RFK, Jr. just scrambled the 2024 race
His candidacy changes the dynamics for Biden, Trump and DeSantis
To make an omelette, first you must break some eggs and scramble them.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. just took all the 2024 presidential race analysis about Biden vs. Trump or DeSantis and scrambled it up — bigly.
Although he enters from Stage Left, Kennedy is a a Trumpian figure, a would-be insider turned outsider. His surname and “RFK” initials confer instant name recognition that makes him impossible to dismiss out of hand on the national stage.
Born into family wealth, he cannot be bought and sold like all the corrupt politicians. If he had only played nice with the Establishment, he could be teaching at Harvard and donning a Presidential Medal of Freedom on his chest. Instead, he taught at Pace University Law School and wrote a book that reads as a felony indictment of the most revered icon of the Administrative State pantheon, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Kennedy is a truth teller and a bomb thrower. Despite a quavering voice due to spasmodic dysphonia, his speech at the “Defeat the Mandates” rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 2021 was an absolute barn-burner that should be shared and viewed far more widely.
They have branded RFK, Jr. a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer who is dangerous to Americans. But he is in reality a very dangerous man to the “establishment” of both major political parties and to all rivals for the presidency. His full-throated critiques of big pharma, the military-industrial complex and the intelligence agencies has broad appeal to the working class, populist wings of both parties.
So it is fitting to provide a brief, first-take analysis of how RFK, Jr.’s entry into the 2024 presidential sweepstakes will impact the candidacies of Biden, Trump and, presumably, DeSantis.
Impact on Biden
Joe Biden has a big problem.
RFK, Jr. is among the Kennedy children emblazoned in the hearts and minds of Baby Boomers as one of the tragic victims of the political violence of the late 1960’s. His father sacrificed his life for his country by entering the 1968 presidential race after Lyndon B. Johnson had imperiled America with his “Guns and Butter” policies of escalating the war in Vietnam while spending profligately on his “Great Society” programs.
The Kennedy family can be criticized for personal moral failings, but their service, sacrifice and patriotism has never seriously been brought into question. In fact, the Cold War anti-communism of the Kennedy clan is one of their greatest legacies. When RFK, Jr. rips into the Biden family’s corrupt dealings with Ukraine and China, those left hooks will land hard in a way that straight rights from a Trump or DeSantis cannot.
But RFK, Jr.’s biggest potential threat to Biden is in his appeal to the black community. Liberal whites and the mainstream media may scoff at him as an anti-science crazy man, but to vaccine hesitant members of the black community steeped in the legacy of the Tuskegee Experiment, Kennedy’s call to question the science may resonate. Plus his father RFK is known to many in the black community as a civil rights champion who delivered an impromptu emotional speech calling for unity, and publicly discussing his own brother’s assassination for the first time, upon hearing of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
When Bernie Sanders was rolling up wins in the early 2020 primaries, black voters in the South stepped up to give Biden some huge wins that sealed the nomination. Would they do to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. what they did to Bernie?
Impact on Trump
Donald Trump almost certainly knows he has a problem too. Of all political figures in American history, Trump understands the power of branding better than anyone. He knows he is now in competition with the Kennedy brand, the closest thing to an American royal family.
The MAGA movement has been very forgiving of Trump for decisions that, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, have been judged mistakes. Trump endorsed 15 Days to Slow the Spread, thinking he could if necessary use the bully pulpit to force governors to re-open. He miscalculated. Trump pushed Operation Warp Speed to develop a first-ever coronavirus vaccine. After all the taxpayer money spent, we got a vaccine that did not stop transmission or prevent infection. The jury is out on the harm from side effects, but it’s not looking good. Trump is vulnerable on the vaccine issue.
And the vaccine issue is where Kennedy is most dangerous to Trump. RFK, Jr. had the benefit of not holding political office and therefore not needing to weigh the complex competing factors at play. But Trump knows that explaining complexity in defending a bad decision looks weak and does not make for good campaign rhetoric. Trump will continue to say that Operation Warp Speed saved lives and that he never mandated anything. But Kennedy will attack Trump for funding rather than fighting Big Pharma when he had the chance.
The media will, ironically, be Trump’s ally in fending off RFK, Jr.’s criticisms. Look for Trump to remain largely silent on RFK, Jr.’s candidacy and let the media do a number on him.
Impact on DeSantis
RFK, Jr.’s entry into the race is terrible news for Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis’s primary appeal to voters in the Republican Party, now dominated by MAGA, is his perceived strength on the issue of lockdowns, vaccines and mandates. Sure, Trump can hit back at DeSantis for hypocrisy on these issues. DeSantis imposed lockdowns in 2020 and pushed the vaccines in 2021. But DeSantis can hit back even harder by saying that Trump was the public relations director of 15 Days to Slow the Spread and the architect of Operation Warp Speed.
Some of the MAGA people who are most angry about the lockdowns, vaccines and mandates are upset with Trump on these issues and more inclined toward DeSantis.
Kennedy changes the dynamics. After Steve Bannon elevated him to celebrity status in his appearances on War Room: Pandemic, Kennedy became a hero to the populist right for his bold attacks on Big Pharma and the Administrative State. RFK, Jr. can outflank DeSantis on the issue of vaccines and mandates. And he can pile on by attacking DeSantis’s support for funding conflict in Ukraine while he was a congressman.
Thus, a Kennedy candidacy makes it less likely that DeSantis can gain traction as an alternative to Trump. The anti-lockdown, anti-mandate, and anti-Big Pharma champion on the national political scene is now RFK, Jr.
Closing Thoughts
Kennedy will be seen as a nonviable candidate unable to gain traction either in the mainstream media of the left or the alternative media of the right. But this analysis is behind the times. Those paying attention know that the independent media on the right is far more willing than the legacy media to engage with contrary viewpoints. Perhaps more importantly, the growing common sense media of the middle, spearheaded by the likes of Joe Rogan and Russell Brand, can offer plenty of traction to RFK, Jr.’s candidacy.
Kennedy will not be seen as a cross-over candidate for the populist right because of his liberal positions on climate change and gun rights. It will be interesting to see how Kennedy navigates these issues. A lot of his environmental activism has focused on clean water rather than climate change alarmism. If he calls for repeal of the Second Amendment or anything close to that position, it will be a deal breaker.
The number one issue for many in the MAGA movement is the weaponization of government to impose an unequal system of justice. They want an outsider who will go to war against the leadership of the FBI and the CIA.
When Tucker Carlson did a segment last December on CIA involvement in JFK’s assassination, RFK, Jr. tweeted the following: “The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d'état from which our democracy has never recovered.”
What a story it would be if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was the man to confront the same dark forces that he believes took down his own uncle and the beloved 35th President of the United States.
The RFK, Jr. candidacy just made the 2024 presidential race a heck of a lot more interesting. And that is a good thing for America.