Chris Hedges, Eddie Glaude’s Democracy Now! Debate: Which Candidate Should Win Progressives’ Votes?

Should progressive voters adopt different strategies in swing states versus, say, blue states? Princeton University’s Eddie Glaude makes room for that possibility in this Democracy Now! debate with Truthdig’s Chris Hedges, while Hedges decisively does not.

Glaude, who is the author of “Democracy in Black” and heads up Princeton’s African-American Studies department, says he shares common ground with Hedges in viewing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton through a critical lens, as well as in casting her GOP counterpart Donald Trump as a serious threat to the country, but their recommendations to voters for the Nov. 8 presidential election diverge.

In short, Glaude suggests that progressive voters in states that are already considered in the bag for Hillary Clinton can feel free to vote for the Green Party’s Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka presidential ticket, while those in contested states ought to employ strategic thinking to block Donald Trump. “I think that Donald Trump is just an exaggerated indication of the rot that’s at the heart of the country,” says Glaude in this discussion moderated by Democracy Now! anchor Amy Goodman.

Cut to Hedges, who calls this approach an “utter failure.” Hedges points to the recently released Podesta emails, made public via WikiLeaks, in which the Clinton campaign’s bid to elevate outlier candidates like Trump and Ben Carson was laid bare, as an example of the dangerous lengths to which Clinton’s cohorts will go to secure victory — even at the expense of societal stability. “We have to step outside the corporate party duopoly,” Hedges says.

Watch their exchange below (via Democracy Now!)

–Posted by Kasia Anderson