Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he will drop his Democratic bid for president and run as an independent or third-party candidate, adding a new wrinkle to a 2024 race currently heading toward a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy’s campaign has teased the announcement in the days leading up to a Monday afternoon speech in Philadelphia. In a recent video, Kennedy said there is corruption “in the leadership of both political parties” and said he wants to “rewrite the assumptions and change the habits of American politics.”

The video came shortly after Mediaite reported he planned to launch an independent bid.

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    Junior is going to find out quick and in a hurry why Ross Perot decided to create a political party in 1992. There are 51 different sets of ballot access laws that range from easy to byzantine. Good luck with that.

    He’s totally out of step with the Democratic base. It takes about a minute and a half to figure out the guy is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. His coalition, what there will be of it, will come off both fringes, but primarily off the right fringe and fringe libertarians.

    He will take more votes from Trump than Biden

      • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That should be easy. His name is Kennedy and he was running democrat. And a large portion of republicans vote based on buzz words.

      • root_beer@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        “He was originally running to get the nomination in the Democrat party” (shibboleth intentional) should help

        • JCPhoenix@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          OK, what does that mean “Democrat Party?” I know it’s supposed to be jibe against Democrats, but I never understood it.

            • root_beer@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              Yep. In the same breath, they also insist that “America is not a democracy, it’s a republic”, as if [a] that’s a meaningful argument, [b] it’s even true, and [c] it matters in the first place if they’re using that dumb “democrat party” dig anyway. Meanwhile, the shit they’ve been proposing would make America neither a democracy nor a republic.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            No such party. People like Newt (the man who worked harder than almost anyone to divide this country) really ran with it to purposefully irritate those that know better.

            Since donnie is dumber than dirt, he said as much out loud, in front of his idiot base, too.

    • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They’ll never understand that. They are accustomed to authoritarian ideas, and in those systems, you simply follow your leaders. You give your loyalty, and once given, your honor dictates it remains there. You know, old tradition.

      This is why they love to accuse science of being another kind of religion, instead of a process or method. That authoritarian idea of loyalty is creeping in.

      So, they can’t understand a world where we don’t just trust him because he carries the correct label and looks presentable. Remember, when their authority tells them to take Ivermectin or something, they just go fucking do it. So, they think we’re the same, and when someone says “vote Kennedy” we just will.

      Remember, they also think we’re all stupid. Like, really, really stupid. They do not see us as peers, they see us an inferiors who do not understand how “hard” the world is “supposed to be”.

      Naturally, this is kinda amusing when its not sad and irritating.

      edit: Just thought of another good example. When covid was raging, if you wore a mask regularly, why did you? Was it just because you were told to, and you didn’t think about it further? Nothing wrong with that of course, not everyone has time to research everything and sometimes you do just have to trust your doctor.

      But there’s a second possibility. Did you maybe wear a mask because you understood how diseases get transmitted through the air and you figured, for yourself, that yeah, that might be a good idea?

      Authoritarians do not acknowledge the existence, or even the right to exist, of that second possibility. It’s literally disallowed by authoritarianism itself, because it proposes the possibility of facts beyond the control of any authorities. In their world, should anything at all be beyond the control of the highest of authorities? No. No it should not, because the highest of all authorities is actually an omnipotent deity that is fully responsible for everything that exists.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He will take more votes from Trump than Biden

      I sure hope so. I think internally, Republicans are (supposedly) freaking out over that, but at this point, I take nothing for granted after donnie’s “win” in 2016.