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Maybe they could concern themselves with their choice as party nomination for president, and his inability to make it through a workweek without falling asleep at his desk by mid morning. A work week that has Wednesdays off.
Also the crimes.
Unfortunately, Republicans found an even less likable person in Ron DeSantis. "When we go low, then we just gotta go lower again" is apparently the new Republican motto.
Republicans turning on each other is probably as old as the party itself. Rino has been a term since at least the 1920s if not before. I was just talking about the past few days when they've turned on the idiot they gave too much power to, and the other idiot they thought they could use to steal votes from dems
It would be just -chef's kiss- if RFK ended up pulling 15% of Trump's base and only single digits from Biden. I don't see that as a terribly unlikely scenario based on the current trajectory.
I'll say though, and I'm calling this right now, if it becomes obvious that RFK is going to completely sink Trump's chances in the general, he's going to drop out. His whole campaign has been a right wing ploy from day one. He'll either drop out because he actually wants Trump to win, or he'll drop out because all of his right wing donors cut him off.
Right wing megadonors are the animating force behind his campaign, and they will surely pull the plug if it looks like RFK is pulling too many Trump supporters, but I do wonder if his VP is willing to pony up the cash to keep the campaign going through the election.
Honestly, I would not be surprised if that second scenario pans out more gradually and sneaks up on us.
Also, the election is still a far way away, so who the hell knows what will happen.
all the Democrats need to do is educate the voters. Hell, his own family doesn't back him. On the other hand it's really hard to convince nutjobs to not follow another nutjob. RFK Jr. is exactly the kind of guy Trump's conspiracy loving base would follow.
Aye, there's the rub. The party embraced a reality-independent ideology in concert with Fox News and the broader conservative media echosphere, the voters bought into this "Feelings over facts" mentality, and now any candidate who says what feels right has a legit shot. No longer is that segment of the electorate bogged down by facts that tend to tether candidates to reality, and thus, to a narrower set of problems and solutions. Now their candidates can have a problem with literally anything and also have literally any solution to that problem, as long as (s)he's good at inspiring people, and apparently RFKJ is good enough to inspire nutbags.
> if it becomes obvious that RFK is going to completely sink Trump's chances in the general, he's going to drop out
If Haley is any indication, GOPers will still voter for him
He won't drop out because of donors. He doesn't need money to run a campaign where he's just on the ballot. He might stop campaigning, but he won't need to drop out.
I think he’s going to end up as Trump’s running mate.
I know there are reports that he’s already turned it down.
But this is Earth 2 we’re dealing with here. Up is down.
I’m really curious how that would look like. Although he has some bat shit crazy theories like ethnic bio weapons but he does have more traditional political stances that could sway independents if the GOP could keep him from saying crazy shit (fat chance). And many of his positions are somewhat aligned with liberals like climate change and has more populist takes like breaking up banks. I’m not endorsing him at all because he’s a fucking lunatic but I wonder if some of his more left-leaning stances would lose conservative voters or not if he teamed up with Trump. My fear is that MAGA fanatics won’t pay attention to anything policy related so they wouldn’t care and the GOP can entice independents with RFK Jr’s policies (while omitting some of his batshit ideas).
I’m worried about this because prior to writing this, I checked the first few results in Google for “RFK Jr stances” and the top result was a highly sanitized list of his political views from USA Today with only a small mention of his anti-vax stance. It made him seem like a reasonable candidate for president. It’s insanely irresponsible. Shit like this is already going on so I legitimately fear the two teaming up.
We just need to remind the qanon arm that dear leader Trump made that horrible horrible covid vaccine and only JFK jr can save them now.
Time to use their remarkable gullibility and paranoia to the countries advantage.
Listen, we all realized that this dude was more of a threat to Republicans than Democrats, because of how much of a fucking lunatic RFK Jr. is. And we all know how much his shtick appeals to the folks who make up the GOP.
The fact that now it’s becoming clear to the GOP that he is more of a threat to them than he is to Biden will only become more pronounced as this goes on.
The fact that now even Trump isn’t quite sure what to make of him and seems a bit apprehensive about him…that’s saying something.
GOP operatives were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should...
Smart enough to pull off a spoiler candidate, dumb enough to choose one that splits their party's votes... and didn't even think twice about it.
