Cornel West appeared last week on the Useful Idiots podcast with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. 

Taibbi asked — why did Bernie Sanders lose the Democratic primary, what happened?

“The neoliberal establishment of the Democratic Party came together, exemplified a level of unity and defeated us, they crushed us overnight,” West said. “Obama makes his call, brother Pete, sister Amy.  And they came together so quick, overnight – Pow. Anybody but Bernie. Anybody but Bernie.”

“Boy this is the last gasp for these neoliberal folk coming together like this. And we are going to see what happens at the election. It’s going to be close.”

Taibbi asks — Did they do that because they thought it was a strategy to win? Or did they see it as a necessity to prevent the Sanders brand of politics, the one that you promoted so much, from succeeding at any cost?

“It was a combination of both,” West answered. “They falsely believed that Bernie had no chance at all in beating Trump. Their worldview is so truncated. Their world is so limited that they could not see a groundswell for Bernie vis-a-vis Trump.” 

“The other side is that they knew that if Bernie got the nomination, their donors, their big money people, would turn away and many of them would go for Trump rather than for Bernie. He is going at their entrenched interests in a serious manner.” 

“Look at Brother Clyburn (Congressman Jim Clyburn D-South Carolina). Clyburn gets more money than any member of Congress from big pharmaceutical companies. If Bernie wins, how is Clyburn going to work that out? He can act black as he wants to. Monday through the next Monday. But that’s not going to be enough because you have black people and other working poor people who want healthcare and want it for everybody.”