Standing Together Against the Billionaire Class & their Twin Parties
The Claudia De la Cruz/Karina Garcia presidential campaign is excited to announce a pair of important agreements aimed at maximizing the impact of progressive candidates challenging the two-party system.
The Claudia-Karina campaign has achieved ballot status in 19 states and write-in status in an additional 24 states plus Washington, D.C., and in all these states we are calling on people to Vote Socialist! In the remaining states, we are encouraging our supporters to cast votes wherever possible for candidates against the genocide and the two parties of Wall Street. In Alaska, we are calling on our supporters to vote for Cornel West and Melina Abdullah of the Justice for All party, which is in turn calling on their supporters to vote for Claudia and Karina in Florida, Hawai’i, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In Montana and Arkansas, we are calling on our supporters to vote for Jill Stein and Butch Ware of the Green Party, which is calling on their supporters to write in Claudia and Karina in Indiana and North Dakota.
In Alaska, West/Abdullah is listed on the ballot but we are not, while the reverse is true in Florida, Hawai’i, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In Montana and Arkansas, Stein/Ware is listed on the ballot but we are not, while we have official write-in status in Indiana and North Dakota but Stein/Ware do not.
These agreements are based on shared principles. All three of our campaigns oppose the U.S. war machine and the genocide against Palestinians. We believe that the essentials of a life with dignity – like housing, healthcare, education and a job that pays a living wage – should be guaranteed rights. We are opponents of racism in all its forms and demand reparations for Black America. We share an understanding that the destruction of the environment is rooted in capitalist exploitation. That does not mean that we agree on all issues, or have precisely the same vision for the future. But these core values put us on the same side of the main battle of our time: the fight to end the dictatorship of the billionaire class and establish a new system where the people and planet come first.
This is a moment of crisis for working people. It has become next to impossible to afford the bare necessities, devastating natural disasters are taking place because of climate change, abortion rights are being shredded, and U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza is threatening to spark a massive regional war. But at the same time, the ultra-rich keep getting richer, and executives in the arms industry and fossil fuel corporations line their pockets while the world burns. This cannot go on – we need a new system!
And yet Democratic Party politicians have the nerve to call progressive third party campaigns “spoilers” who are helping Trump, as if they did not share responsibility for this horrific state of affairs in society that is pushing people to rightfully seek an alternative. Democrats and Republicans alike promise the world on the campaign trail, but never actually solve the problems they vow to address. Instead, they serve their true constituents on Wall Street and corporate boardrooms. It is both a moral and a practical imperative to break with the two-party system.
The fight for a better world will continue long past November 5. Having the largest possible vote for progressive third-party candidates is a crucial step. But what is most important is what we do after election day. The only way fundamental change has ever come about is when people organize and demand it, and fight with enough determination to overcome the obstacles put in their way by the rich and powerful. We look forward to building the broadest possible unity for the fight to come.
