to take the pandemic seriously. In contrast to the “herd immunity” policies promoted by the ruling class and disoriented petty-bourgeois elements, the SEP has for over four years advocated a socialist scientific program whose goal is to protect the health of all workers and their families by eradicating the virus through a globally coordinated public health program funded by the expropriation of the financial oligarchy.
After speaking out in favor of West’s democratic right to appear on Michigan’s ballot, a crucial factor in the panel’s 3-1 decision, Kishore wrote in a statement published on X yesterday:
To be clear, the SEP’s defense of democratic rights has nothing to do with political support for West, who is now praising his “dear brother,” anti-vaxxer and Covid denier RFK Jr. (who supports Trump). The SEP wears masks indoors because Covid is not over yet.
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