Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Endorses Trump and Suspends His Independent Bid for President

silence7@slrpnk.net to politics @lemmy.world – 352 points – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Endorses Trump and Suspends His Independent Bid for President
nytimes.com

In his speech on Friday, Mr. Kennedy implied that Mr. Trump had offered him a role in his second administration, dealing with health care and food and drug policy. “We’re going to reform the entire food system,” he said.

It's worth noting that Kennedy's health care policy is to bring back measles, that he eats roadkill, and had part of his brain eaten by a worm as a result.

Additional context about this campaign

75

"Oh fuck I'm spoiling the wrong voters"

The fact the GOP backed him thinking he'd pull voters from Democrats shows just how out of touch the GOP has gotten

Well, if you go strictly based off his positions on paper, or as posted on his website, he hits all the "progressive" points that would seem very attractive to a progressive independent or some more left democrats. Its a legit honest mistake to think he might be fairly left, based off when I was researching him a bit.

But every time he opens his mouth in front of a camera it's the most asinine right wing brain worm vomit you've ever heard, and I think they figured that out a little too late.

I mean, apparently he was a pretty good dude and an environmentalist for a long time.

Then around the time he got a worm in his brain, he just went bat shit crazy for some weird reason...

I'm imagining Ratatouille, only it's an anthropomorphized worm steering RFK Jr around by chomping on different parts of his brain. I want to say the worm would be voiced by David Cross. It's almost making this bizarre timeline a little easier to process.

Ignore the necrotic, segmented, invertebrate behind the curtain...

Maybe, but every time he speaks it's all conspiracy theory shit: anti-vax, etc.

Yup, that's the point I made. Put some pretty stuff on paper, but it all gets ugly the second he gets in front of a mic.

Uh...no...he was very pro gun. He was liberal on like one or two issues, but most of his policies were straight up Republican.

I wanted to like the guy as a viable alternative to Biden, but he was hard right on too many issues.

Just gonna point out damned near every lefty Redneck ive met is violently pro gun, but they all would happily mutilate someone for improper use of a firearm. The NRA and Republicans aint pro gun if they were they wouldnt throw a fit everytime a minority used one.

^^^^ this man gets it.
I like firearms. I would qualify as "a redneck".
I also think you should need to go through a minimum 2 day safety, maintenance and storage training course to own one. They are a tool that you must prove you are safely capable of handling, maintaining in safe operation (no exploding barrels), and keeping secure.

This and also lets not restrict weapons cause scarry. I fear a shotgun far more than an assault rifle in untrained hands, mostly cause it takes an afternoon to learn how to use a shotty while it takes a good bit more to use really any rifle.

He is living proof that the Horseshoe Theory is correct and true

EDIT: I thought we left reddit to get away from the mindless downvoting hivemind BS

We have an /S for a fucken reason.

How about if you disagree, tell me why so we can have a nice discussion here instead of making folks feel like idiots.

This is the internet, there are folks who will legit say that unironically. Leaving a /S tells us ya aint serious. Sinple as.

I'm a little confused why they wouldn't have him endorse Kamala instead if he was supposed to be a spoiler.

I'm not sure I follow;

If his goal was to pull voters away from Kamala, why would he endorse her?

Yeah...you're right it doesn't really make sense. I guess my thought was that he was supposed to be posing as an alternative liberal, but if he's out, that's irrelevant.

He may or may not know he was a spoiler, right now his most important task is to try and grab a hold of a cabinet position in whoever wins. He knows Kamala isn't stupid enough to give his brain worm any power, but Trump is absolutely corrupt and stupid enough to do so.

I have a feeling that it was Trump's idea, as he grew up in the decades when the Kennedy name meant something in politics, especially Democratic politics, so he figured the name would draw Democrat voters, not realizing that the Kennedy name hasn't had any sway in Democrat politics for the last three decades or so, as the party moved on from the Kennedys long ago. Just showing again that Dastardly Don is old and out of touch.

With Kennedy out of the race, that frees up more of the oligarch money to bolster the Jill Stein and Cornel West campaigns instead.

So can you straighten this up for me? Because it's not clear right now.

Is Cornel West actually running? As in, does he think he's running for office?

Yes, Cornel West is campaigning as an independent. Here's his website if you want to learn more about his platform.

Based on his stated policies, he'll attract more leftist voters away from the Harris campaign as a spoiler candidate, whereas Kennedy was the "centrist" option who ended up pulling away more non-MAGA Republicans than he did conservative Democrats.

West's calls to disband NATO and end US involvement in Ukraine also makes him a favorable option for Russia.

West is also not on the ballot in most states:

In point of fact, he's on the ballot in few enough states that he can't achieve more than be a spoiler in Georgia.

he can’t achieve more than be a spoiler in Georgia.

Yeah, but that alone is a big fucking problem (I say as a Georgian, and especially one who has been trying to raise the alarm about the MAGA sabotage being perpetrated in my state). Having a spoiler candidate on the ballot only makes it even more likely that the MAGAs find some excuse to refuse to certify.

