The Socialist Workers Party has no shot at winning. But it also has some surprising stances.

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I’m not generally the type to brag about having exclusives. But I will say that I am the only reporter in Pittsburgh who landed a wide-ranging interview with the Minnesotan vice presidential candidate who was in town this week.

OK, it wasn’t Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz. It was Dennis Richter, of the Socialist Workers Party. But still.

You probably haven’t heard Richter’s name, although he was knocking around town over Labor Day. You won’t see his name on the Pennsylvania ballot either: The SWP has a low profile compared to other left groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America, though it has nearly century-old roots and still publishes an actual wood-pulp-and-ink newspaper, The Militant. It sought ballot access in only a handful of states, and Pennsylvania wasn’t one of them.

As Richter told me, “We’re realistic about how far workers will get in the course of the next 60 days” between now and the November election. “We don’t see this as a short-term proposition.”

One might wonder: Why would a political reporter spend his time talking to a candidate with no chance of winning? Then again, one might also wonder: Why would a political reporter spend his time trying to find out what flavor of shake Tim Walz consumed? 

And at a time when politics feel as topsy-turvy as they do right now, it can be useful to have the perspective of someone who really is what many politicians claim to be: a perpetual outsider. Richter surely qualifies: He’s a native of Glencoe, Minnesota, who worked in airline food service before becoming the running mate of SWP presidential hopeful Rachele Fruit. And someone who stands outside that system can cast a different light on what is going on inside it.

For example, Richter says that the SWP sees Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s two-year-old invasion as “a fight for self-determination” to which “we would offer whatever support we could, in every way we could.” So, yes: We have reached the point in American politics at which a party that sees itself as the heir to the traditions of Lenin and Trotsky is more willing to defy the Russkies than, say, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

That said, Richter stresses that “our policy would have nothing to do with Biden’s policy with Ukraine. We would end sanctions against the Russian people. That does not advance the Ukrainian fight … nor does it really hurt [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin. It hurts the Russian people.”

And the Socialist Workers Party breaks with other socialist groups in the United States — as well as an organization that bears the same name in Britain — by supporting Israel in the war in Gaza.

Palestinians “have a just national cause,” Richter affirms, but that mission “is not being pursued through the leadership of Hamas,” which he called a “reactionary nationalist organization [whose defeat] can open up the prospects for the Palestinian people … and working people in the Middle East.”

If you are wondering how the SWP would resolve this crisis from the Oval Office, let’s just say that Richter “would start with the needs of toilers,” and things get pretty complicated after that. And suffice it to say that other socialist groups feel verrrrryyyyyy differently about this issue. There’s a long history of ideological divide on the left, to which the SWP has not been immune.

Starting with the needs of toilers, after all, can end up in some surprising places. On the one hand, Richter touted the revolutionary impulses of the rural working class — a group he said others on the left often see “as the problem. We know that not to be the case.” And during our talk he gave a shout-out to gun rights: “If you didn’t have a Second Amendment, you might not have the First Amendment.“

Yet he showed little interest in Donald Trump’s “America First” economic policies.

“Trump says he’s going to bring tariffs against Chinese products,” Richter says. “What’s that going to do to Walmart, where most of us have to shop?”

At the same time, Richter faults Biden’s 2022 move to avert a strike by railroad workers that officials feared would paralyze the economy.

“The greatest friend of labor ever, Joseph Biden, signed the legislation ordering them back to work,” he scoffed.

Richter had a similarly bipartisan dismissal of the political opposition — voiced by both Trump and Kamala Harris — to the proposed sale of U.S. Steel to Japanese-based Nippon Steel. After all, when you see the struggle between labor and capital as an international struggle, it hardly seems to matter which nation hosts the headquarters. And in truth: How loyal did early generations of American ownership prove to the region’s steel industry?

In any case, Richter said, “Economically, politically and morally the system is in crisis. … One job is all you should have to work — and be paid for it enough to live. [And] our foundation for the work we do today is [that] workers are in a mood to fight.

“Most of the people that we talk to are really turned off by both parties [and] don’t hear any proposals for how that’s going to change,” Richter added.

Of course, people who aren’t turned off by both parties probably aren’t talking to the SWP much. Polls suggest voter enthusiasm among core Republican and Democratic voters is high, while activists in both camps seem convinced the nation will crumble if the other side wins.

When the stakes feel that existential, it can seem self-indulgent to even consider third-party candidates. But with no spot on the ballot, the SWP can’t be accused of stealing votes from someone else, even assuming such an accusation is fair. It’s not like it’s going anywhere this fall … but on the other hand, it’s also not like the issues it raises are likely to go away either.