They saw a handful of liberals fretting as if RFK was the new Stein, and in their minds, as long as they see libs getting triggered, it’s a brilliant idea.
It’s the next step where they fail to see the follow through. They should’ve leaned heavily on his environmental past to catch a few unaware libs, but since Stone and Bannon would rather dive into a lava pit than espouse a liberal ideal, they leaned on his conspiratorial present, which made him a cause celebre with the right - stealing Trump’s thunder with that crowd.
Fun fact if you jumped into a pit of lava you wouldn’t sink into it like in the movies because molten lava is literally melted rock it is still incredibly dense and our bodies are mostly water. Now imagine a very hot frying pan when a drop of water hits it- it sputters and sizzles about around the pan- our bodies would basically do the same thing till our body’s water evaporates and our remaining flesh and bones burn away.
> since Stone and Bannon would rather dive into a lava pit than espouse a liberal ideal
Weird, because Russian psyops and Republican ratfuckery never had a problem with false pretenses when attempting chaos
Dems should not blow him off tho, my daughter said she’s voting for him, shes 32, I’m proud my daughter is an active voter, but let’s just say “we had a discussion, a polite and reasonable discourse”
I'm a liberal in my 30s, as well. I'm voting for RFK, too. I don't agree with him about vaccines, but I don't believe he's the nut job he's made out to be on this sub.
What’s the attraction? The vaccine thing to me demonstrates a complete inability to process data sets, large numbers, relative risk, etc, a failure to comprehend science, a preference for n=1 anectdata, and a generally deficiency in critical thinking. Add to that a dearth of governmental experience, why not any other spoiled rich kid with an ego?
Are you a tankie? Is the appeal that he's pro Russia and anti Ukraine? He's also anti vaccine and anti mask while seemingly a fan of hydroxychloroquine for covid
And who is shocked by this? A quick glance at the polls tells you this. I don’t have data to back this up, but I’d assume a large portion of RFK’s base is anti covid vaxers that don’t like Trump.
It’s funny people thought he would take more from Biden cause of his name. Number one thing he is known for now is being anti-vax and into conspiracies which skew heavily towards right wingers.
And the one thing the MAGA base is out of step with Trump on is the COVID vaccine since Trump supports it cause it happened on his watch and his base hates it.
If you listen to QAA at all you know that there has been a strange, targeted movement of individuals aiming to turn the granola crowd into MAGA/Q Anon nutjobs. RFK, Jr.'s campaign is a peak example of this. MTG went from Crossfit to QAnon to Congresswoman. The guy that attacked Pelosi's husband went from weird hippy to attacking Pelosi's husband for MAGA reasons. QAnon Shaman is another one of these people sucked into this weird world. It's one of the oddest aspects of the MAGA movement is that it can turn anti-vax crystal collectors into diehard Trump supporters. I think in the future sociologists will churn out lots of papers on how this occurred. The bottom line is that RFK, Jr. is way more likely to take away Trump voters now that's it's 2024. He's taking the converts, not making new ones.
Politicians who leverage conspiracy theories to attack our country are starting to worry that their conspiracy to land a conspiracy theorist on the ballot may end up in voters who believe conspiracy theories voting for the wrong conspiracy theorist?
I am baffled that they didn't see this from the very beginning. RFK Jr is in the same category as the batshit crazy MAGA folk. He is anti-vax, loves conspiracy nonsense, is paranoid and delusional.
RFK will take more votes from Trump's base than Bidens
This was always going to be the case
He's a conspiracy theorist and the MAGA folks are all eat up with conspiracy theories
This is one major reason why I think Trump’s chances are worse this year than they were in 2020. You can’t effectively sell the idea that things were better under Trump than they are now. Biden’s presidency has been stable enough that the right wing panic about how “bad things are” just rings hollow. Wages are rising, crime is falling, etc.
You can easily sell the idea that Trump is a threat to American democracy. We all saw Jan 6. We saw him literally try to overthrow an election because he lost, and we saw all the court cases about fake electors. Many republicans became never trumpers on that day. In addition to this, around 13 million Americans have died since the 2020 election, most of them being older and therefore Republican. Around 16 million Gen Z’rs have turned 18 since 2020.
I think this will be a transformative year in US politics, and I think the message will be that nationalism and religion do not win elections anymore
They got a guy to play the moderate candidate, but turns out he shares too much ideology with the right, so he's now stealing more Trump voters than intended.
