With Trump as the forerunning Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic Party appears to be falling back on the same familiar logic: better than the alternative. But certain progressive candidates are still looking to disrupt the status quo, however unlikely support from the establishment left may be. In this week’s episode, Harper’s Magazine’s Washington editor, Andrew Cockburn, joins senior editor Elena Saavedra Buckley to survey the landscape of the 2024 election with a focus on three insurgent candidates: Marianne Williamson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Cornel West.
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Andrew Cockburn’s article “Against the Current”
An interview with Dmitri Mehlhorn in the Intercept
3:03: “Popping up on the picket line is actually a very hard turn for him as a president.”
4:08: “It’s Trump all over, fake populism as usual.”
5:40: “It’s only when the DNC decided to throw its full weight behind him … then Biden was popular for a while.”
7:42: “He’s really not that old.”
12:10: “I can’t think of any example where a president nominates a strong alternative. Instinctively no leader wants to be encouraging a potential rival.”
14:39: “You don’t get anywhere by promising to make people’s lives better. The only thing you can do is convince people the alternative is worse, which is an infinitely depressing point of view.”
17:30: “Obviously the candidate who has gotten the most attention has been Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he has evoked a hysterical response.”
19:14: “Marianne Williamson, who has gotten much less attention, has detailed proposals on everything.”
19:53: “Cornel West has the most straightforwardly progressive agenda.”
26:58: “She said the Republicans were like the dog who caught the car, and it was a car full of angry women.”
28:44: “When people are asked why they don’t support Biden, they always cite the economy. The economy seems to be doing well, and yet, people are hurting.”
31:38: “It’s getting late now for any kind of insurgency.”
39:40: “The other fear is that people who would never vote for Trump can’t be bothered to vote for Biden or stay home.”
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