It doesn't seem to matter. Russia is running on behalf of he and Stein.

He was running with People's Party, then tried to run with Green Party, and is now running as an independent.

In his speech on Friday, Mr. Kennedy implied that Mr. Trump had offered him a role in his second administration, dealing with health care and food and drug policy. “We’re going to reform the entire food system,” he said.

This might just be the single most frightening thing I've ever heard from a US politician. RFK Jr. getting that job in a Trump 2.0 administration would be catastrophic.

And there you have the proof that all his "alternative to both Biden and Trump" was bullshit. He was only ever a spoiler for Democrats, so he's dropping out because they realized he was taking more votes from Trump. Those guys just can't do anything on the level.

last Saturday I was walking through the park and saw a boomer wearing a giant "I'm voting for RFK ask me why" t-shirt.

kinda wish I had now.

The brain worm has obviously been running the show for quite a while

"Don't eat roadkill, kids. You could end up like... RFK Jr!!" (shudders) (kids scream and run to hide)

...he felt compelled to help Mr. Trump over support for policy positions he holds dear, including diminishing America’s military presence overseas and an overhaul of the country’s public health system.

Read: he wants to withdraw support to Ukraine and strip away the Affordable Care Act so we can go back to your insurance company denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

He was always an endorsement for Trump.

He run as a spoiler to democrats but it turns out polling indicated he ate more votes from anti-vaxer republicans so he had to be folded in.

"I will endorse whichever candidate offers me a job" has to be the least persuasive political "endorsement" ever.

"Independent"

Uh huh. Sure.

Independent as my boomer dad who loves to poke fun at Biden and assures me everything Trump did was fine.

The latest bad decision from a guy who admits he eats roadkill...

RFK, Musk, and Trump all with bigly ties to Epstein.

Kompromat being held over all three with Putin directing their agenda and associated political maneuvers.

Please stop effectively excusing Trump with this "kompromat" nonsense. The notion that he's being forced to do this shit rather than doing it entirely of his own volition diminishes his culpability, and he does not deserve that credit.

Maybe Putin does have something on him or maybe he doesn't, but either way it doesn't fucking matter because Trump is a fascist True Believer and a fanboi of dictators in general and Putin in particular. He betrays America not just willingly but enthusiastically in hopes that senpai Vladdy will notice him!

This is the funniest sad shit I've seen all day

So heartwarming that these two excessively weird old men managed to find each other ❤️

RFK voters are an odd bunch, but I don't know how many of his voters are realistically going to vote for Trump. I feel like he's still pretty toxic to them.

Just start spreading the rumor that if you write in some sov-cit ass "I hereby blah blah blah RFK Jr!" on their ballot it will some how work and he'll magically take power.

Makes sense. brainworms was supposed to be a spoiler for Biden but barely was doing well at that. In large part because the only people parroting the "He is actually really smart" are chuds like joe rogan anyway. So all he was doing was hurting trump.

Real question is if the rumors of him replacing vance are true... and if swapping out couchfucker actually WOULD invalidate trump on a lot of state ballots.

Thus proving true the recent adage, "A vote for Kennedy is a vote for Trump".

Watching from abroad, it's amazing to me that this guy has the slightest relevance or following.

Although, thinking of it, the same could be said about Trump (with the difference tha he's backed by a party).

Bear meat for everyone!

isnt tht how you you get brain worms?

Like all meat you have to cook it thoroughly. Wild meat tends to have more parasites. Domestic bear anyone?

Never saw ol' worm brain's bid for President as anything other than a thinly-veiled attempt to take centrist votes from Biden.

I am curious to see if the houses I see with Kennedy signs replace those signs with Trump signs tho.

Can we have all these rfks and trumps on the TV, in the ballpit, far from grownup politics, so we can enjoy them rambling batshit insane stuff without any risks?

I'm not too worried about this, tbh. I think the people that RFK attracted post-Kamala really aren't likely to vote for Trump or Harris anyway. They'll likely either stay home, vote libertarian, or write in Vermin Supreme

It's funny that any time he speaks about policies he supposedly supports, we just instantly know that his position is completely vacuous and it's entirely about how much power and prestige he is given. He doesn't care about any of the issues, just about himself.

Which makes him a very good match for Trump, I suppose. I wonder if they'll butt heads because of that.

Let's just hope that the votes he was pulling away from Trump were just because they needed somewhere to go and it was 'Not Trump' first, 'Not Biden' second, and 'Not Democrat' third.

Harris at least fits the first two qualifications, which is what Trump's campaign has been about for 3 years....'Biden Bad'... Unfortunately for his campaign, he's not the only one running who isn't Biden and he's doing a shit job of convincing people otherwise since he has spent practically 0 time signing any blame to someone as inconsequential as a Vice President at any point in any of those the years.

And why would he... doesn't make sense to dillute the blame when he knows there was no way Biden would ever willingly give up the chance to keep the power of the presidency in favor of anyone else.... He certainly couldn't imagine doing that himself.

Yeah that worm ate more of his brain than hes admitting