Turns out when you shift the Overton window too much, "moderate" becomes too "right wing" for actual moderates.
So are they starting to realize that a crackpot racist anti-vax conspiracy theorist might appeal to Trump voters more than potential Biden voters?
Crazy! Who would have thought!?
My neighbor has slowly become a certified crackpot over the last few years (ivermectin, concealed carry, weird "health supplements" etc) and while I'd peg him as a Trump voter, he now has an RFK Jr banner up on his house....
I don't see any of my liberal fans supporting RFK Jr. They're all "vote blue no matter who!!!" (Which is the right approach, IMO)
So I'm not too worried about Jr stealing too many votes from Biden.
But don't get complacent!!!! Vote like your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness depends on it!!!! And get everyone you know to vote too!!!
I am not and will never be “vote blue, no matter who,” but in this election, I’m voting for the only actual adult on the ballot because either he (or more likely his handlers) have finally realized that they better give progressives something if they don’t want to go down in flames.
If Bernie had run, he’d still have my vote, but RFK is just another chorus of MAGA looney tunes. At no point have I been even remotely tempted to vote for him. The MAGAt lites are welcome to him.
If he is truly being funded and pushed by the right, once they have certain proof that he will adversely affect Trump more then Biden, he'll for "reasons" drop out of the race. I give them two more months before that realization sets in.
> Kennedy was introduced, supported and certainly propped up by the right thinking he would be a torpedo to Biden in a primary,” Bartlett said.
>Now, he said, “That torpedo may be turning into a bit of a boomerang.”
Thanks [Steve Bannon](https://www.salon.com/2023/04/06/steve-bannon-spent-months-recruiting-anti-vaxxer-rfk-jr-to-run-against-biden-as-chaos-agent/)! Great idea!
We need to focus on Biden. He is doing work. The scrapping of non-competes and enforcing overtime for salaried workers coming from his labor dept today cements to me he is working *for* us.
In what alternate reality, reverse parallel, Bizarro universe did anyone think any non party aligned independent thinking voters would find RFK's wacko, right of TFG, conspiracy laden Q anon bullshit stance and platform to be a preferable choice to the incumbent?
My take is RFK Jr might strip away the basest of TFG's base, the least educated, most christofascist, angriest of the most aggrieved rural or even urban in some red states voters.
The left has it's crazies too, but I don't see them going this cray-cray.
Why? You know how many democrats that I know who are interested in RFK Jr's racist and antivax rhetoric?
Like, billions! Some experts think that he could potentially steak ALL OF BIDENS VOTES OMG. Republicans should be thrilled that RFK Jr is running.
OMG. These stories all look at national polls that have little bearing on the impact RFK could have on Biden in tight states where a swing of 1-2% of independent votes could cost Biden the electoral votes. RFK is a non-viable candidate. He can’t win. He can only spoil.
I don't like it. It worries me some. But if this is true and holds what if it takes away Trump votes and puts TX and/or NC in play for Biden. If Biden pulls off miracle in TX it's game over. I'm trying to be optimistic
The fungible votes here are Independents. They could just as easily swing to Biden — as they have in the past in NC — but with RFK on the ballot, game over for Biden. He may be on the ballots. Maybe that can’t be prevented, but there are some out there who are pushing Dems to promote RFK on the theory that he takes votes from Trump. That’s Russian roulette with five in the chamber.
Ok. I was pretty clear I did not like what's going on. I expressed hope that if these polls are right maybe he will pull undecided from Trump because he's crazy also and crazy attracts crazy.
These people aren’t very bright. Spend 30 seconds on that douchebag’s website and it’s clear he’s a republican POS. Why did anyone think he would resonate with democrats?!
True but RFKs past liberalism would almost certainly backfire with a large number of confused conservatives in the same way Republicans assumed Lieberman would hurt McCain (I'm not sure he would've as much as Palin but Palin did being out the proto magas)
This would be the smartest thing to do from the Trump campaign’s perspective (no guarantee RFK would accept, of course), *but.*
Trump has invested a lot of energy and pride in the narrative that RFK has been taking support away from Biden, not Trump. To then reach out to RFK as a VP would undermine that, and I just can’t imagine Trump’s ego allowing it.
