Cornel West & Ben Jealous on the DNC and whether progressives can push Joe Biden leftward

Harvard professor Cornel West and Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP, discuss the 2020 DNC, Joe Biden’s vow to fight systemic racism and “overcome this season of darkness in America,” the historic nomination of Kamala Harris as his partner on the ticket, and how the convention was a showcase for a broad anti-Trump coalition, including prominent Republican figures given plum speaking slots, but few voices from the party’s insurgent left wing. “At this moment, with the decline and fall of the American empire, it looks as if the system is unable to generate enough energy to seriously reform itself. It remains sanitized, superficial,” says Dr. West. “I want fundamental change.” Jealous says Biden is someone progressives can work with and pressure. “The theme of this convention was really one of unity,” he notes. “This is a time when we have to come together to defeat a president who is the most evil, the most corrupt that any of us have seen.”