{"id":34306,"date":"2024-06-09T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T19:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=34306"},"modified":"2024-06-09T12:41:49","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T19:41:49","slug":"republican-operatives-swoop-in-to-help-cornel-west-this-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/06\/09\/republican-operatives-swoop-in-to-help-cornel-west-this-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Operatives Swoop in to Help Cornel West This Election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Hafiz Rashid\/The New Republic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rsn.org\/images\/001\/056597-cornel-west-060824.jpg\" alt=\"Republican Operatives Swoop in to Help Cornel West This Election\"><strong>Dr. Cornel West. (photo: Frederick M. Brown \/ Getty Images)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>08 june 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><strong><em>A new report reveals that operatives with Republican ties are trying to help Cornel West get on the ballot.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Independent presidential candidate Cornel West is trying to collect signatures to get as many state ballots as possible, and if he succeeds in North Carolina, it might be thanks to Republican operatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-election\/operatives-gop-ties-are-helping-cornel-west-get-ballot-key-state-rcna153110\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NBC News reports<\/a>&nbsp;that the Justice for All Party, which is supporting West, authorized three people to collect signatures who either work for or used to work for Blitz Canvassing, a Republican political firm. The firm has supported numerous Republican House and Senate candidates, as well as former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A West campaign spokesperson said the campaign wasn\u2019t aware that the three were connected to a Republican firm and did \u201cnot have any specific comments since we are not familiar with them or their affiliations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NBC report also noted that a high amount of West\u2019s signatures in the state came from Republican-voting counties, even though West considers himself a socialist advocating pro-Palestine policies. In April, a Republican activist was captured on video gathering signatures for West outside a Trump rally in Wilmington, North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis helps take away votes from Joe Biden,\u201d the activist told one person at the rally, according to a video posted to X (formerly Twitter) by a&nbsp;<em>Washington Post<\/em>&nbsp;reporter. \u201cWe\u2019re helping the Trump team who\u2019s trying to get him on there,\u201d added a woman by his side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Pro-Trump activist Scott Presler is at the Trump rally in NC today collecting signatures to get Cornel West on the ballot, which he says will take away votes from Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WKG5qP3wTg\">pic.twitter.com\/WKG5qP3wTg<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Isaac Arnsdorf (@iarnsdorf) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iarnsdorf\/status\/1781777434548846607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 20, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NBC also obtained petition signatures submitted by the Justice for All Party showing that several registered Republicans signed petitions to get West on the ballot on the same day as the Trump rally and in the same county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>West is not alone among third-party candidates for receiving help from Republicans in order to serve as a spoiler in the 2024 presidential election. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has received most of his campaign&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/174371\/rfk-jr-a-lot-gop-donors-someone-running-democrat\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contributions from conservatives<\/a>, has been praised by&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/180644\/trump-rfk-jr-love-affair-biden-votes\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>, and has had conservatives opposed to Biden&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/180579\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-far-right-ties-worse\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">serving as his advisers<\/a>. (Unfortunately, that assistance has led Republicans to start worrying that he could&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/181235\/trump-advisers-suddenly-seem-alarmed-rfk-jr\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hurt Trump<\/a>&nbsp;in the end.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>West\u2019s campaign has been criticized as a vanity effort likely to\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/177213\/cornel-west-2024-charlatan-narcissist\" target=\"_blank\">have a spoiler effect<\/a>\u00a0on Joe Biden\u2019s presidential campaign, if it has any effect at all. Describing the 2024 election, he\u2019s said, \u201cNeofascists like brother Trump or milquetoast neoliberals like brother Biden? Wow, I\u2019m so happy to make a world-shaking decision.\u201d In August, a Daily Beast investigation found that he\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/174819\/cornel-west-owes-irs-500000-taxes\" target=\"_blank\">owed<\/a>\u00a0$543,778.78 in unpaid taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Source:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rsn.org\/001\/republican-operatives-swoop-in-to-help-cornel-west-this-election.html\">https:\/\/www.rsn.org\/001\/republican-operatives-swoop-in-to-help-cornel-west-this-election.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hafiz Rashid\/The New Republic Dr. Cornel West. (photo: Frederick M. Brown \/ Getty Images) 08 june 24 (RSN.org) A new report reveals that operatives with Republican ties are trying to help Cornel West get on the ballot. Independent presidential candidate Cornel West is trying to collect signatures to get as&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/06\/09\/republican-operatives-swoop-in-to-help-cornel-west-this-election\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34307,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34306\/revisions\/34307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}