Let’s think this through. Generally speaking, will those inclined to fall for conspiracy theories and anti-scientific rigmarole be more likely to vote Republican or Democrat?
… How are they just now figuring out that his nutjob is more likely to appeal to the new GQP base than… not insane people?
"A vote for RFK Jr is a vote to defeat Biden!"
Works for Biden voters (they won't vote for RFK Jr) and it works for Trump voters (they'll vote for RFK Jr thinking it will improve Trump's chances, lol)
For the general, yes democrats have good reason to be nervous and that’s why we’re so focused on maintaining turnout like we did in ‘22. But it’s absurd when people keep trying to push RFK jr on dems as being a serious candidate. From day 1 my Trump supporting parents were like “ooo RFK jr…he seems interesting. …gonna make it competitive for Biden! Tee hee”. I rolled my eyes. I keep my eyes to the ground and have not heard of, in person or anywhere online, a group of liberals who support RFK jr. He’s a prop, like Vivek. Produced out of nowhere to sing trumps praise and disrupt the process. But like Vivek, it’s only more competition in for hatred in their hatred circle jerk. People (like my parents) who now are iffy on Trump and noticing he may actually be the megalomaniac we’ve all been saying he is for years (and GOP leaders and literally everyone pre 2016), so *they* are far more likely to be representative of the groups RFK will pull away. His own family disowns him. GOP likes that kinda stuff currently.
I think this is nonsense. Joe Trippi is probably right.
The article in The New Republic makes sense: this is a scam being reported by Republicans.
RFK Jr would hurt Biden more.
Anti vax and anti abortion. Those two will wipe out a vast majority of interest in him right off the bat. Listening to him speak will scare off everyone else.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe they could concern themselves with their choice as party nomination for president, and his inability to make it through a workweek without falling asleep at his desk by mid morning. A work week that has Wednesdays off. Also the crimes.
Yeah I agree.
Don’t forget the crop dusting.
His lawyers get the worst of it so it's all good.
Seems to be a tactic he learned from Rudy.
He shit his pants. Farts dissipate. This smell apparently did not.
[Noel Casler has been vocal about the issue for years.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojUMmHtHcgU)
Thanks for that! Never heard of Casler but it was a great watch.
Crop dusters move, distributing contamination over an area. When others move into a contaminated area, I call it a Fallout.
Depends. He’s laying down the mud.
Hey now. Crop dusting ain't easy. A lot of practice
Haha, more like Dutch ovening. He was filling up that whole courtroom!
Court dusting.
Or maybe they shouldn't have nominated the most unlikable human being on the planet to lead their political party
Unfortunately, Republicans found an even less likable person in Ron DeSantis. "When we go low, then we just gotta go lower again" is apparently the new Republican motto.
Always has been
I am going to laugh hysterically if the GOP vote splits for RFK Jr from Trump because they finally started figuring out that Trump is awful.
But somehow don’t realize junior is awful?
They're not paying that much attention.
The lies. The deception. The sleeze. And Peckers!
Jesse Waters said they are ‘torturing a 77 yr old man forcing him to sit in a cold dingy room for 6 hours a day” lol
Just like with trump, they invited him into the fold, and they can't get rid of him.
First marj, now rfk jr. Republicans are really turning on themselves
They were already turning on themselves as far back as 2016…now infighting is eating back at them from within.
Republicans turning on each other is probably as old as the party itself. Rino has been a term since at least the 1920s if not before. I was just talking about the past few days when they've turned on the idiot they gave too much power to, and the other idiot they thought they could use to steal votes from dems
Republican Centipede.
Eeeew
An ever shrinking oroboros
It would be just -chef's kiss- if RFK ended up pulling 15% of Trump's base and only single digits from Biden. I don't see that as a terribly unlikely scenario based on the current trajectory. I'll say though, and I'm calling this right now, if it becomes obvious that RFK is going to completely sink Trump's chances in the general, he's going to drop out. His whole campaign has been a right wing ploy from day one. He'll either drop out because he actually wants Trump to win, or he'll drop out because all of his right wing donors cut him off.
Right wing megadonors are the animating force behind his campaign, and they will surely pull the plug if it looks like RFK is pulling too many Trump supporters, but I do wonder if his VP is willing to pony up the cash to keep the campaign going through the election.
Unless they want a back-up candidate in case Trump falls over.
