Politics in the US is already FUBAR. That’s the first surveyors stake to begin any assessment of the 2024 Presidential race.
The incumbent is deeply unpopular, a lifelong waterboy for big business, risking nuclear confrontation in Eastern Europe, and doddering on the cusp of senility. He has been corrupt his whole life, making his fortune as a politician, and his venal offspring, who profited from his father’s influence peddling is facing his own indictments. The Democratic Party establishment — itself the handmaiden of finance capital — has staked its fortunes to Biden, still relying on the failed strategy of running perpetually against Trump.
Biden is perceived even by Democrats to be too old (77% overall and 69% of Democrats), and he will likely face impeachment hearings in 2024, based on some fairly solid evidence that he is, in fact, as corrupt as a Louisiana judge.
On deck and in the hole, if Biden collapses before the primary season, are Kamala Harris, popular as dengue fever, and Pete Buttigieg, who many (including myself) believe is a faulty cybernetic organism. Neither of them has a snowball’s in the General. There’s no Berniecrat social democrat on the horizon to create a center of gravity for leftward resistance, and at any rate that fraction has been diluted and neutralized by the steady infiltration of pseudo-lefty mau-maus and woketivist scolds.
On the other hand, we have the Republican Party, whose most unlikely achievement now is making Democrats seem marginally palatable. Their most popular candidate, who has captured a controlling share of its popular base, is facing more indictments than the Gambino crime syndicate. A thief, cheat, liar, venal narcissist, and serial woman abuser with the conceptual development of a spoiled eight-year-old and the ethical qualifications of a cane rat.
On deck and in the hole? Ramaswami and DeSantis, a slick pharma-huckster who comes off like a snake oil salesman and a sadistic overcompensating bully with all the charm of a rotted cabbage.
From the Green Party — a thoroughly incompetent “political” organization that’s can only sustain its numbers by tolerating crackpots and loons on its own periphery — we have Cornel West. I’ve followed and even admired West, as a scholar and social critic, but neither him nor the Green Party “program” have as much chance as I have of winning the Boston Marathon. The Green Party is an ideological affinity grouplet, not a serious political party.
As f June this year, a poll by The Economist and YouGov showed that, in terms of favorability, RFK outperforms either Biden or Trump. Kennedy was viewed favorably by 49 percent of respondents and unfavorably by 30 percent. By the pollsters’ calculations this is a “net favorability” of 19 points. Biden was viewed favorably by 44 percent and unfavorably by 53 percent, a score of minus-9. Trump polled at 44–54, or minus-10. Kennedy, with very little public presence so far and facing a storm of (often dishonest) denunciation in the media, already has the primary support of 19 percent of likely Democratic voters. The real surprise, however, is that he’s polling at 50 percent approval among likely Republicans . He also has strong approval among Independents.
The fact of the matter is that if Kennedy were to win the Democratic primaries he would very likely sweep the General Election. That’s why there’s such a concerted effort to defame him.
He makes it easy, of course, because he hasn’t memorized repetitive talking points, except for references to his uncle JFK. He shoots from the hip without thinking of how things might be interpreted. He mulls over things before he admits he hasn’t enough information. His voice is damaged. He deliberately avoids topics that he know are designed to sort politicians into prearranged camps (and attack targets). He has been shunned by MSM, so he gladly speaks with right-wing and even slightly nutty interlocutors —allowing the MSM et al to use guilt-by-association fallacies against him.
But I keep coming back to the reality that (1) the Republican Party has been captured and transmogrified by a malignant narcissist and (2) that the Democratic Party is the Party of Big Finance, Big Pharma, and Big War, led by a ruthless corporate gerontocracy called the DNC. When you compare Kennedy to Biden or Trump, the latter two having occupied the Oval Office, he’s smarter than either of them, more grounded in the general attitudes of the general population, and more principled.
In “The Battle of Woke Hill,” I wrote:
My own heretical assessment — one I came to with great pain — is that politics has neither the potential nor the capacity to redeem. At its best, it contains some potential for damage control; at its worst, total annihilation.
Kennedy is damage control, which is not to say he won’t take on some important issues. To wit, environmental protection, curbing the power of Big Pharma, divorcing industries from their regulators, and scaling back the military-industrial complex and our financial affinity for war. Here is his actual web site’s outline of priorities.
I know we’ve been habituated, since politics became virtue signaling and self-expression, to seek out some singular disqualifying sin in any candidate. With Kennedy, his skepticism about vaccines will do that for some, his belief that men should not compete with women in women’s sports will red-line others, the false claims that he is anti-Semitic (a tactic mused to destroy the Corbin campaign in the UK) will capsule off others still. Some will hate his suggestion that we negotiate for peace in Ukraine to prevent a nuclear confrontation. For a few identitarians, he can be denounced for being born a “white” male. My first knee-jerk reaction against him was my antipathy for political dynasties.
All I can say is, if he’s eliminated from the electoral equation, the choice is Biden or Trump (if Trump is still viable in the face of his 91 indictments), or Biden and some Trump-lite surrogate.
As to the DNC Mafia, they’ve refused to schedule debates, they’ve violated their fake pledge of neutrality, essentially combing themselves with the Biden campaign, they’ve said they’ll refuse to allow Kennedy’s votes to count in New Hampshire, even if he wins the primary, and they’ve re-created (contrary to their past “reforms”) a huge slate of superdelegates to stuff the first ballot with DNC loyalists. With all this, they have the unmitigated gall to claim that voting Democrat is how we “save democracy.”
FUBAR
Is there a way to overcome this? Who really knows? A modest suggestion is that Kennedy-Dems, Kennedy-Indies, and Kennedy-Republicans all set up now to vote together in the Democratic Primaries. Re-register now if your state has closed primaries. That would be an interesting alliance. It would piss off politicians and the media, too.
You know what?
When even David Ignatius is telling the President to refrain from running for reelection in 2024, it should be obvious that there's a problem. https://news.yahoo.com/washington-post-columnist-david-ignatius-130629156.html
Unless you have the mentality of a career politician, that is. A a combination of ego inflation and ego insecurity which increasingly bears the hallmarks of addictive behavior:
"Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery. Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection — and respectfully ask for your vote. -Nancy"
https://twitter.com/TeamPelosi/status/1700177174542876754
"Former Speaker Pelosi...I don't know how to tell you this..."
The entire Right Left People leadership of the Democratic Party needs an Intervention.
RFK Jr. for President? He may just have what it takes.
Granted, at this point I'd vote for Barney the Dinosaur over either Biden or any Republican candidate.
(I still think the GOP nominee is going to be the stealth neoconservative chameleon Glenn Youngkin. That's my early line.)
i switched to democrat to vote in primaries. i want him in.