On Friday night, dozens of Rhode Island residents gathered in support of 2024 Presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz at the Southside Cultural Center.
Programming included chants, dancing, poetry and electronic music. Throughout the night, De la Cruz spoke in favor of politics grounded in socialist values, while a Palestinian flag hung in the background.
De la Cruz is the U.S. presidential nominee for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, alongside her running mate Karina Garcia. The two began their campaign in September 2023. A year later, De la Cruz and Garcia are on the ballot in 19 states, and have official write-in status in 23 others, according to their campaign.
De la Cruz, born to Dominican immigrants in the South Bronx, has spent 30 years as an organizer, especially in Washington Heights and the South Bronx.
PSL has nominated candidates for president, congress and various state- and local-level offices since 2008. No PSL candidate has won an election.
De la Cruz’s platform includes seizing large corporations, ending all U.S. aid to Israel and reducing the military budget. She also advocates for policies that prioritizes the needs of Black Americans, women, LGBTQ+ people and undocumented immigrants. De la Cruz also advocates for fighting climate change through socialist economic planning.
During the event, De la Cruz emphasized the urgency of a movement for systemic change, claiming that issues like education reform, wage growth and justice for Palestine would remain unattainable under capitalism. "We need to end capitalism before it ends us," she said in her speech.
Instead of focusing on winning the approaching election, De la Cruz has focused on organizing to end the Electoral College and two-party system.
De la Cruz also criticized the Democratic party. For De la Cruz, President Joe Biden’s actions related to the Israel-Hamas war have perpetuated a genocide, and Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s proposed economic policy is flawed in its support of capitalism.
Two audience members asked De la Cruz about working with other third-party candidates to challenge the country’s political system. While De la Cruz expressed respect for the other candidates, she highlighted that campaign regulations make any collaboration challenging.
De la Cruz ended her speech by urging her supporters to fight. “We need fighters, not people who are willing to give their vote every four years,” she said.