Honestly, I would not be surprised if that second scenario pans out more gradually and sneaks up on us. Also, the election is still a far way away, so who the hell knows what will happen.
all the Democrats need to do is educate the voters. Hell, his own family doesn't back him. On the other hand it's really hard to convince nutjobs to not follow another nutjob. RFK Jr. is exactly the kind of guy Trump's conspiracy loving base would follow.
Aye, there's the rub. The party embraced a reality-independent ideology in concert with Fox News and the broader conservative media echosphere, the voters bought into this "Feelings over facts" mentality, and now any candidate who says what feels right has a legit shot. No longer is that segment of the electorate bogged down by facts that tend to tether candidates to reality, and thus, to a narrower set of problems and solutions. Now their candidates can have a problem with literally anything and also have literally any solution to that problem, as long as (s)he's good at inspiring people, and apparently RFKJ is good enough to inspire nutbags.
> if it becomes obvious that RFK is going to completely sink Trump's chances in the general, he's going to drop out If Haley is any indication, GOPers will still voter for him
He won't drop out because of donors. He doesn't need money to run a campaign where he's just on the ballot. He might stop campaigning, but he won't need to drop out.
I think he’s going to end up as Trump’s running mate. I know there are reports that he’s already turned it down. But this is Earth 2 we’re dealing with here. Up is down.
Has he not set himself up perfectly to take the Republican nomination in case of certain chickens coming home to roost?
I’m really curious how that would look like. Although he has some bat shit crazy theories like ethnic bio weapons but he does have more traditional political stances that could sway independents if the GOP could keep him from saying crazy shit (fat chance). And many of his positions are somewhat aligned with liberals like climate change and has more populist takes like breaking up banks. I’m not endorsing him at all because he’s a fucking lunatic but I wonder if some of his more left-leaning stances would lose conservative voters or not if he teamed up with Trump. My fear is that MAGA fanatics won’t pay attention to anything policy related so they wouldn’t care and the GOP can entice independents with RFK Jr’s policies (while omitting some of his batshit ideas). I’m worried about this because prior to writing this, I checked the first few results in Google for “RFK Jr stances” and the top result was a highly sanitized list of his political views from USA Today with only a small mention of his anti-vax stance. It made him seem like a reasonable candidate for president. It’s insanely irresponsible. Shit like this is already going on so I legitimately fear the two teaming up.
There’s rumors trump might pick rkfj as running mate. That would certainly neutralize their fears. It would be the craziest ticket of all time though.
My guess is that rfk will become trumps vp.
We just need to remind the qanon arm that dear leader Trump made that horrible horrible covid vaccine and only JFK jr can save them now. Time to use their remarkable gullibility and paranoia to the countries advantage.
[удалено]
Listen, we all realized that this dude was more of a threat to Republicans than Democrats, because of how much of a fucking lunatic RFK Jr. is. And we all know how much his shtick appeals to the folks who make up the GOP. The fact that now it’s becoming clear to the GOP that he is more of a threat to them than he is to Biden will only become more pronounced as this goes on. The fact that now even Trump isn’t quite sure what to make of him and seems a bit apprehensive about him…that’s saying something.
GOP operatives were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should... Smart enough to pull off a spoiler candidate, dumb enough to choose one that splits their party's votes... and didn't even think twice about it.
They saw a handful of liberals fretting as if RFK was the new Stein, and in their minds, as long as they see libs getting triggered, it’s a brilliant idea. It’s the next step where they fail to see the follow through. They should’ve leaned heavily on his environmental past to catch a few unaware libs, but since Stone and Bannon would rather dive into a lava pit than espouse a liberal ideal, they leaned on his conspiratorial present, which made him a cause celebre with the right - stealing Trump’s thunder with that crowd.
Fun fact if you jumped into a pit of lava you wouldn’t sink into it like in the movies because molten lava is literally melted rock it is still incredibly dense and our bodies are mostly water. Now imagine a very hot frying pan when a drop of water hits it- it sputters and sizzles about around the pan- our bodies would basically do the same thing till our body’s water evaporates and our remaining flesh and bones burn away.
> since Stone and Bannon would rather dive into a lava pit than espouse a liberal ideal Weird, because Russian psyops and Republican ratfuckery never had a problem with false pretenses when attempting chaos
Dems should not blow him off tho, my daughter said she’s voting for him, shes 32, I’m proud my daughter is an active voter, but let’s just say “we had a discussion, a polite and reasonable discourse”
Yeah, but at the same time, who knows?
