RFK Jr. Snubbed

By MARK ANDERSON

One week prior to the Biden-Trump debate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s independent campaign for president announced via a press release that CNN’s decision to keep RFK out of the June 27 wrangle was “a clear violation of federal law.”

“Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me on the debate stage and CNN illegally agreed to their demand,” RFK was quoted as saying (via a “Kennedy-Shanahan” campaign press release). He continued: “My exclusion by Presidents Biden and Trump from the debate is undemocratic, un-American and cowardly. Americans want an independent leader who will break apart the two-party duopoly. They want a president who will heal the divide, restore the middle class, unwind the war machine and end the chronic disease epidemic.”

Such points likely will resonate with a growing cross section of voters who, having watched what many perceived as Biden’s near-meltdown on CNN, will be looking for someone more respectable and articulate to vote for, but aren’t ready to embrace Trump—although there’s evidence Trump is more “independent” than assumed, and probably is just using the Republican Party as a viable vehicle to high office.

Specifically, RFK, a lawyer by trade who heads up Children’s Health Defense to challenge vaccination mandates, is arguing that CNN, Biden and Trump all violated a federal requirement that broadcasters use “pre-established” and “objective” criteria to determine candidate participation. Failure to do so “renders the debate a campaign contribution” to the Biden and Trump camps, which would be “subject to strict donation limits,” RFK interestingly asserted.

Plus, at the time of CNN’s debate, the mid-July Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and the mid-August Democratic National Convention in Chicago hadn’t happened yet, meaning that, technically, at the debate, neither Trump nor Biden were the official nominees of their parties; however, RFK, as a non-party contender, already was an official candidate.

So, when CNN said that, since RFK’s name would allegedly not appear on enough state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote (Electoral College) threshold, and therefore RFK should be excluded, the network neglected to note that the two dominant “candidates” were not yet officially nominated and therefore their names were not certified to appear on a single state ballot. But RFK, as of this writing, had been certified to appear on California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah ballots.

A remaining question that few want to dwell on is: Why did the Democratic Party snub a Kennedy—an iconic family name in Democratic Party circles—and go with seeking Biden’s re-election as president?

And what a legacy, though imperfect, it is: John F. Kennedy, age 46, who was president until his “Dallas retirement”; and then RFK Jr.’s attorney general and senatorial father, who, like brother “Jack,” was a popular national legislator (until he was murdered at age 42); and then there was lifelong late Sen. Teddy Kennedy; and don’t forget Joe Kennedy III, United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland since 2022 and former congressman for Massachusetts’s 4th district from 2013 to 2021.

RFK Jr. has a tough fight on his hands. The big media protects the two-party duopoly because it knows the two dominant parties get the lion’s share of money to be spent at those media outlets in the form of candidate advertising. And while many people bristle at the mere thought that our elections could conceivably be, at times, inaccurately counted, the “rigging” of elections of a different sort is undeniable—big media and the two big parties largely determining who will appear on the ballot in the first place.

True, some see RFK Jr. as being too “paranoid” about vaccination mandates with regards to the actual or potential dangers of uncritically adopting COVID injections that were developed and tested in very short time frames. But RFK, who’s 70, while Trump is 78 and Biden is 81, is an energetic lawyer who at least has the courage of his convictions, like his uncles did. Pfizer, after all, is a major part of the Big Pharma wing of the nation’s ruling plutocracy—heavily fined in 2009 for the largest case of medical fraud in the history of the Department of Justice. How soon we forget.

But RFK Jr. remembers. And he does have a justice-seeking passion that Trump and Biden tend to lack, especially the latter. The Democratic Party’s decision not to welcome him into the party’s circles, and go with Biden, could risk the dissolution of the party itself; yet, if that leads to ending the duopoly and opening the door to more variety at the polls, things may end up much improved in the long run.

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2024

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