VOA talks to 3rd party US presidential candidates

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have spent the past few months battling for the White House, and experts say votes for third-party candidates could be a deciding factor in who becomes America’s next president.

With the latest polls showing Harris and Trump deadlocked in battleground states around the country, ballots cast for third-party candidates Jill Stein of the Green Party, independent Cornel West and Libertarian Chase Oliver could be enough to tip the scales.

VOA Persian spoke with all three of them. Your responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein

VOA: During one of his last campaign rallies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump praised you, saying he loved the Green Party and that you might be one of his favorite politicians. What do you think about this?

Jill Stein: I make about as much of that as I do of Donald Trump’s assessment of climate change, which is that he kind of believes the opposite of reality. I am in this race to provide an alternative to the bought and paid for two parties that serve Wall Street and the war contractors and certainly not the American people. So I don’t have much respect for Donald Trump’s political strategies or his values.

VOA: How much support do you expect to receive in battleground states like Michigan? There were some polls that indicated that you have the support of over 40% of the Arab American population there.

Stein: Exactly what the numbers will be depends on how many turn up to vote. It depends on how strong it is, not only the Muslim population, but also many African Americans and Hispanics and young people who feel that they don’t have a future under Kamala Harris and they don’t have a future under Donald Trump. At this point it is too early to tell. We ourselves do not work strictly on the basis of opinion polls. We are really in this based on principle and for the long term. We would be happy if we cut 5% in the national poll in the national results, but it is very hard to say at this stage.

VOA: What would be your stance on Iran’s government?

Stein: I think we should open the door to negotiations with Iran. Iran has elected a new president who is said to be moderate and interested in improving relations with the West, and we need to look into that. I think the most critical thing in the Middle East right now is to resolve this expanding war and Bibi (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s intention to create a wider war and draw the United States into it. I think it is the biggest threat to peace in the Middle East right now and has the potential to grow into a conflict even bigger than the Middle East.

Independent candidate Cornel West

VOA: How many states allowed you to have your name on the ballot and why didn’t others?

Cornel West: We have 16 states where we have direct access to ballots. We have 24 states where we have writ access and that required petitions and signatures. So it took a lot of work on behalf of great volunteers. But it was very difficult. It’s been a huge fight, but we’re turning the corner.

VOA: How different will your policies be compared to what we hear from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump?

West: Martin Luther King (Jr.) said that militarism, racism, poverty and materialism are the four forces that are draining the democratic energy from the American social experiment. I take his criticism of militarism very seriously. I see it as a critique of American foreign policy, where we are so eager to create these lethal armed forces instead of engaging in wise diplomatic processes. And then there would be no genocide. I would have embargoed any kind of military or financial support to Israel as it was very clear that they were exposing this kind of massive massacre of innocent people, especially innocent children and women and men.

The same would be the case in relation to being able to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. The same would be true of trying to be more diplomatic with China. I see Kamala Harris as a militaristic, black woman. That is, she is willing not just to provoke, but to pressure (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. And I think that Putin himself is still very much a gangster and a war criminal in his own way, but he is right – Russia has a right to security. And the same is the case with China. There is too much provocation and I think it is moving us towards World War 3 the same way Trump is moving us towards Civil War 2 at home. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to provide some kind of alternative to Trump and (U.S. President Joe) Biden.

And then when Biden had his LBJ moment (referring to Biden’s poor debate performance) something that we talked about many, many months ago, we just predicted that Harris is now following up on the same militarism in Gaza. And of course genocide, the crime of genocide, is a litmus test of morality in any nation, any country, and if you deny it, if you enable it, it’s a sign that you don’t have a moral fiber in your military policy.

VOA: Many people in the occupied West Bank are alarmed by Tehran’s support for militants in Gaza. How do you see this considering the moral aspects of your vision, your doctrine and your politics?

West: Malcolm X used to say, I am for truth, whoever is for it, and justice, whoever supports it. People can actually support mere movements for motives that are themselves highly suspect. When the French supported the American revolutionaries when Lafayette came to the United States, it was partly because the French were facing the British in Europe, they didn’t have a whole lot of solidarity with these colonists who were reacting against the British Empire. … The Soviet Union supported the freedom struggles in Africa. It wasn’t always because they just love Africans so much. It was anti-US. They had a cold war going on and their policy was strategic and tactical that way. The same would be true of Iran in relation to Palestinians.

So I think we have to be very truthful about the ways in which the motives may not always be attractive, but when you’re a people like the Palestinians at this moment, if their backs are against the wall, they need help from anybody , and it is very important that people highlight their situation so that their babies are not crushed. But that doesn’t mean that those who support them always have the right motives, and so we can still be critical of what those motives are.

Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver

VOA: In your platform you mentioned that Libertarians seek the United States at peace with the world. How different will your foreign policy be?

Chase Oliver: It would be a drastic difference than what the status quo has been, certainly since I’ve been an adult. Since I’ve grown up, let’s just call it the post-9/11 War on Terror kind of foreign policy thinking that we’ve had, which I think is rooted in ideas that are very black and white. Either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.

The best way to solve a problem is through a preventive war or by increasing our military presence in the region to flex our muscles. And what I think it’s done is actually created additional instability, particularly in the Middle East, which I don’t think has been successful despite the trillions of dollars that we’ve spent in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t think you can say that any of these nations are particularly bastions of democracy, or that the region itself is now more stable than it was.

And so for me, I would say let’s remove our military footprint and start flexing our diplomatic muscles. Let’s start meeting with world leaders directly, one on one. Let’s start forming coalitions around peaceful ideas and free trade and voluntary exchange to break down barriers between our nations so we can have cultural exchanges with each other. I think those are the ideas that we really need to push, and not a militarized foreign policy that has destroyed the idea of ​​the United States being the world’s enforcer.

VOA: So you don’t see America as the leader of the free world with its responsibilities?

Oliver: I absolutely see America as the leader in terms of the world’s markets, the world’s economic engine, the world’s diplomatic arm. But it doesn’t have to come by using the world’s military power. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We have a very powerful military that can defend ourselves and ultimately, if there was a need, and if Congress declared a war, fight a war anywhere in the world with absolute certainty that we could dominate our adversary . But you don’t flex your muscles like that around the world. It is not a position of strength. When you use military power to push your agenda, it’s actually a weak position, because good ideas shouldn’t require force, and you should be able to work diplomatically throughout the world.

And I recognize that the world is not perfect. The world does not lack violence. The world is not short of bad people, especially governments around the world that represent good people. And Iran is no different. Iran’s government is despicable. They abuse their people. They curtail their rights. But the people of Iran are good, innocent people who do not deserve to have things like airstrikes and missiles raining down on them because of the evil of their government. And I hope that eventually we can liberalize the world more towards more liberalized things like freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom of religion. But it doesn’t just come from us knocking people down.

VOA: How difficult is it to run as a third-party candidate?

Oliver: Running as an alternative party candidate has many challenges because the two mainstream parties have a lot of built-in power, both in the number of elected officials they have, as well as things like taxpayer-funded primaries. So they’re basically taking taxes out of my wallet to fund primaries that help advance the candidates who are Republican and Democrat.

And as libertarians we are a bit stuck there. So there are a lot of challenges, especially around things like access to ballots. There are many solutions. And in fact, a big part of my platform is a thing called suffrage, which will open up this process not only to Libertarians like myself, but all sorts of other alternative parties that really need to have their voices heard.