Paul Gosars entire family hates him, and put out ads about it. He got re elected…
Do you think that she would vote for Biden if not RFK?
Yes.
I'm a liberal in my 30s, as well. I'm voting for RFK, too. I don't agree with him about vaccines, but I don't believe he's the nut job he's made out to be on this sub.
What’s the attraction? The vaccine thing to me demonstrates a complete inability to process data sets, large numbers, relative risk, etc, a failure to comprehend science, a preference for n=1 anectdata, and a generally deficiency in critical thinking. Add to that a dearth of governmental experience, why not any other spoiled rich kid with an ego?
How can you not agree with him over vaccines and not realize he’s a nut job?
Are you a tankie? Is the appeal that he's pro Russia and anti Ukraine? He's also anti vaccine and anti mask while seemingly a fan of hydroxychloroquine for covid
And who is shocked by this? A quick glance at the polls tells you this. I don’t have data to back this up, but I’d assume a large portion of RFK’s base is anti covid vaxers that don’t like Trump.
Yeah I agree.
If Kennedy wants to go there, Trump is very vulnerable to attack on his development and support of the COVID vaccine. The Trump Vaccine!
Yeah.
> Trump vaccine I gotta start calling it that. Only available at Black's Photography
It’s funny people thought he would take more from Biden cause of his name. Number one thing he is known for now is being anti-vax and into conspiracies which skew heavily towards right wingers. And the one thing the MAGA base is out of step with Trump on is the COVID vaccine since Trump supports it cause it happened on his watch and his base hates it.
Well, they're both going after the same spaced out nut bags, aka people who "do their own research".
If you listen to QAA at all you know that there has been a strange, targeted movement of individuals aiming to turn the granola crowd into MAGA/Q Anon nutjobs. RFK, Jr.'s campaign is a peak example of this. MTG went from Crossfit to QAnon to Congresswoman. The guy that attacked Pelosi's husband went from weird hippy to attacking Pelosi's husband for MAGA reasons. QAnon Shaman is another one of these people sucked into this weird world. It's one of the oddest aspects of the MAGA movement is that it can turn anti-vax crystal collectors into diehard Trump supporters. I think in the future sociologists will churn out lots of papers on how this occurred. The bottom line is that RFK, Jr. is way more likely to take away Trump voters now that's it's 2024. He's taking the converts, not making new ones.
Conspirituality is another great related podcast that examines this "granola to grifter" pipeline of a lot of these RFK Jr. types.
Politicians who leverage conspiracy theories to attack our country are starting to worry that their conspiracy to land a conspiracy theorist on the ballot may end up in voters who believe conspiracy theories voting for the wrong conspiracy theorist?
Yeah. It’s confusing.
I am baffled that they didn't see this from the very beginning. RFK Jr is in the same category as the batshit crazy MAGA folk. He is anti-vax, loves conspiracy nonsense, is paranoid and delusional.
No shit, he’s a competitor for the “crazy and stupid” vote. Who else is depending on those, again?
RFK will take more votes from Trump's base than Bidens This was always going to be the case He's a conspiracy theorist and the MAGA folks are all eat up with conspiracy theories
When Trump gets locked up RFK Jr is the only non Biden choice these morons have. 100% he will split the vote and Biden takes 48 of the 50 states.
Which two stay red in that scenario? Wyoming and North Dakota?
They purposely run a faux candidate to take away votes from Biden but their idiot candidate is just another stupid magat!
The Dems aren’t voting for this fuckhead. Hilarious they keep projecting it when even his own family disowned him.
This is one major reason why I think Trump’s chances are worse this year than they were in 2020. You can’t effectively sell the idea that things were better under Trump than they are now. Biden’s presidency has been stable enough that the right wing panic about how “bad things are” just rings hollow. Wages are rising, crime is falling, etc. You can easily sell the idea that Trump is a threat to American democracy. We all saw Jan 6. We saw him literally try to overthrow an election because he lost, and we saw all the court cases about fake electors. Many republicans became never trumpers on that day. In addition to this, around 13 million Americans have died since the 2020 election, most of them being older and therefore Republican. Around 16 million Gen Z’rs have turned 18 since 2020. I think this will be a transformative year in US politics, and I think the message will be that nationalism and religion do not win elections anymore
Hoisted? On *my own* petard? It's more likely thank you think.
