THE RADICAL PESSIMISM OF CORNEL WEST

Condemned by Establishment Democrats as a narcissistic curmudgeon, dismissed by academics as an intellectual has-been. What else is there to do but run for president?

- Zak Cheney-Rice

IT'S A SCORCHING FRIDAY in late August at Marshall’s Music and Book Store in Jackson, Mississippi, and Cornel West is causing such a logjam that no one can get in or out. “Coach!” he cries as he gives Andrew Campbell, the man coordinating the visit, a full-bodied hug. “My brother, my brother!”—that’s for Kareem Muhammad, an activist who mirrors West’s enthusiasm with a toothy smile. “Brother Zak, you all right?” he asks me, holding the door open so that I can squeeze inside. “Lord, lord, lord, lord, lord, lord, what a blessing to see you all,” he exclaims, posing for photos with several clamoring women and bowing as Maati Jone Primm, the shop’s regal proprietor, emerges from a back room.

Was this part of his campaign launch? I was confused. West had told me his presidential run would kick off on August 28, then sent me an email on August 24 saying, “The events begin tomorrow my brother!” On the next morning’s hastily arranged flight to Jackson, I checked YouTube. “We’re gonna launch our campaign August the 25th in Mississippi,” West told the Black in Appalachia podcast, which seemed to settle the matter. But I’d also gotten a text from West’s wife, Annahita Mahdavi West, insisting, “There is no launch event.” When I finally meet him in person, West tells me he might not hold an official launch at all, and I’m satisfied until I hear State Representative De’Keither Stamps speak at an event in the town of Lexington. “He could’ve launched his presidential campaign somewhere else in the world,” Stamps says before West takes the stage, “but he decided to come to Holmes County.”