Cornel West’s Threat to Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s supporters don’t appear to be truly menaced by Cornel West’s decision to seek and likely secure the Green Party’s nomination for the presidency. At least, not yet. The only criticism they can muster so far is that the presence in the race of this far-left candidate, a philosopher and former Princeton University professor, is, at best, a little gauche. Indeed, the white-hot denunciations Democratic professionals reserve for prospective centrist third-party campaigns communicates more about what this White House perceives to be its real weaknesses. But every so often, Democrats reveal their concern that West’s agitation exposes cracks in the integrity of the president’s coalition. After all, the arguments West is making against Joe Biden are the same ones made by his Democratic primary opponents in 2019.

West has devoted his campaign to popularizing the various “catastrophes” that Biden either ignored or exacerbated. The horrors over which the president has presided are manifold. For example, “ecocide is the ultimate catastrophe,” West wrote this week. “It is the escalating actuality of wiping out life on Earth . . . Poor and venerable peoples of color already are disproportionately perishing.” To hear West tell it, only he and his supporters are truly dialed into the threat posed by catastrophic climate change.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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President Joe Biden’s supporters don’t appear to be truly menaced by Cornel West’s decision to seek and likely secure the Green Party’s nomination for the presidency. At least, not yet. The only criticism they can muster so far is that the presence in the race of this far-left candidate, a philosopher and former Princeton University professor, is, at best, a little gauche. Indeed, the white-hot denunciations Democratic professionals reserve for prospective centrist third-party campaigns communicates more about what this White House perceives to be its real weaknesses. But every so often, Democrats reveal their concern that West’s agitation exposes cracks in the integrity of the president’s coalition. After all, the arguments West is making against Joe Biden are the same ones made by his Democratic primary opponents in 2019.

West has devoted his campaign to popularizing the various “catastrophes” that Biden either ignored or exacerbated. The horrors over which the president has presided are manifold. For example, “ecocide is the ultimate catastrophe,” West wrote this week. “It is the escalating actuality of wiping out life on Earth . . . Poor and venerable peoples of color already are disproportionately perishing.” To hear West tell it, only he and his supporters are truly dialed into the threat posed by catastrophic climate change.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.