Miles J. Herszenhorn
Cornel West, whose long-shot bid for the White House as a third-party candidate threatens to upset President Joe Biden’s plans for reelection, said in an interview on Tuesday with USA TODAY that his intentions are clear: he’s staying in the race until Election Day.
West, a left-wing activist and scholar, launched his campaign on Monday with low prospects for winning the presidency, but his candidacy might siphon off votes from Biden if he remains in the race until next year’s general election.
“I plan to run till the end,” West told USA TODAY. “Absolutely.”
West, 70, is running as a candidate for the People’s Party, an independent populist movement created in 2017. A group of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters, including West, founded the party after growing disenchanted with the Democratic Party after the 2016 presidential election.
“I can’t be dogmatic. I can’t just foreclose the future,” West said of his presidential campaign. “But right now, I’m fundamentally committed to going to the end and trying to show the American people that the two-party system has become now a real impediment for focusing on the plight of poor and working people.”
West’s announcement that he would run as a third-party candidate, a move Sanders repeatedly refused during the last two presidential elections, drew criticism from establishment liberals. Others questioned West’s decision to affiliate with the People’s Party instead of a more established third-party or run as an independent.
‘Going straight in the Trump country’
Even as a slew of 2024 hopefuls enter the race, West said the rapidly growing field still lacks a “serious focus on the plight of the poor and working people.”
His campaign website advertises a broad set of issues that seemingly cater to both progressives and right-wing skeptics. West’s priorities range from using hand-counted paper ballots and stopping all foreign military aid to ending mass incarceration and limiting the reach of tech companies.
While his candidacy threatens to dilute Biden’s vote tally, West said part of his campaign strategy will be courting voters who previously supported former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
“I’m going straight in the Trump country,” West said. “I’m going to meet the old white working class brothers and sisters and tell them: ‘I know they’re wounded, I know their suffering is invisible, but don’t follow a xenophobic Pied Piper.’”
“I’m fundamentally concerned about their plight as well,” he added.
West is a Harvard-educated philosopher who currently serves as a professor at Union Theological Seminary. He previously had two stints as a professor at Harvard before leaving the university twice, most recently in 2021 after he was denied tenure.
On the campaign trail, West said he intends to argue that Trump is the truly out-of-touch candidate and intends to win the trust of Trump supporters by providing them with a different “lens through which to view their suffering.”
“It has to be genuine. I can’t go in arrogant and condescending to them,” he said. “But I’m also very clear that I don’t have one minute for any kind of hatred.”
Outside with unorthodox views
West also addressed some of his most controversial views, including his calls to disband NATO and halt all foreign military aid.
West criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also claimed that the “expansion” of NATO put pressure on Russia.
West also discussed his recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which he praised Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ for his defense of the Western canon in education.
DeSantis has come under fire from critics for making changes to education in grade schools and colleges and universities. In April, the DeSantis administration expanded a Florida law to ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity up to the 12th grade.
Dubbing himself a “jazz man in the world of politics,” West said the op-ed reflected his ability to “agree with someone even at the same time I have profound disagreement.”
“Now, I happen to agree with him about two percent of the time,” West said of DeSantis. “And 98 percent of the time − on his attacks on critical race theory, and his attacks on precious trans, and his using of xenophobic issues to mobilize and polarize the population − of course, that’s just for me typical, ugly, right-wing tactics.”
Going after the front-runners
West repeatedly singled out Biden and Trump, the front-runners of their respective parties and the two candidates he expects to face in the general election.
“I view Trump as really moving in a neo-fascist direction,” West said. “Then with Biden − he’s certainly better than the Republicans − but when it comes to the plight of poor and working people, it’s secondary and tertiary.”
“He’s still too tied to Wall Street. He’s still too tied to the Pentagon with military expansion, and he’s still too tied to the corporate elite across the country and the world,” West added.
Demanding more “moral substance and political courage,” West blasted the Biden administration for not doing more to support the Black voters who helped elect Biden in 2020.
“I’m not the kind of Black politician who is into representation,” he said. “You can end up with a highly multiracial team, but the team in its multiracial composition is still viewing poor and working people as afterthoughts.”
West said he hopes his bid for president will reintroduce the U.S. to a new, better version of itself.
“Trump is not the best,” West said. “Biden is not the best of America.”
West expects to make that case while standing on a debate stage with the Democratic and Republican nominees.
“That’s where we’re headed, my brother,” West said.
