West, a 70-year-old professor, activist and independent presidential candidate who faces dire odds, launched scathing attacks on his opponents and former allies in a lengthy interview Monday with The Washington Post, promising that ‘he would not withdraw or that he would not withdraw. support any other presidential candidate even if their campaign fails to catch fire.
“The crisis in the Republican Party, the weakening and neo-fascism of Trump on the one hand, and now the Democratic establishment, especially around Gaza,” mean he must stay in the race, West said. “We just have to be true to ourselves.”
Dressed in his signature black three-piece suit and gold cufflinks engraved with the outlines of Africa, West dismissed Biden’s growing support among progressive leaders, who have argued that even if they don’t agree on everything, a second Biden term is better than a Trump comeback. West’s salt-and-pepper Afro trembled as he decried the voters’ options.
“I consider both to be completely unacceptable,” West said.
The Biden, Trump and Kennedy campaigns and Sanders’ Senate office did not respond to requests for comment on West’s criticism. Stein’s campaign manager, Jason Call, encouraged West to reconsider his opposition to the possibility of joining with another left-leaning candidate to increase his support.
West announced his candidacy for president before Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, but said he had since felt his voice was needed to bring attention to the Palestinians and other issues he gives priority. While West is far behind Biden and Trump in national polls, he has gained a large following after decades of activism and his high-profile support for Sanders in the Vermont independent’s presidential run. And West is speaking directly to the group of progressive voters – many of whom are young and non-white – which Biden struggled to bring to justice.
In the meantime, Biden-aligned Democrats have accused West of siphoning off Democratic support, thereby helping Trump. West rejected those arguments, saying voters were tired of both Trump and Biden.
“Both sides are beyond redemption,” he said.
West’s campaign said he qualified for the presidential ballot in five states. In Texas, where he doesn’t expect to qualify for the ballot, West is encouraging voters to write in on his behalf. And he remains hopeful that he will be able to run at the polls in other states.
West — who, after supporting Stein in 2016, publicly supported Biden in 2020 but said Monday he did not vote for him — cited the drastic reduction in child poverty attributed to a period of relief policy. pandemic as something he admired about Biden’s presidency. But he said Biden’s constructive domestic policies have been overshadowed by his role helping Israel in its war in Gaza.
“It seems like too little, too late,” West said.
Melina Abdullah, West’s running mate, professor and Black Lives Matter activist, agreed, saying she did not vote for Biden in 2020, but wrote in Julián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. This year, she heard progressive campus organizers “looking to vote For something.”
“I think that’s what our campaign is about,” she said.
West’s condemnation of the Democratic response to Israel extended to his once-close allies who supported Biden. He said he liked Sanders, who supported Biden, but has disagreements with him. West argued that Sanders, along with other progressives, have simply become cogs in the Democratic machine. In 2016, West campaigned for Sanders, headlining events in black communities and rallying left-wing support. But lately, West has said he hasn’t been as close to Sanders.
“It’s just long-distance love,” he said.
What is this distance?
“Vermont vanilla and Harlem chocolate,” he replied.
Among the third-party candidates, West expressed the greatest frustration with Kennedy’s stance on Gaza, citing his comments that the Palestinian people are “arguably the people most pampered by international humanitarian organizations” in December and that Israel is a “moral nation” in March. West said Kennedy invited him to speak at events on race and the environment. But now West has said he doesn’t recognize the other independent candidate.
“He seems so removed from the realities of suffering,” West said.
washingtonpost
