# Joseph Kishore

Joseph Kishore (born 1980) is an American Marxist and writer who has been active in the Trotskyist movement since 1999. He is the National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and a writer for the World Socialist Web Site.
In February 2024, SEP (US) National Chairman David North announced that Kishore was selected by the SEP as its presidential candidate in the 2024 election. His running mate for vice president was Jerry White.
Kishore's political program includes the expropriation of the largest banks and corporations (to be placed under worker control), the end to the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, the immediate withdrawal of all US troops and military aid abroad, and the establishment of basic social rights of the working class (including the right to a livable income, leisure, and decent and affordable housing).

## Career

Kishore became active in the socialist movement in 1999 while attending Rutgers University in New Jersey. He joined the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (then called Students for Social Equality), and then later joined the Socialist Equality Party.
Kishore was first elected National Secretary of the SEP in 2008, at the party's founding congress, and has been re-elected to the position since then. In 2020, Kishore was the presidential nominee of the SEP in 2020 United States presidential election with running mate Norissa Santa Cruz. He was selected again in 2024 to be the SEP Presidential candidate.

## Political activity

Kishore writes and comments on both American and international matters, as well as on science. He has written and commented on US labor struggles, including the auto industry and public education, as well as the history of the socialist movement.
As National Secretary of the SEP, Kishore has participated in and led many of the party's interventions and campaigns in the working class, including among autoworkers, train drivers, health care workers, and teachers.
Kishore participated in the party's intervention in the Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit, an SEP campaign in defense of the Detroit Institute of Arts and investigation into the cuts to public programs imposed by the 2013 Detroit bankruptcy.
He has also regularly spoken at the International May Day Online Rally hosted annually by the International Committee of the Fourth International since 2014.
Kishore has both written on and participated in struggles relating to the defense of historical truth. Kishore spoke at and helped organize centenary lectures on the October Revolution in 2017. He also wrote a socialist critique of the New York Times' 1619 Project, which he described as "a form of historical revisionism and contemporary politics... aimed at elevating race as the central social and political category—indeed, that is aimed at promoting racial conflicts."
Kishore has participated in the anti-genocide protests across the country, including speaking at rallies at Wayne State University and in Washington D.C. to protest Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

## Views

Kishore advocates for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of an international, socialist society. He stated in a 2020 interview that the working class "must take political power in their own hands, seize the wealth hoarded by the rich and turn the giant banks and corporations into democratically-controlled utilities."
The political program of Kishore's presidential campaign argued that "not since the end of World War II in 1945 has the threat of a catastrophic third world war been so imminent as it is today. ... The crisis of global capitalism finds its most concentrated expression in the United States. Bourgeois democracy in America is on its last legs." His platform calls for the "expropriation of the banks and financial institutions," and the "nationalization of the major corporations."
Kishore espouses opposition to both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Kishore characterizes the Republican party as "fascistic," but argues against groups that promote the "lesser evilism of the Democratic Party." In his 2020 presidential campaign he argued,
   "Far from avoiding the danger of reaction and dictatorship, the politics of “lesser evilism” in its own way intensifies it. It serves to disarm the working class and leave it completely unprepared for what is to come, whoever is in the White House come January. The task is not to offer superficial and false solutions to the crisis, but to base one's politics on a scientific analysis of the nature of the crisis and the independent interests of the working class."
Kishore advocates new social rights for working class, including the right to: a livable income, a safe working environment, clean water and air, food, safe and affordable housing, high quality education, transportation, healthcare, culture, retirement, and full democratic rights.

### American working class

Kishore says that the politics of the Socialist Equality Party align with the interests of the American working class. In accepting the SEP nomination, Kishore said
   "The two likely candidates of the Democrats and Republicans, President Biden and ex-President Trump, represent two factions of the capitalist corporate-financial oligarchy. They speak for, and act on behalf of, the billionaires, the super-wealthy Wall Street shareholders, the corporate interests, and the military-industrial complex and their program of war, dictatorship, inequality and poverty. As the SEP's candidates, Jerry [White] and I represent the interests of the working class, the vast majority of the population."
In a speech on May Day in 2014, Kishore said:
   "The American working class is the sleeping giant of world politics. The financial aristocrats confront no more powerful adversary than the workers of this country."
In 2024, Kishore gave a speech at the Haymarket Memorial in Chicago, as part of May Day celebrations. Kishore noted,
   "The International Committee of the Fourth International is marking May Day, the international day of working class solidarity. But what many workers may not know is that May Day had its origins here at Haymarket, and in the Eight Hour Day movement that emerged after the Civil War."
Recounting the history of the Haymarket Massacre, Kishore noted that the origin of May Day was bound up with the Second International's decision for "a great international demonstration" to "mark the recent American events."

### Accusations of Israeli genocide in Gaza

As part of an international tour in his presidential campaign, Kishore delivered a speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 10 December 2023 on the subject of Israel's war in Gaza. Kishore termed the war waged by Israel a "genocide," citing a contemporary estimate of the death toll in Gaza as 17,000 people, including women and children. Kishore argued that this had "the full support of the Biden administration in the United States" and stated that "the war on Gaza and the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia are in fact two fronts in a rapidly escalating world war."
Speaking on 24 July 2024 at a rally staged in Washington DC to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before the US legislature, Kishore criticized US Senator Bernie Sanders and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's attitude to the war, claiming they "combine insincere criticism with absolute support for the Democratic Party." He emphasized that his election campaign focused on appealing to the working class not the Democratic Party, stating, “The Socialist Equality Party and our election campaign insist that it is not a matter of appealing to the war criminals to change their course. No, we do not plead with the criminals to cease their crimes.”

