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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Planning to Announce Independent Run (www.mediaite.com)

submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 86 points 1 year ago

I am cautiously optimistic about this.

First, the reasons not to be:

The Kennedy name might conceivably attract some confused Democratic votes.
His spoiler candidacy will obviously be targeted at Biden supporters and intended to siphon them away.

But I'm still cautiously optimistic because:

We already have a well-known guy with the last name "Kennedy" in the Senate: This absolute tool, a Louisiana Republican and all-around douchebag that Democrats universally despise. So name recognition effects may be blunted a bit.
RFK's poll numbers in the Democratic primary as a hypothetical alternative to Biden have stayed consistently 45-50 points below Biden. Most Democrats aren't going to jump ship to a hopeless independent candidacy and cede the race to Trump.
RFK is immensely popular... with deranged wingnuts who still believe the COVID vaccines have microchips in them and are the sign of the Beast. These people weren't gonna vote Biden in the first place, and there might be enough of them in the Republican party for RFK's candidacy to be a Trump spoiler instead.

I'm going to be paying really close attention to see which side he siphons from more, but like I said... I'm cautiously optimistic RFK will have a more damaging effect on Trump than on Biden.

If Trump goes after him hard, I'll take that as confirmation that Trump is worried about that.

[-] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago

Can we convince the Q people that he's the other dead Kennedy they are waiting for in disguise?

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

That's it! JFK is secretly immortal! He faked his own death and assumed the identity of his son! The real RFK is off investigating pizzeria basements to rescue children on behalf of his father!

Rejoice, Q! Your savior has actually already emerged! Vote RFK to support the true Trump, not the holographic impostor he's been replaced with, and the Great Awakening will arrive with the Storm and... fuck, I can't keep this up.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

I got you.

The Great Awakening is upon us. The lizard-people will be exposed. All our enemies will be rounded up and sent to gitmo. All the people who laughed at you for believing "ridiculous" things will realize that you are super smart and apologize. We will be vindicated.

Oh, wait. Not rejoice Q. Rejoice Anons! RFK Jr is actually JFK, but better. He will become president and Trump will become God-Emperor of the world. Those Iraqi Dinars that you invested in will finally make you super rich! No more babies will ever be eaten by democrats and the cabal shall be no more.

Ok, I'm tapping out.

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

You did great. It almost made me throw up a little in my mouth, so... Job well done.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

Such an obvious spoiler. Who is going to vote for him?

[-] Neato@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

Old, confused Democrats? He's not really leftist at all. Everything I've heard about him makes me feel like he's a Republican.

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[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

Single-issue anti-vaxxer voters might trust him more than they trust Trump. (and none of them were going to vote for Biden anyway, so probably at worst a wash for Biden)

[-] Odelay42@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

This is my dad. He doesn't like trump but still suffers from all kinds of other anti-progrsssive brainwashing.

He thinks RFK is a brave outsider.

He also voted for Perot, so take that for what it's worth.

[-] betwixthewires@lemmy.basedcount.com 17 points 1 year ago

Well, the D's know the name of the game is beat Trump, that's how biden got nominated, nobody actually liked him. They'll vote for Biden no matter what just to make sure Trump doesn't win.

The target demographic for this guy are Trump independents, that is, the people that won him the election in the rust belt in 2016, people who lean Democrat but were sick of the politicians and their constant bullshitting. So it's likely RFK is a way to spoil Trump, not the D's.

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Hopefully Republicants.

[-] DemBoSain@midwest.social 10 points 1 year ago

He has massive support among the wingnut right. The Ben Garrison/Kill Fauci/J6 is a Hoax crowd.

[-] flossdaily@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Morons.

"But aren't all the morons already voting for Trump?" I hear you say.

No. There are always more morons.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

He will vote for himself, and his mother is still around and will probably vote for him.

So I am expecting him to get exactly 2 votes.

[-] JaymesRS@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

An unfortunately significant number of people.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

The guy is crazy, but that doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Really? I have not seen any evidence of that.

[-] Zippy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I think it might be hard to predict exactly but I I am bit with you. Those right leaning independents that don't like Trump are quite unlikely to vote for him regardless. But that known name may put Biden as their second choice.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

All of Kennedy's platform positions are firmly right-wing... and so is all of his support. He should have been part of the Republican debate, he'd have fit right in.

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[-] mateomaui@reddthat.com 30 points 1 year ago

It’s the only move he has, he’d never get the Dem nomination. Too many see right through his conspiracy nonsense.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Dude is a stain on the Kennedy name. Dude thinks wifi gives cancer.

[-] RubberStuntBaby@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Sadly still more coherent than Trump, who said that the noise from windmillls causes cancer.

https://apnews.com/article/25ff42c9747043b3b80e098a0f90b1d5

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Good luck. Get all the Roswell and COVID conspiracy theorists in a pile, and baby...you got A STEW GOIN

[-] FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

Good. The lunatic vote will split between him and Trump.

[-] Rapidcreek@reddthat.com 12 points 1 year ago

At least he has given up the farce of pretending to be a Democrat

[-] CapgrasDelusion@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

For now at least, polls show about 25% of Democrats would vote for him over Biden vs 13% of Republicans. This is bad.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-faces-disastrous-defeat-if-rfk-jr-runs-third-party-candidate-1828858

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

It's over a year from the election. Polls right now mean nothing.

[-] CapgrasDelusion@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

It's more the lopsidedness than the numbers themselves that concerns me. It would only take an extraordinarily small difference to hand the election to Trump with how close it was last time and is now. But I'll try to use the optimism from this thread to smother my cynicism for now.

[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

41 percent of Democrats have an at least somewhat favorable view of Kennedy

Yeah, no. I'd guess that only a single-digit % of Democrats - mostly Extremely Online ones - have any idea who he is; this is a survey where they pressed for lukewarm responses from mostly-uninformed voters and then pretended that it actually reflected public opinion in a meaningful way.

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

These debates are going to be wild. Trump and Kennedy just screaming gibberish at each other while Biden stands between them with the quietly desperate look of a pensioner trying to remember his PIN number at the supermarket checkout.

Fucking hell.

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Nah. Biden's still sharp. He's gonna turn to the cameras, give a sparkling smile, and say, "Get a load of these guys, right?"

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[-] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

I doubt Kennedy (or Cornell West) will be included in any debates.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago

We need to make this guy the poster child for ranked choice voting. With it he'd only be wasting donor money, not endangering our future as a spoiler candidate.

[-] xc2215x@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

He knows he has no chance of being the Democrat nominee. Not too shocking.

[-] theodewere@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

his grift is going the LLC route

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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023

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