Thousands view online meeting with SEP presidential candidates

Five weeks before the US presidential elections, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) held a significant online meeting Monday night titled, “The Socialist Perspective in the 2024 Elections.”

Joseph Kishore, the party’s presidential candidate, and Jerry White, the vice-presidential candidate, spoke at the event, which was moderated by SEP National Committee member Andre Damon.

Live-streamed simultaneously across multiple social media platforms and viewed by thousands, the meeting served as a forum for the SEP candidates to directly address questions from workers and youth about the party’s socialist perspective for the 2024 elections and beyond.

The speakers characterized the 2024 election as a “crisis election” with the convergence of multiple interconnected crises of capitalism, including the growing danger of a world war, the rise of fascism, attacks on democratic rights, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the deepening climate catastrophe. The candidates highlighted the SEP campaign’s focus on building a socialist movement in the working class to address these critical issues.

“We are now just five weeks until the election,” Kishore said, “and the situation globally and domestically is characterized by an escalating crisis and global war,” orchestrated above all by American imperialism. 

The eruption of imperialist war

Explaining the connection between the genocide in Gaza and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, both Kishore and White emphasized that the seemingly separate global conflicts are actually interconnected products of the eruption of imperialist war, spearheaded by American imperialism.

Kishore pointed to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, backed by the US, which he said “has officially killed 41,000 Palestinians.” He warned that “the genocide is now developing into a broader war throughout the Middle East,” noting the Israeli government’s recent bombings of Lebanon and assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Kishore argued that Israel's actions are in the interest of US imperialism and its pursuit of resources, saying, “what is in the Middle East is oil, gas, resources.” Pointing to the war in Ukraine, Kishore noted that the US and NATO powers are currently discussing “imminent decisions on allowing Ukraine to launch NATO weapons deep inside Russian territory,” which “would raise the very likelihood of a direct war between Russia and NATO, with all the consequences that that entails.”

White condemned the US government's role in fueling the conflict, stating, “Harris has made it absolutely clear, she said, ‘we will make sure that Israel has the weapons to defend itself,’ that the American military will be the most lethal in the world.”

White stressed that both the Democrats and Republicans are warmongers, adding, “Trump is no pacifist. He of course was behind the assassination of Soleimani and he was behind the massive continued funding of the wars.”

Attacks on democratic rights and the danger of fascism

The speakers also addressed the danger of a fascist movement in the US and the escalating attacks on democratic rights, particularly on college campuses. They pointed to the case of Momodou Taal, a Cornell University student facing deportation for participating in protests against the Gaza genocide.

Kishore condemned the attack on Taal, stating, “He’s being targeted because of his opposition to genocide. It's really an outrageous attack on democratic rights. He had participated in protests against military contractors, including by the way Boeing,” referring to the 33,000 Boeing workers are on strike.

Both Kishore and White highlighted the broader implications of this case and other attacks on democratic rights, arguing that the attack on Taal and students represent a dangerous precedent and a threat to the working class.

White drew parallels to historical repression, observing, “It reminds me, when I was in Seattle, I did a video on the great general strike of 1919. During World War I and in the aftermath, it was the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson that carried out mass deportations, and the first Red Scare to attack the industrial workers of the world, opponents of the war through mass roundups and censorship.”

“This is what they're trying to do,” White said, “and it's being carried out once again by the Democratic Party in total alliance with the most right-wing, really antisemitic Republicans.”

Both SEP candidates argued that the attacks on democratic rights are not merely an abstract threat but have concrete implications for the working class. The same repressive measures being used against students and activists, they warned, will be used against workers who organize and fight for their rights.

White also warned, “The fact is that Trump is able to get a certain hearing because of the anger with the Democratic Party, including anger with war.” He argued especially that Trump is a dangerous demagogue who is exploiting social grievances to build a fascist, anti-immigrant movement.

“In our campaign,” White added, “we emphasize the necessity for the international unity of workers against the fascist agitation of Trump and to build a powerful political movement of the working class to solve the social crisis through a socialist program.”

Rejection of “lesser evilism” and the two-party system

Kishore and White also emphasized the need for workers to reject both corporate-controlled parties of the ruling class, a cornerstone of the SEP’s program. The candidates noted that both Democrats and Republicans are beholden to the interests of the capitalist class, despite their tactical differences.

