Philosopher and political activist Dr. Cornell West has announced his candidacy for the 2024 Presidential Election.
West will run as a third-party candidate under the People's Party platform.
"I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself - fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all!" West wrote Monday morning, encouraging supporters to visit his website.
"In these bleak times, I have decided to run for truth and justice which takes the form of running for president of the United States as a candidate for the People's Party," West announced in the video. "I enter in the quest for truth. I enter in the quest for justice, and the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice — what I've been trying to do all of my life."
"I come from a tradition where I care about you. I care about the quality of your life," he continued, adding other concerns regarding access to a job with a living wage, decent housing, abortion rights, universal healthcare, climate change, and democracy.
"Democracy creates disruption. It creates an eruption. It creates an interruption," West said. "We're not talking about hating anybody, we're talking about loving. We're talking about affirming. We're talking about empowering those who have been pushed to the margins."
West criticized both dominant political parties for dishonesty regarding Wall Street, Ukraine, the Pentagon, and Big Tech.
"Do we have what it takes? We shall see," West concluded. "Some of us are going to go down fighting, go down swinging, with style and a smile. Accenting the best in you, and trying to tease out the best in me."
The People's Party platform supports policies that include the ban of corporate lobbying, term limits, and hand-counted paper ballots, along with guaranteeing quality education, housing, paid leave, and a living wage. The People's Party also supports Medicare for all, expansion of civil liberties, climate change reduction efforts, and is staunchly opposed to war.
West, 70, is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theology, where teaches courses on classics, philosophy, politics, cultural theory, literature, and music, according to his website. An author of 20 books and editor of 13, West is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.
