By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Have I mentioned that expected this year to be volatile? Here is Kennedy’s speech, live, which is on-going as of this writing.
I was going to put on my yellow waders and look at Kamala’s DNC speech — I had Sarah Palin’s 2008 acceptance speech all lined up for a genre comparison — but obviously this is more important.
Please consider this a live post as I can put more material together, and talk amongst yourselves.
P.S. Wowers, is Kennedy’s description of the horror that is the modern Democrat party. FAFO, and FO they did, with their ballot manipulation shenanigans.
I was reluctant to launch this post, because I did not hear — and there is no Closed Captioning on YouTube, hence no transcript — sentences as simple as this: “I am suspending my campaign. In Blue or Red States, vote for me. In swing states, I will take myself off the ballot” and “I hereby endorse Donald Trump for President.” The last part I did not hear. However, I just heard:
“Joining the Trump campaign will be a difficult sacrifice for my wife and our chldren.”
So here we are!
Here is the Kennedy clan’s reaction:
I am sharing a personal statement that my family and I have made in response to my brother’s announcement. pic.twitter.com/j7vTTabNYZ
— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) August 23, 2024
I disagree. Kennedy explained quite clearly in the beginning of his speech that today’s Democrat Party is not the Democrat Party of JFK or RFK. Alert reader Martin Oline summarized that portion of his speech, right at tbe beginning, as follows:
He says that Kamala Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary without a single vote and yet has been selected by the party to be the chosen candidate for 2024. By doing so they have abandoned democracy and embraced lawfare and manipulated the primary process, using the media to censor his campaign.
Kennedy also went into considerable detail about his difficulties getting on the ballot, and how the Democrats tried to prevent this at every turn (while praising his volunteers, who did indeed do an extra-ordinary job.
BBC was first out of the box on my RSS feed, so here they are: “RFK Jr suspends campaign to ‘throw support’ behind Trump“. A key point:
Before working to elect Trump, Mr Kennedy said he asked to have similar conversations with Ms Harris.
The Harris campaign reaction being “lol, no.”
Then FOX, “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspends campaign, backs Trump for president“:
Kennedy said in Phoenix that the Democratic Party of “waged continual legal warfare [I heard this as “lawfare”] against both President Trump and myself,” and “ran a sham primary.”
“In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,” he said.
Kennedy’s campaign is asking swing states to remove his name from the ballot because he does not want to be a “spoiler,” he said. He will remain on the ballot in states that he considers “red” or “blue,” he said. “If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or or Vice President Harris,” Kennedy said. “In red states, the same will apply.”
Interestingly:
But the relationship between Kennedy and Trump started warming earlier this year, and the two spoke last month after the assassination attempt against Trump and met in person the following day.
Would be a little too much “All things work together for good” if Thomas Crooks brought Trump and Kennedy together… And Kennedy then fixed American’s food supply (which needs fixing). Now, Kennedy seemed to believe that Trump made some sort of commitment to him on that topic — which also means that the extremely attractive framing of “saving America’s children” fell into Trump’s lap, of all people, who knew — but I am hazy on what the commitment was. No doubt it will come up in coverage (or at the rally in Glendale, AZ later today).
“DNC unveils billboards dubbing Trump, Vance, RFK Jr. ‘weird as hell’” [The Hill]. Well, that’s clarifying. So much for “President of all the people” (which anybody over six-years-old knows was West Wing-style boilerplate). “I don’t know what’s weird about wanting to save children from chronic disease. Kamala, why do you think that’s weird?” The wonderful thing about Kennedy throwing his support to Trump to end childhood suffering is that it could give Trump, for once in his life, the moral high ground. It will be interesting to see how Trump handles that, since having the moral high ground will be a very new experience for him.
Pre-speech snark (94.9K followers, looks like a Democrat operative from the timeline):
In a special ceremony later today, RFK Jr. and Donald Trump will press their ears together for the symbolic passing of the brain worm.
— TheRealThelmaJohnson (@TheRealThelmaJ1) August 23, 2024
Thelma: If brain worms mean you don’t commit genocide, I’m all for them (“\s,” in case any goon actually picks this up).
Working to unify all Americans (401.1K followers, “Author, Pastor, Activist, Storyteller”):
RFK Jr endorsing Trump is like E. coli endorsing diarrhea.
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) August 23, 2024
Pastor, eh?
Dude needs to get his knee seen to (768K Followers, “Pro-democracy conservatives Republicans fighting Trump & Trumpism”):
BREAKING
RFK Jr says that one of the main reasons he’s endorsing Trump is because of the former president’s anti-Ukraine views.
A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin. pic.twitter.com/6RtEIKJ3s0
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 23, 2024