### Russian invasion of Ukraine

Kishore describes the Zelenskyy administration of Ukraine as a "far-right regime." He accuses the U.S. and NATO of goading Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While he opposed Putin's invasion, describing Putin as a "reactionary... chauvinist," he argues that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war, instigated by the U.S. and NATO against the Russian Federation, in which Ukraine and Ukrainian soldiers are used as fodder in attempt to weaken Russia thereby strengthening the US's geo-strategic position, particularly in regard to China. Kishore campaigned in 2024 for the release of Bogdan Syrotiuk, a Ukrainian Trotskyist who was imprisoned by the Zelensky administration for his socialist opposition to the war and both the Zelensky and Putin governments.

### Democrats and Republicans

Speaking about the 2024 American presidential election at a 2023 May Day Rally, Kishore stated, "the population of the United States is to be presented with the 'choice' between perhaps the two most hated political figures: the current president, Biden, an aging octogenarian who can think of nothing but war, and the fascist conspirator himself, Trump." Kishore argued that "unending war... has not ushered in an 'American century,' but a series of ever more extreme economic and political crises," referring to January 6 as an "attempted fascistic coup, spearheaded by the former president Trump."
Kishore insists that “there are two Americas. There is the America of Wall Street, the Pentagon, the CIA, the plutocracy, which lies, threatens and bullies. And there is the America of the working class, the bearer of all that is progressive, the true hope for the future.” Kishore says that the Democrats and Republicans are not opposed to one another, and that "Biden has worked to rehabilitate and strengthen the Republican Party."

### Immigration and open borders

Kishore published a statement denouncing what he termed an "anti-immigrant campaign spearheaded by Trump and his fascistic allies, with the complicity of Biden, Harris and the Democratic Party." Immigrants, Kishore argued, should "have the right to travel as they see fit. ... There are plenty of resources available to provide everyone, regardless of nationality or immigration status, a good-paying job, a home, free healthcare, free education, a clean environment, access to culture and a world free from imperialist war." Kishore advocated for the "dismantling of ICE, CBP, DHS—the entire border police state apparatus," and called for workers to put "an end to the nation-state system."

### Identity politics

Kishore has been critical of racial and gender-based identity politics, stating in 2019, "The politics of racial, gender and other forms of identity is the politics of the upper-middle class, of all races and genders. It is a mechanism for dividing the working class, subordinating it to the right-wing, pro-war politics of the Democratic Party, and a mechanism for carrying out bitter struggles within the top ten percent for access to positions in academia, corporate boardrooms and the state." Kishore's essay Race, Class, and Socialism appeared alongside interviews with historians Gordon Wood and James McPherson in a volume critiquing the New York Times' 1619 project from a socialist perspective.

### Internationalism

Kishore advocates for the union of workers internationally and opposes all forms of nationalist socialism. In speeches and radio interviews, Kishore has argued that workers in the United States have, fundamentally, the same political and economic interests as workers in other countries, including China, Europe, and elsewhere. Following the Trotskyist idea of Permanent Revolution, Kishore believes that socialists must adopt an international strategy to unite workers in every country against the capitalist system, opposing attempts to pit workers from one country against another.

### Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Kishore has described the Democratic Party US Senator Bernie Sanders and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as "channeling opposition into the Democratic Party." He wrote, "the fundamental fraud promoted by Sanders, along with individuals such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left and made a force for progressive change."

### Ending the COVID-19 pandemic

Kishore has expressed opposition to what he describes as the policy of "forever Covid," in which SARS-CoV-2 has been allowed to spread freely amid the collapse of public health measures. He argues that this policy has been fully implemented by the Biden administration, with the support of both the Democrats and Republicans. In June, during his 2024 presidential campaign, he exclaimed, "the SEP fights for a policy of global elimination—of COVID-19 and other viruses. The public health measures necessary to eliminate and eradicate deadly pathogens are well known. What prevents their implementation is the capitalist system and the interests of the ruling oligarchy." The Kishore campaign team uses N-95 masks, far-UV disinfection devices, and HEPA filters at their public meetings, to protect attendees from COVID-19 and other airborne pathogens.

### Capital punishment

Kishore issued a statement calling for "the abolition of the death penalty in all cases." The death penalty, he wrote, "was the most abhorrent expression of the American gulag that imprisons more than 2 million citizens and residents in its prisons and jails." He specifically demanded a stop the execution of Marcellus Williams, whom he termed "an innocent man on Missouri's death row."

## Ballot access: 2020 and 2024

In 2020, Kishore filed lawsuits in Michigan and California alleging that requirements to gather 200,000 signatures for ballot access was "effectively impossible" given the "ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the state's countermeasures to it." The lawsuits argued that "the outbreak of the coronavirus left [Kishore's campaign team] no choice but to cancel all subsequent public events and campaign activity, including ballot gathering and initiatives, so as to protect volunteers, staff and the public at large from spreading the coronavirus."
In the 2024 US Presidential Elections, Kishore was on the ballot in the states of Michigan, New Jersey, and Washington. His campaign achieved write-in status in the District of Columbia, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois's Cook County, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming. His campaign has argued that "third-party candidates face substantial barriers, including the requirement to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures just to appear on the ballot, as well as numerous legal and bureaucratic hurdles placed by the two capitalist parties."

## Selected writings

* The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (US) with David North
* The Crisis of the World Capitalist System: The Perspectives and Tasks of the Socialist Equality Party 2008-2010
* The Defense of Culture and the Crisis in Detroit