Whether or not we choose to accept this, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is a serious contender for the presidency and, therefore, a menace to the followers of Joe Biden. Historically, whenever a candidate that hales from the Democrat side of the political aisle who chooses to run as an Independent sucks votes away whichever candidate is representing the Democrat Party in the election. It, therefore, means that if Kennedy does indeed run on November 5th, the votes he will take away from his presidential opponents will likely come from the Biden Camp.
You can bet this had the Biden Camp running in circles, trying to find a way to thwart the past in similar situations.
Many Americans are not familiar with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., other than his father, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., was U.S. Attorney General under “JFK” — who was president at that time — and who was assassinated during his run for the Presidency after President Kennedy’s death.
Let’s take a brief historical look at RFK, Jr. and identify the important issues that are already playing directly into the upcoming Presidential election.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the 69-year-old heir to the famed political family, launched his presidential campaign in April 2023. But the longtime environmental activist announced in October he would drop his Democratic bid and re-enter the race for the White House as an independent. The junior Kennedy has called the traditional two-party system “rigged” for Americans and is campaigning on a platform targeting institutions such as pharmaceutical and tech companies.
Climate change
Kennedy spent more than 20 years as an environmental lawyer, advocating for clean water, the environment, and human rights. His campaign’s environmental policies focus on shifting agricultural subsidies to encourage more sustainable practices. He has also proposed incentivizing industries to use clean energy sources to reduce toxic waste, industrial poisons, and pesticides. Kennedy has said he also wants to reduce corporate connections with federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to allow them to focus on protecting the environment.
Crime & policing
Kennedy is campaigning on “transforming” the police rather than defunding them. He has said he wants to incentivize police to prevent violence and avoid making unnecessary arrests. Kennedy is also campaigning to train police officers in de-escalation techniques and mediation skills and establishing partnerships with local organizations to create a new, non-adversarial relationship with the public. With Kennedy’s platform on crime, police will focus on serious crimes instead of targeting a larger pool of Americans.
Education
Kennedy has several proposals for reducing student loan debt. His platform would allow students to refinance their student loans at lower interest rates to reduce monthly payments. He is also urging Congress to pass legislation to abolish interest on new and existing student loans. The junior Kennedy is campaigning to place the responsibility on schools, instead of loan institutions and banks, when it comes to loan defaults to incentivize universities to lower tuition costs. Additionally, Kennedy backs expanding higher educational opportunities related to trades – like electricians, plumbers, and mechanics — and exploring funding opportunities for students who are pursuing this work.
Economy
Kennedy said Americans need a president who cares about their personal economy — not an economy centered around war or Wall Street. He campaigns on America’s current economic system, which makes expenses unaffordable for most Americans. He also advocates for prosecuting union-busting corporations so labor groups can organize and negotiate fair wages. Kennedy wants to raise the minimum wage to $15, expand free childcare programs, and drop housing costs by $1,000 per family. Kennedy has proposed cutting some military expenses, barring corporate bailouts and other proposals to fund his economic platform.
Foreign policy
Kennedy’s foreign policy looked to bring troops home, stop racking up the nation’s debt in conflicts, and put an end to what he calls proxy wars. In Ukraine, Kennedy wants to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people by helping them defend their country. However, he supports finding a diplomatic solution to bring peace to Ukraine while bringing home U.S. resources. For example, Kennedy questioned whether current American efforts in the war-torn nation served to help Ukrainians or use the country’s people as a “pawn to weaken Russia.”
HealthCare
Kennedy has come under fire for false medical claims, particularly that vaccines are linked to autism. He received backlash, even being banned on Instagram, for criticizing governmental COVID-19 restrictions and spreading misinformation about the virus. He started the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit organization that focuses on anti-vaccine messaging. Kennedy championed lowering chronic disease rates in children, saying he would not want to be reelected if he had not significantly reduced disease among children by the end of his potential first term.
Immigration
Kennedy views the situation at the southern border as a humanitarian crisis. If elected, he would focus on securing the border with the goal of ending illegal immigration while expanding America’s lawful immigration system. His immigration policy looks first to get the border under control and then work with other countries to stem the tides of migrants. Kennedy also wants to fund and prioritize immigration infrastructure, which includes further funding services like courts and border agencies to handle asylum cases.
Reproductive rights
Kennedy’s stance on abortion has been unclear throughout his campaign. The independent presidential contender said he would support a federal abortion ban after the first three months of pregnancy at the Iowa State Fair in Summer 2023. He later walked back the comments, and his campaign released a statement that Kennedy supported a woman’s right to choose and did not support legislation banning abortion. He previously told USA TODAY he feels the government should not be telling people what to do with their bodies, and it should be up to the woman during the first three months of pregnancy.
