(NewsNation) — Cornel West is rejecting both major American political parties, running for the White House as a third-party candidate.
His reason?
“Both parties now stand in the way of coming to terms with the plight of poor and working people,” he said Thursday on “CUOMO.”
The 70-year-old activist announced his bid for president last week as a candidate for the People’s Party, but said Wednesday that he’ll seek the Green Party nomination.
West, who once endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primary, said his objective is simple: to change the tone of politics.
“We’re at a moment now, in fact, where we’ve got to get beyond the hatred and the revenge, and this is what the quest for truth and justice is all about,” West said. “We need a different spirit where we can engage with one another at a level of humanity, so I can come in and say, ‘Look, I don’t hate brother Trump, I just hate mendacity, I hate gangster behavior. I don’t hate brother Biden, I just hate hypocrisy.”
West faces long-shot odds, but with polls showing most Americans want neither President Joe Biden nor his predecessor Donald Trump to run again, the door has creaked open for third-party candidates and Democratic challengers.
The only other announced Democratic candidates are Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is polling at 16% in a RealClearPolitics average, and Marianne Williamson, who is polling at 7%. Biden is drawing 63% support.
West wants to take his message to “Trump country,” where he hopes to make inroads with conservatives.
“I’m gonna tell those white brothers and sisters, ‘I care about you, I know you’re wounded, you don’t need to follow a neo-fascist Pied Piper like brother Trump,'” West said. “There’s another way, there’s a way that will connect us together in our human solidarity.”
He criticized both Republicans and Democrats for not doing enough to help poor and middle-class Americans. In his campaign launch video, he said “neither party wants to tell the truth” about Wall Street, Ukraine, the Pentagon and Big Tech.
“Look at the debt ceiling agreement — pull from the poor, military expansion, both parties agree,” West said. “If the Democrats were concerned about a brother like me or any other voice, then they would have candidates that would speak to the needs of poor and working people.
“Every generation has to bear witness to the love that has been put in us, the courage that has been put in us, and we go against the grain of the hatred, against the grain of greed, and against the grain of the indifference, and that cuts across both parties.”