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Will RFK Jr. Use the Nuclear Option? |
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By Joshua Philipp |
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Both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party have undergone significant shifts in recent years. They aren’t the same parties of Presidents Bush and Clinton. These are the parties of Presidents Trump and Biden. Both sides are trying to hold their parties together, while the voters seek to change them from within. Among the Republicans, there’s the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement and on the Democrat side, there's the Democratic Socialists, who seek to steer the Party into the brave new world of open borders and gender transitions for children. But a lot of Democrats don’t want that. Many of them still align with classical liberalism. They stand by the older vision for the Party that is anti-war and anti-big business. They might now be looking at the Democrat candidate who is promising to bring back John F. Kennedy's Democrat Party, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The big problem Democrats are facing is that despite all the differences within their ranks, they need to hold the Party together. A third party candidate, for example, could mark the end of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as we know it. There’s a real threat of this now with the growing “No Labels Party,” a party for moderates. It will be announcing its 2024 candidate soon, and there’s speculation it could be Democrat moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). That alone poses a real threat to the Democrats, who, despite everything, still had a very narrow victory over Trump last time around. But Mr. Kennedy presents a much more real threat to the future of the Party—or more accurately, the Party as we know it. It’s possible that history was made a couple of days ago, and it was easy to miss. The Wall Street Journal posted an opinion piece from Mr. Kennedy in which he declared in the headline, “The Democratic Party Rigs the Primaries.” In it he states, “It has become clear that the Democratic National Committee doesn’t want a real primary and is willing to disenfranchise Democratic voters from choosing their nominee.” The primaries are where political parties choose their front-runners. It’s “democracy.” The “will of the people.” At least that’s what we’ve been told. But the people are now realizing that isn’t really the case. |
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If we go by the “popular vote,” we could argue the will of the people for the Democrat Party in 2016 was Bernie Sanders. But the Democrat Party decided it knew better, and chose Hillary Clinton as the candidate instead. Of course, this isn’t just a DNC issue either. The Republican Party almost didn’t let Trump run as its candidate either. By accusing the Democrat Party of rigging its primaries—and doing so in a very public way, with a Wall Street Journal opinion piece—I believe Mr. Kennedy is firing a warning shot. He’s suggesting that even if he doesn’t run as a third party, he will make Democrat voters aware that their vote may not mean what they’re told it means. And for his own base, he’s suggesting that he needs to demonstrate he means business. Alongside his opinion piece, Mr. Kennedy also spoke about the issue with Forbes. “If the DNC is going to make it, is going to rig it, … I need to show them a road to victory,” he said. He’s saying that if the Party is going to make it “simply impossible for anybody to challenge President [Joe] Biden,” then he needs to “look at other alternatives.” The interviewer presses him on this further: “What kind of alternatives would you be exploring, Mr. Kennedy?" And this is how he responds: "For somebody else to win other than their, you know, chosen anointed candidate?” Again, take that as you will. My understanding of his statement is that Mr. Kennedy is saying he’s considering other options. He’s now openly accusing the Democrat Party of rigging the primaries. He wants them to change this enough to give him a shot. And if they don’t make changes in a way that is transparent enough to show they’ve made things fair, then, well, it seems other options are on the table. |
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