Earlier this week, Kennedy, JR. appeared on Newsmax and personally cleared the air about the substance of his political and private Kennedy history as it pertains to his current run for the Presidency.
RFK, Jr. From His Own Mouth
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined Newsmax on Tuesday to talk about his comments that boomeranged around the world, reaffirming his stance that President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Donald Trump, even if CNN did try to make him “look like a crazy person.”
Kennedy defended his comments from 24 hours earlier, telling “Eric Bolling The Balance” that the people in power throughout history who censored free speech “were never the good guys.”
Further, Kennedy told Bolling that the federal institutions under Biden are “politicized” against Trump.
Kennedy’s whirlwind 24 hours started with an interview on CNN on Monday night.
“If you listen to what I said, I said, ‘I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy than President Trump,'” Kennedy told Bolling. “But [CNN] put that, you know, ‘Robert Kennedy declares President Biden a much worse threat to democracy than President Trump,’ because I think that that meant that, in their calculation, that would turn liberals against me and make me sound like a crazy person to most liberals.
“What I said is really true,” RFK Jr. said.
He cited books he read as a kid by Aldous Huxley, Robert Heinlein, and George Orwell.
“All these dystopian books about the rise of totalitarianism and the obliteration of democracy across the planet, and they always begin with people censoring free speech,” Kennedy said. “There’s no time we look back on history and say the people who were censoring were the good guys. They’re always the bad guys because it’s always the first step to totalitarian rule.
“Any government that can silence its opponent has a license for any kind of atrocity,” he went on. So free speech is the most important right because—and we saw during COVID—as soon as they realized we would put up with censorship, you know, in those first months of 2020, they went after the rest of the Constitution.”
Bolling asked Kennedy if another example of Biden’s totalitarianism is the persecution of Trump with lawfare.
“You know, it’s a difficult issue because, on the one hand, we say no matter how powerful you are in our democracy, nobody is above the law, not even a president of the United States. So if you violate the law, you ought to be prosecuted,” Kennedy said. “But on the other hand, there’s a counterbalancing force and prerogative and, you know, a mandate which says, we don’t want to be a banana republic, where people who hold political office can get jailed so that they can’t run for office or the institution of government. Particularly, law enforcement institutions are weaponized and politicized against them. That doesn’t happen in the United States.”
Kennedy’s father, Robert Kennedy, was the attorney general of the United States from 1961-64 under his brother and RFK Jr.’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
“When my father became attorney general, in his first week in the Department of Justice … he said, ‘Whatever you do, the No. 1 rule here is we do not ask whether somebody is Republican or Democrat.’ Nothing is weaponized, and that, you know, the people … respect the institutions of our democracy because we know they’re not politicized.
“But today, they are being politicized.”
Kennedy went on to cite the failed attempts to keep Trump off the ballot in three states.
“I am not a fan of President Trump, and I can talk a lot about the reasons why, but that’s why I’m running against him. But I want to beat him on a level playing field,” he said. “I don’t want the election skewed so that half of America is not allowed to vote.”
Summary
We have not yet scheduled Mr. Kennedy to appear on “TNN Live!” However, he has promised to do so at a time that “works best” for his campaign. In planning for that conversation, it’s important for all of us to learn of him based on HIS words and HIS accomplishments rather than fall prey to the political pundits from both political spectrums. We gave you above a look at Candidate RFK Jr. through his campaign eyes as well as examining his campaign strategies. I declare that shock and awe will await me if — after learning about RFK, Jr.’s past life and his future plans as President — “Candidate” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., does not see an explosion of American voters who have sickened from the “Good Old Election laws and procedures” and have turned to getting facts on their own.
Gee: is thinking for your own, deciding who will be your candidate, and pushing through the process to “get your guy into Pennsylvania Ave.” too much for you?
This election presidential year will be much longer than most have expected. And we will likely see a large split in our two partys that both need to find consensus in our presidential elections to stop the continual bloodbath as tens of millions of our fellow Americans struggle to find the “perfect candidate” to eliminate” the candidate that leans more toward the “Peoples’ Choice” for president — no matter who that is. We, therefore, must update our plethora of strategies that abandon the thoughts of actually increasing a political party’s members number and rather concentrate on all the overall policies without diving into frigid waters waiting to devour all who hav rejected God and all of us.