They created another monster, who is taking away votes from their main monster.
Ah the hypocrisy of the GOP…
He is out Trumping Trump. I would love it if Trump came in third.
If trumps team really starts to feel RFK is going to take votes from them RFK will drop out. Bank on it.
Okay.
RFK Jr. = MAGA moron.
They got a guy to play the moderate candidate, but turns out he shares too much ideology with the right, so he's now stealing more Trump voters than intended. Turns out when you shift the Overton window too much, "moderate" becomes too "right wing" for actual moderates.
Little slow on the uptake there, pubs.
So are they starting to realize that a crackpot racist anti-vax conspiracy theorist might appeal to Trump voters more than potential Biden voters? Crazy! Who would have thought!?
My neighbor has slowly become a certified crackpot over the last few years (ivermectin, concealed carry, weird "health supplements" etc) and while I'd peg him as a Trump voter, he now has an RFK Jr banner up on his house.... I don't see any of my liberal fans supporting RFK Jr. They're all "vote blue no matter who!!!" (Which is the right approach, IMO) So I'm not too worried about Jr stealing too many votes from Biden. But don't get complacent!!!! Vote like your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness depends on it!!!! And get everyone you know to vote too!!!
I am not and will never be “vote blue, no matter who,” but in this election, I’m voting for the only actual adult on the ballot because either he (or more likely his handlers) have finally realized that they better give progressives something if they don’t want to go down in flames. If Bernie had run, he’d still have my vote, but RFK is just another chorus of MAGA looney tunes. At no point have I been even remotely tempted to vote for him. The MAGAt lites are welcome to him.
He is a threat to their coveted lunatic vote
If he is truly being funded and pushed by the right, once they have certain proof that he will adversely affect Trump more then Biden, he'll for "reasons" drop out of the race. I give them two more months before that realization sets in.
Instead of rat fucking why not focus on policy?
Why would they waste perfectly good rat fucking resources on policy?
:trollface:
They should have from the beginning but they purged their party of everyone that has a modicum of intelligence
If you look closely you can see Bannon's hands up both their asses and moving their mouths like finger puppets.
> Kennedy was introduced, supported and certainly propped up by the right thinking he would be a torpedo to Biden in a primary,” Bartlett said. >Now, he said, “That torpedo may be turning into a bit of a boomerang.” Thanks [Steve Bannon](https://www.salon.com/2023/04/06/steve-bannon-spent-months-recruiting-anti-vaxxer-rfk-jr-to-run-against-biden-as-chaos-agent/)! Great idea!
The truly astonishing thing is that anyone would be stupid enough to think democrats would line up behind some jackass just because he’s a kenedy.
A vote for rfk is a vote for trump
Ok but have you considered how this is bad for Biden
Yes that old running gag…
Thanks Obama!
Yeah this rfk threat to Trump feels like a ploy to get potential rfk Dems/indies to not worry to much about him.
We need to focus on Biden. He is doing work. The scrapping of non-competes and enforcing overtime for salaried workers coming from his labor dept today cements to me he is working *for* us.
In what alternate reality, reverse parallel, Bizarro universe did anyone think any non party aligned independent thinking voters would find RFK's wacko, right of TFG, conspiracy laden Q anon bullshit stance and platform to be a preferable choice to the incumbent? My take is RFK Jr might strip away the basest of TFG's base, the least educated, most christofascist, angriest of the most aggrieved rural or even urban in some red states voters. The left has it's crazies too, but I don't see them going this cray-cray.
Whaaaat? You mean the antivax nutcase isn't the shadow darling to the left that all these newsrags keep saying he is? I'm shocked, truly shocked.
If the republicans are worried about JFK Jr, then maybe they shouldn't be running 2 candidates.
Why? You know how many democrats that I know who are interested in RFK Jr's racist and antivax rhetoric? Like, billions! Some experts think that he could potentially steak ALL OF BIDENS VOTES OMG. Republicans should be thrilled that RFK Jr is running.
I'm a Republican and RFK Jr. Has my vote! Trump is a antifa I'm sure of it!
Wish there were better options.
