RFK, Jr. may deliver the youth vote to Trump
2024 is shaping up like 1968, with RFK, Jr. in the role of Eugene McCarthy
If past is prologue, we might soon expect Donald Trump to launch blistering attacks against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In the two-minute video that accompanied his campaign launch, now pinned to the top of his Twitter account, Kennedy began by stating: “Every nation has a darker side and the easiest thing for a politician to do is to appeal to our hatred and our anger and our bigotry and greed and xenophobia and all of the alchemies of demagoguery.”
This is a clear shot at Trump, or at least the bogeyman Trump as he has been branded by the mainstream media and emblazoned in the minds of a majority of Democrat voters. And Trump’s modus operandi is: “When they hit me I hit back ten times harder.”
Yet so far Trump has delivered no counterpunch, not even a jab, on Truth Social.
Kennedy concluded his campaign kickoff video with an act of grand larceny. He pretty much stole Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan by stating: “I’m inviting all of you to join me to create an America that we can believe in and be proud of again.”
Rather than calling out the theft, Trump’s ally Steve Bannon floated the idea, on yesterday’s Charlie Kirk Show, of a Trump-RFK, Jr. unity ticket that could take down the administrative state.
Why is Trump thus far ignoring rather than attacking Kennedy? Because it is in Trump’s interest to encourage the Kennedy campaign and make nice with its supporters.
What we are seeing mirrors the dynamics of the 1968 presidential contest. In that race, Nixon sailed an easy course to the Republican nomination while the establishment candidate Hubert Humphrey had to fend off the insurgent campaign of the anti-Vietnam war candidate Eugene McCarthy to secure the Democratic nomination.
In 2024, the establishment candidate Biden will have to beat back the Kennedy insurgency. Most are predicting Kennedy has no chance because the forces aligned against him are too great. He is up against politicians, lobbyists and bureaucrats whose careers have been built upon the corruption Kennedy seeks to expose. He is up against multinational corporations and a mouthpiece mainstream media that vilifies opponents of the status quo. And he is up against the intelligence agencies that have “six ways from Sunday to get back at you” in the famous words of Senator Chuck Schumer.
Where Kennedy stands the best chance of mobilizing support is among young voters. Just as the youth of 1968 turned to an unlikely champion in Eugene McCarthy for his opposition to the Vietnam War, the young Democrats of today are primed for a candidate who will stand up for freedom and against lockdowns, mandates, the surveillance state and foreign wars. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is well positioned to be their champion.
In 1968, the insurgents were so angered by the nomination of Humphrey over McCarthy that violence broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. And they were so disaffected that many of them broke ranks and voted for Nixon, the unlikely anti-war candidate in the general election. Who would have imagined the hippie generation would play a role in vaulting the Cold War anti-communist Nixon to the presidency?
In what could turn out to be a stunning case of history not just rhyming but repeating itself, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago in 2024. Look for the establishment of the Democratic Party to hold its death grip on power and for the sparks to fly. If this happens, the young idealists may find themselves crossing party lines to vote for the anti-war, anti-establishment candidate Trump, just as their grandparents voted for Nixon in 1968.
A lot could happen in the next year and a half, but the 2024 presidential race is shaping up to be one for the history books.
This is the first positive thing I heard a democrat do for the republican party.