Biden gave his own speech from Union Station just before last November’s election, in which he led Democrats to a surprisingly strong showing, urging voters to reject political extremism and saying “democracy itself” is at stake.
Williamson, whose red, blue and black campaign signs bear the twin slogans of “New Beginning” and “Disrupt the System,” says he will campaign in early voting states on the 2024 election calendar.
That includes New Hampshire, which has threatened to derail the Democratic National Committee’s Biden-backed plan to lead South Carolina out of the nominating contest. Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire shunned Biden’s state’s unsanctioned primary, warning that if a challenger won it, the result would embarrass the sitting president — even though that challenger has no real shot at actually being the nominee.
Striking a defiant tone on Saturday, Williamson denounced “those who think they’re big in the room” and don’t take her candidacy seriously, declaring, “Let me in.”
“I have contested the presidential election before. I am not naive about these powers that have no intention of allowing anyone who does not align with their pre-determined agenda into this conversation,” he said. “I understand that only those who have previously rooted themselves in the car that brought us into this abyss will be considered worthy of bringing us out of it.”
Luke Stowell, 20, a musician and student at American University in Washington, who sat in the front row of Williamson’s announcement, said, “There’s a good message, I think, that defies all his prejudices and social structures. People on a daily basis.”
Seated next to him, American University law student Evan Claudio, 24, said that if he wins a second term, Biden will be in his late 80s by the time he leaves office, adding, “I think that’s concerning. “
He did not mention Biden by name in his speech, and although Williamson noted that Trump was not re-elected in 2020, he added that he had kept the country from going “over the cliff.”
Williamson said he opposed a free-market “attitude” and a corrupt political system, which he said prioritized greed above all else, “like a nuclear spray of economic injustice.”
“The American people have been trained to expect very little,” he said. “The American people are played.”
Williamson, a Texas native who now lives in Beverly Hills, California, is the author of more than a dozen books and ran an unsuccessful independent congressional campaign in California in 2014. Argues that the federal government should pay large financial reparations to black Americans as reparations for centuries of slavery and discrimination.
His most memorable moment of that campaign came when he made a call during a primary debate “Moral Awakening” But he dropped out of the race just before the leadoff Iowa caucuses began.
He said on Saturday that the nation was facing many challenges, “I am not saying that one person can fix it. Not even a president can fix that.
“But I’ll tell you something,” Williamson added. “A president who tells it like it is will do a lot of good.”
“Friend of animals everywhere. Devoted analyst. Total alcohol scholar. Infuriatingly humble food trailblazer.”