Weeks ago I wrote about about Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s assertion that due to DNC bureaucratic constraints, he might opt to run for president as an Independent. My view was that Trump supporters should hope that this comparatively reasonable son of a Democrat icon would do that. This week, RFK Jr. made good on that option, and the left’s media spinmeisters are gearing up to run interference.
Republicans should ignore what’s shaping up as the emergency narrative: that Kennedy will draw more votes from Trump than Biden. The strategey behind the message serves to further discredit RFK with the notion that he leans conservative. Newsmax commentator and host Dick Morris weighed in: his assessment is that Kennedy’s bid for independence would doom President Biden. I concur.
The idea that a GOP base that currently overwhelmingly favors Trump will somehow pivot away from MAGA to support RFK Jr.—no matter how reasonable he seems contrasted with incompetent and allegedly corrupt puppet Biden and his America-Last administration—is ludicrous. Polls that indicate that two-thirds of the American electorate favor a third party choice in 2024 must be leavened with the reality that the second it looks like Kennedy will spoil for either Biden or Trump, the third party option crowd will run for cover, back to the intractable polarity that secures the two-party system.
Kennedy’s an attractive candidate. He’s got the marquee name, and is far less frightening to moderates on both sides of the aisle than Trump or Biden, mostly because he comes across in interviews as a sensible traditionalist. His so-called “extreme” views on immunizations as relates to the pandemic don’t stack up as extreme as worried Democrats have characterized them. No one denies that the virus killed millions, but the fact that the populace was egregiously lied to by people like Anthony Fauci casts a shadow of doubt about the motivations the left has for marginalizing Kennedy. Something like 90 percent of the Covid deaths have been shown to be related to comorbidities, and yet the Democrats shut-down and restricted everything they could, including many election laws that were circumvented in the name of retrospectively unsound science. Effects on the national economy were devastating.
Kennedy, out of step with an administration that’s flooding the country with illegal immigrants, including many known terrorists who’ve been interdicted at the southern border, and abetting drug cartels that analysts confirm now essentially control that border, has openly called for his (former) fellow Democrats to rethink their immigration policy. This position alone makes him an ultimate outsider on the hard-left, and probably has a lot to do with why he found it necessary to cut ties and run as an Independent.
It’s good for Trump’s prospects. My recommendation—which will likely go unheeded as Kennedy gains traction--is that Trump should avoid going negative on him. Refrain from coming up with any derogatory names for RFK Jr.