Cornel West is Right to Leave the Green Party
Dr. West leaves the Green Party for the same reasons I did four years ago. Will party leadership ever learn and change?
Yesterday, Dr. Cornel West announced he was withdrawing from the Green Party (GP) primary and will now be an independent Presidential candidate. Today, Dr. West did a round of interviews about his reasoning for this abrupt departure from the GP. I caught his appearance on CNN and the great Sabby Sabs Show.
I went into watching these interviews with a lot of skepticism. But I immediately understood two of Dr. West’s main points on his decision to leave the Green Party.
What truly spoke to me are his two main reasons for leaving the party, which are exactly why I left the 2020 Green Party primary and, ultimately, the entire US Green Party.
-1- Green Party Internal Rules that Ensure the Green Party Fails:
I covered this a lot in my last article on the Green Party. The rules for official recognition as a candidate running in the GP primary for President are arbitrary, intrusive, pointless, and ultimately not at all fair. These rules are created by party insiders who already have strong prejudices about what they want in a candidate. And one small committee can change the rules to benefit specific candidates.
The Green Party Primary doesn’t end until late summer of 2024! This is obviously way too late. And it ends with a party-nominating convention that uses the same corrupt and murky process that the Democrats use in their convention.
That’s why I said in my last article that the Green Party should have canceled its confusing and corrupt traditional primary and instead created a quick, transparent, and open primary. They could have the most significant open primary in the country. It could have been a shining example of transparent democratic participation. And it would have quickly confirmed Dr. West as the nominee. Now, Dr. West has moved on, and I don’t blame him.
-2- Green Party Demands All Candidates Kiss Party Leadership Ass:
The worst part about running in the GP primary was seeing firsthand that most leaders in the party didn’t want the party to grow. Instead, in many states, the GP operates more like a small social club. You must speak properly to leadership like their friends do, or they’ll throw you out. You need to know certain people in high places in the party, or you won’t even be invited to their meetings. I know that sounds strange, but (in my experience) most of the state and local GP meetings take place over coffee, tea, and potlucks in a party leader’s home. If you’re seen as someone who’s too outspoken, doesn’t use proper manners, or is rude to the host (the host is usually someone important in the party), you won’t be invited back to the meetings.
I get how bizarre this can sound to those outside the party. But with the GP, if you offend, for example, your state outreach coordinator, there’s a good chance they won’t email you anymore, or maybe they’ll block you on social media. What’s the big deal, you ask if one member blocks you? Well, perhaps you want to bring in ten new members to your state party meeting and challenge a crucial upcoming state party vote on endorsing the candidate of your choice. If you never get notices of future meetings over email or social media from the outreach chair, how can you even get to the next meeting? Or let’s say you get there with your ten new party members ready to debate something important to you all. Then they won’t call on you. Or one of the new members you brought tries to say something or be part of the vote. Sorry, you need to pay dues and attend for a few months before you’re considered for membership. And yes, many states and locals have dues; that idea comes straight from Howie Hawkins and was implemented by many of his supporters nationwide.
This is what I mean when I say the GP is so much closer to how a social club functions than a serious political party. I’m not saying every state or local GP is this bad, but enough of them are to make working with them impossible. And as Dr. West says, the GP had years to grow but hasn’t. I can tell you from firsthand experience that’s because the GP does not want to grow. For example, the GP advocates for others to have open primaries but doesn’t hold its own open primaries. This means only established members who already know how the party operates can take part in most GP state primaries. And often, primaries are even worse at the local level.
So, in my case, as is true with Dr. West, if we want to bring in thousands of new primary voters to vote for us in our state primary, then most of our energy has to be spent trying to get these supporters into the party as dues-paying regular recognized members, which could take months! And ultimately, they could be rejected. Then what?
All of this comes down to corrupt leadership in the GP that doesn’t want to grow. They like the way the GP currently functions. In 2020, they didn’t want new supporters of mine going to their meetings talking about supporting me over their good friend Howie Hawkins. And Dr. West saw the exact same problem for his supporters.
When I was with the GP, Rev. Annie Chambers and I worked tirelessly yet successfully to get the GP to become a household name in the public housing projects of Baltimore. But when it came time to work with the needs of that community, we received very little support. For example, how do you get 20 Eastside public housing project tenants to an uptown GP meeting where important decisions are made? In my case, even when older leaders in my local party said they wanted these new members to participate, more often than not, it was me personally making multiple trips back and forth to the projects to get these members to the meeting.
From what I’ve seen, Dr. West leaving the GP makes perfect sense. I know there are those in the GP still fighting to reform it. My hope is one day, the GP will genuinely change. But until it lives up to its own values, it won’t grow into the party that this country sorely needs. And I think that’s something Dr. West and I both agree on.
