US president Joe Biden may not run for re-election, Cornell West said. “I’m not even sure whether I’ll be running against Biden. Biden – I think he’s going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back,” Cornell West said referring to the moment on 31 March 1968 when Lyndon B Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election citing the war in Vietnam and domestic problems. His secretary at the time, George Christian, had said that health was also a factor in the decision as Johnson was only 59 when he had suffered a heart attack. Lyndon B Johnson had a fatal heart attack five years later as well.
Joe Biden (81) is already the oldest president ever sworn and would be 86 at the end of a second term. Cornell West told Politico that Joe Biden might end up running against a “B team” of younger Democrats including Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, because he was “running out of gas”.
Donald Trump is a “bona fide gangster, neo-fascist Pied Piper leading the country for a second civil war” but Joe Biden is “a milquetoast neoliberal with military adventurism, possibly leading the world toward world war three”, Cornell West said, adding, “I’m more concerned about Trump domestically. I’m more concerned about Biden in terms of foreign policy.”
“I don’t accept the spoiler category. A vote for Biden, a vote for Trump is a vote for Biden and a vote for Trump. There might be slices of people [who say], ‘If I didn’t vote for West, I would have voted for Biden.’ But that’s not to me a spoiler. If you’re in a race, and you make a case, and they vote for you, how do you become the spoiler?,” he said.
