By Rin Lamy, Delta College Student Submission
America has had a long history of political parties coming into favor, out of favor, changing their platforms, and being absorbed into other political parties. Why our presidential choices every four years always come down to two main parties is a long, complicated story, but the reality is that they are never the only two political parties. We don’t have to settle for voting for a candidate we don’t believe in if there is someone who represents our values better. Who are the other presidential candidates of 2024?
Chase Oliver – Libertarian
Chase Oliver is a 39-year-old Libertarian candidate from Atlanta, Georgia. It is not often we have such a young candidate since most political candidates seem to have an entire political career behind them before their party nominates them to run for president. Really, the minimum age required to be eligible to run for president is just 35. Oliver speaks to the younger crowd just by default of his age, but don’t let his age fool you as he joined the Libertarian party back in 2010. In 2020 he ran for Congress, and in 2022 he ran for US Senate.
Oliver wants to give the power back to the people by letting people exercise their spending power to decide what companies stay in business and stop special interest groups from driving the country further in debt. He cites government overreach for many of the issues we are dealing with today including the failure of our health care system, our judicial system, and impeding on our privacy. Learn more about his platforms on his official campaign page.
Jill Stein – Green Party
Jill Stein from Massachusetts is running for president for the third time. She is a member of the Green Party, and she wants us all to have free healthcare, affordable utilities, better public schools, and other amazing things. It looks like you won’t be able to vote for her if you live in Nevada because the Supreme Court has votes to keep her off the ballot.
Dr. Cornel West – Justice For All Party
Dr. Cornel West is a former professor of philosophy at Harvard and Princeton Universities. He has written 20 books, and he wants to fight for your equality and free thinking. After previously attempting to obtain a Green Party nomination, he announced his formation of the Justice For All Party January 31, 2024. Dr. West wants to repair our nation by solving homelessness and poverty in ways that, he says, cannot be done with our current two-party system. Don’t take my word for it, more on him on his campaign’s website.
Randal Terry – Constitution Party
Randal Terry is an anti-abortion religious conservative candidate out of Tennessee and the founder of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion foundation. He has proudly been arrested 49 times, and has the goal of raising an army of “righteous leaders.”
Joseph Kishore – Socialist Equality Party
Joseph Kishore is running as the candidate for the working class, opposed to the dominance of the two main parties. One of his main platforms is he wants to take money out funding war and put it back into our public services. Kishore has a been a member of the Socialist Equality party since 1999. To learn more about his opposition to the status quo, check out his campaign page.
How to Choose
There are likely going to be various candidates on the ballots in different states. There is also still plenty of time for candidates to drop out of the race, and like Robert F. Kennedy, they may still appear on the ballot anyway. It’s true that if you vote for a third party, they still likely won’t become president. But it is also true that voting for a third party will disrupt and anger the two major parties, so your vote is not wasted. Every vote for a candidate that is not in one of the major parties still takes away the amount of votes those candidates can get. So if enough people vote for a different candidate, they can still influence who might win president.
If enough people vote for a specific third-party candidate there is a chance that their platform might get more attention to still help reform our country. So, if you like what a candidate stands for, then vote for them. And if you don’t want someone to be president, then don’t vote for them. Choosing the lesser of two evils and picking a candidate you don’t like is how we can make sure that our voices will never ever be heard or taken seriously. It almost seems like it doesn’t matter what a candidate does anymore because people are just voting for the party they are in.
It is not the political party that is going to be president, but the president that is going to be president. What loyalty does a candidate owe their party after they have achieved the maximum office? None. Perhaps we should choose the candidate we think is going to be loyal to the people, not loyal to their party.
