Cornel West is participating in the 2024 US presidential election. He announced his candidacy on June 5, 2023. On 10 April 2023, West chose academic and writer Melina Abdullah as his running mate.
Independent US presidential candidate Cornel West, a scholar, author and progressive activist, has launched his independent presidential campaign to break what he calls the two-party system of working for corporations, which he believes I profit from people and the planet alike.
A distinguished activist, writer, and philosopher, West received his doctorate in 1980 and has gone on to teach philosophy, religion, and African American studies at several colleges and universities, including most recently at Princeton and Harvard. Mainly focused on racial issues and discrimination across the country.
In June 2023, West announced his candidacy for president, initially saying he would run with the People’s Party. However, he has since changed his party affiliation several times—first to the Green Party and then as an independent candidate.
His team said in a statement at the time: “Democracy means more choices, not backroom deals; It means voting without embarrassing your conscience. A strong system is 100% focused on the people, not on the intricacies of internal party dynamics.”
During his campaign, Cornel West has often spoken about the civil rights movement, saying several times that his mission is to live up to the legacy of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. His key election points include the economy and foreign policy.
Cornelius West has taken the position during his presidential campaign that it is long past time to stop the ongoing game of ping pong between Republicans and Democrats, while millions of our friends and neighbors, housing, health care, good jobs, clean They are deprived of air, clean water, nutritious food and healthy environment.
The 71-year-old candidate’s agenda includes slashing the U.S. military budget, dismantling NATO, and ending U.S. military aid to countries that have committed war crimes.
Cornell West has vowed to stop sending weapons to support Ukraine’s military and instead ‘invest in peacebuilding’. He also proposes to stop funding Israel’s military.
Cornell West wants to lift the US trade embargo on Cuba and remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In the United States, independent presidential candidate Cornel West has called for raising the federal minimum wage from seven dollars to 25 cents an hour to $27 an hour, providing free health care, and access to public and community colleges. It is proposed to make it free. They also want to dismantle US Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as demilitarize it.
West is an academic and activist, serving as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He has previously taught at Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University, among others. West has published twenty books, including Race Matters (1993), Democracy Matters: Winning the War Against Imperialism (2004) and Black Prophetic Fire (2014).
West was born in 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and grew up in Sacramento, California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern languages and literature from Harvard University in 1973, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 1980.
After receiving his doctorate, West began his academic career as an assistant professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He went on to teach at Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Paris, and Princeton University. After leaving his post at Harvard University, West became the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary in 2021.
During his career, West published 20 books, including Race Matters (1993), Democracy Matters: The Fight Against Imperialism (2004) and Black Prophetic Fire (2014). Encyclopaedia Britannica described his published work as “elaborate in character, eclectic, original and provocative.” A number of his books analyze issues of race, class, and justice or trace the history of philosophy, usually based on a political perspective. “On a philosophical trend informed by the tradition of democratic socialism, a Christian moral sensibility, and American pragmatism.”
West participated in political activism throughout his career. West served as honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests, and served as a senior adviser to Bill Bradley in the 2000 presidential election. In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, West supported the candidacy of Bernie Sanders (I).
West announced on October 5, 2023 that he was running as an independent candidate. Maghrib had previously said on June 13 that he would seek the Green Party nomination, when he initially announced his candidacy as the People’s Party candidate.
West chose academic and author Melina Abdullah (I) as his running mate on 10 April 2023.
Regarding Cornel West’s participation in the presidential election, the Zee Network wrote in one of its publications:
“Third-party candidates and independents are nonetheless dangerous to corporate-aligned Republicans and Democrats alike, because they expose the political bankruptcy, dishonesty, and corruption of the duopoly.” This exposure, if allowed to stand, will likely fuel a widespread movement to reduce the cruelty on both sides. The Republican and Democratic parties, therefore, conduct constant media campaigns to discredit their third-party and independent rivals.
You’ll hear far more truth, for example, about the apartheid state of Israel and the plight of Palestinians from Cornel West than from any Republican or Democratic candidate, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who supports him.
The ruling corporate parties are well aware that they have more wars, more austerity, more government control and intrusion into our lives, more tax breaks for Wall Street and corporations, and more for working men and women. It has little to offer the despondent public except misery.
No Republican or Democratic presidential candidate has any intention of stopping corporate looting. They will not stop the fossil fuel industry or combat environmental pollution. They will not rebuild our decaying infrastructure and failing education system. They will not reform a profit-seeking health system or restore our right to privacy by stopping wholesale government surveillance. They will not legally establish public financing of elections to prevent bribery, which defines electoral office. They will not raise the minimum wage. They will not end our constant wars.
Third parties and independents, even if they poll in the single digits, are a threat to the corporate duopoly (two-party system) because they support reforms, such as raising tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, that have broad public support. Got it. They expose the corruption of a system that would collapse without the funding of billionaires and corporations. War, trade policies, militarized police, suppression of the minimum wage, hostility to unions, abrogation of civil liberties, exploitation of the public by big banks, credit card companies, big pharma and the health care industry – almost every major The problem is. There is little or no difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Monolithic power always confuses privilege with moral and intellectual superiority. It silences critics and reformers. It champions bankrupt ideologies, such as neoliberalism, to justify its omnipotence. It promotes intolerance and a desire for autonomy. Throughout history, these closed systems, whether monarchies or autocracies, become hotbeds of greed, plunder, mediocrity, and oppression. They inevitably lead to tyranny or revolution. There are no other options. Voting for Biden and the Democrats will accelerate that process. Voting for Cornell will negate that.