Kishore explained that the Democratic Party, which claims to oppose Trump and present a more humane alternative, in reality is just as committed to war and austerity as the Republicans. “One should not in the course of this election at all forget that the Biden-Harris Administration is directly responsible for arming, financing and politically justifying the genocide in Gaza, along with the whole political establishment,” Kishore said.

Expanding on this critique, Kishore characterized the Democratic Party’s core agenda as “war,” directly implicating them in the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza and the escalating tensions with Russia and China. He further argued that the Democrats are complicit in suppressing dissent, stating that they “do everything they can to prevent any opportunity for the broad social discontent to find political expression” outside the confines of the two-party system.

He noted in particular the role played by the Democratic Party to obstruct the SEP and third party participation in the electoral process. Kishore noted the Democrats’ long history of challenging the SEP’s ballot access and attempting to keep other candidates, including Jill Stein and Cornell West, off the ballot as well. These actions, Kishore argued, expose the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the US political system, which actively works to silence opposition and maintain the dominance of the two corporate-controlled parties.

Both White and Kishore also highlighted the recent Hurricane Helene as a stark manifestation of the “intensifying social crisis” plaguing the US as well, to which neither party has any answer. The candidates argued that this disaster lays bare the profound poverty and crumbling infrastructure now prevalent across the US, the product of the ruling class’s prioritization of war and corporate profits over the social needs of the population. They explicitly linked this neglect to the massive financial resources funneled into imperialist wars.

“The Biden Harris administration,” White stated, “will do nothing to make people whole” after Hurricane Helene.

The COVID-19 pandemic

Turning their attention to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Kishore and White were scathing in their critique of the US government’s response. They argued that both the Trump and Biden administrations have consistently prioritized corporate profits over public health and have normalized mass death.

Challenging the prevailing narrative that the pandemic is over, Kishore noted, “The pandemic is ongoing. I was just looking at the latest figures. There are presently 669,000 infections per day in the US. For most of the past several months, it’s been over 1 million new infections a day.”

Kishore condemned the “systematic effort to prevent any understanding of the actual science” of the pandemic, as well as the dismantling of all public health measures by the Biden-Harris administration. This deliberate obfuscation of science, he argued, has had devastating consequences, particularly for the working class, who have borne the brunt of the pandemic.

White, drawing from his experience speaking with workers on the picket line, added, “I had a discussion with an Eaton aerospace worker on the picket line on Saturday and he related that when the pandemic first hit they were told that they were ‘essential workers’ in a company that makes defense manufacturing goods, but were not provided adequate protection.”

The capitalist system, driven by the relentless pursuit of profit, both candidates argued, is incapable of effectively addressing the ongoing danger of the global pandemic and its devastating impacts on the population.

The urgent need for an international socialist movement

The event concluded by stressing that the only way to stop war, fascism, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and to defend democratic and social rights, is through the building of an independent, socialist movement of the working class.

Responding to a question from the audience about uniting the working class, Kishore stated, “the working class is objectively united in the process of production, not only in the United States but throughout the world.” He argued that the working class has more in common with each other than with the ruling class of their own country and stressed the need for workers to unite across national borders to fight for their common interests.

“Everything in the objective situation,” Kishore warned, “the catastrophe that capitalism is leading mankind towards, the response to that is the need for the building of a socialist movement. ‘Socialism or barbarism’ as Rosa Luxemburg put it some time ago. That’s what confronts us.”

Kishore urged workers to get involved in the SEP campaign. “We’re building the Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality,” he said, “to prepare the working class for what is going to come after these elections.”

Kishore emphasized that time is of the essence, warning, “We don’t have endless time either, the ruling class is hurtling towards world war, it’s in the initial stages of hurtling towards dictatorship, an assault on democratic rights, the escalating war on the working class.”

“The working class has got to fight back,” he said, “but for that it requires a political perspective, a political leadership. That’s what we’re fighting to develop through the Socialist Equality Party election campaign.”

The speakers urged listeners to get involved with and donate to their campaign, in order to build an international socialist movement against capitalist barbarism.