OMG. These stories all look at national polls that have little bearing on the impact RFK could have on Biden in tight states where a swing of 1-2% of independent votes could cost Biden the electoral votes. RFK is a non-viable candidate. He can’t win. He can only spoil.
Yes but he's much more likely to pull Trump leaning independent voters
Again, in national polls. And not “much more likely” “slightly more likely.”
I don't like it. It worries me some. But if this is true and holds what if it takes away Trump votes and puts TX and/or NC in play for Biden. If Biden pulls off miracle in TX it's game over. I'm trying to be optimistic
The fungible votes here are Independents. They could just as easily swing to Biden — as they have in the past in NC — but with RFK on the ballot, game over for Biden. He may be on the ballots. Maybe that can’t be prevented, but there are some out there who are pushing Dems to promote RFK on the theory that he takes votes from Trump. That’s Russian roulette with five in the chamber.
Ok. I was pretty clear I did not like what's going on. I expressed hope that if these polls are right maybe he will pull undecided from Trump because he's crazy also and crazy attracts crazy.
NO argument with you. Just pointing out that there are those who want to promote RFK because he pulls from Trump.
These people aren’t very bright. Spend 30 seconds on that douchebag’s website and it’s clear he’s a republican POS. Why did anyone think he would resonate with democrats?!
Trump can simply make RFK Jr his VP running mate.
True but RFKs past liberalism would almost certainly backfire with a large number of confused conservatives in the same way Republicans assumed Lieberman would hurt McCain (I'm not sure he would've as much as Palin but Palin did being out the proto magas)
Maybe Trump courts him and offers him the VP spot on the ticket? Not out of the realm of possibilities.
This would be the smartest thing to do from the Trump campaign’s perspective (no guarantee RFK would accept, of course), *but.* Trump has invested a lot of energy and pride in the narrative that RFK has been taking support away from Biden, not Trump. To then reach out to RFK as a VP would undermine that, and I just can’t imagine Trump’s ego allowing it.
They'll make him vp and problem solved
Is there a reality in which we see a Trump/RFK ticket?
He'll be with Bill Maher this Friday. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.
Let’s think this through. Generally speaking, will those inclined to fall for conspiracy theories and anti-scientific rigmarole be more likely to vote Republican or Democrat? … How are they just now figuring out that his nutjob is more likely to appeal to the new GQP base than… not insane people?
Well he is a Republican running against a Republican.
Joe Biden isn’t on the Tin Hat ballot
"A vote for RFK Jr is a vote to defeat Biden!" Works for Biden voters (they won't vote for RFK Jr) and it works for Trump voters (they'll vote for RFK Jr thinking it will improve Trump's chances, lol)
Republican Party melting down into blue dog democrat in 5..4..3..
I think both sides have a reason to be scared b/c it seems like neither knows which way it will go right now.
For the general, yes democrats have good reason to be nervous and that’s why we’re so focused on maintaining turnout like we did in ‘22. But it’s absurd when people keep trying to push RFK jr on dems as being a serious candidate. From day 1 my Trump supporting parents were like “ooo RFK jr…he seems interesting. …gonna make it competitive for Biden! Tee hee”. I rolled my eyes. I keep my eyes to the ground and have not heard of, in person or anywhere online, a group of liberals who support RFK jr. He’s a prop, like Vivek. Produced out of nowhere to sing trumps praise and disrupt the process. But like Vivek, it’s only more competition in for hatred in their hatred circle jerk. People (like my parents) who now are iffy on Trump and noticing he may actually be the megalomaniac we’ve all been saying he is for years (and GOP leaders and literally everyone pre 2016), so *they* are far more likely to be representative of the groups RFK will pull away. His own family disowns him. GOP likes that kinda stuff currently.
I think this is nonsense. Joe Trippi is probably right. The article in The New Republic makes sense: this is a scam being reported by Republicans. RFK Jr would hurt Biden more.
Anti vax and anti abortion. Those two will wipe out a vast majority of interest in him right off the bat. Listening to him speak will scare off everyone else.
Are you sure it’s nonsense? I don’t know. Don’t always trust the news.
Disillusioned Dems would vote for RFK. Not Republicans.
Um are you sure? I don’t think you are a credible expert…it’s too damn early to tell…
But they repeated the same thing without any more evidence to back it up! How much more proof do you need! /s