Changing what needs to be changed, this is an apt description of Cornel West. In his interviews and remarks, West makes certain points that are generally ignored or excluded from the media—noting, for example, that the war over Ukraine was provoked by the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders. But these are washed over by the overpowering wave of vague generalities and moralistic slogans in which nothing is worked through in a systematic way.
Everyone, it seems, no matter how rotten his or her politics, is his “dear brother” or “dear sister,” with whom West proclaims deep sympathy and agreement on many things, from the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and the Green Jill Stein, to the fascistically inclined RFK, Jr. and Joe Rogan. Everyone is his friend because he has no firmly held views of his own.
West elevates unseriousness and pragmatic maneuvers to the level of a principle in and of itself. He is a “jazz man in world politics,” West proclaims in his campaign video, “and the jazz man is always about improvisation, always about compassion, always about style, and always about a smile.”
-- Joseph Kishore, "Cornel West’s campaign for US president: A pragmatic and bankrupt muddle" (WSWS).
