Socialist Equality Party Launches Campaign for US President

DETROIT - May 3, 2016 - PRLog -- The Socialist Equality Party announces that Jerry White, US labor editor for the World Socialist Web Site, is its candidate for president of the United States in the 2016 elections. His vice presidential running mate is Niles Niemuth.

The SEP campaign will seek to reach workers and youth who are looking for an alternative to big business politics, represented by the Democratic and Republican parties. The campaign will oppose both the likely nominees for these parties, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and build the SEP as the independent political party of the working class.

White recently visited Verizon picket lines in New York City and received a warm reception. "The SEP campaign will fight to unify all sections of the working class, in the US and internationally, in a common struggle against the corporations and the profit system," White said.

White said his campaign will answer the question on the minds of many workers and youth: What is socialism? White told students while campaigning in Boston this week: "My campaign is against capitalism and for socialism, where the working class will govern and have control of the industries and banks. That way, society will have the money for education, affordable housing, and basic things like health care and clean drinking water."

White noted that the growing interest in socialism has found expression in the campaign of Bernie Sanders, but that Sanders' role has been to channel opposition to capitalism back into the Democratic Party.

The election program of the SEP is centered on these demands:

1. Oppose US militarism! Stop the drive to World War III!

2. Put an end to poverty and social inequality!

3. Defend democratic rights! No to government spying and police violence!

Candidate bios

Jerry White, 56, is the US labor editor of the World Socialist Web Site. He joined the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, in 1979, while working at United Parcel Service and attending the City University of New York. For nearly four decades, as a writer and activist, White has played a major role in the struggles of the working class. He was the SEP's presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012.

Niles Niemuth, 28, was raised in a working-class family in Wisconsin and became a member of the SEP during the 2011 mass protests against budget cuts imposed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Niemuth joined the staff of the WSWS after completing his master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, where he specialized in African-American history. Niemuth has written extensively on US social conditions, working-class struggles and the government's assault on democratic rights.

For more information or to schedule an interview, please visit sep2016.com or call (313) 307-6708.