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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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His chances were essentially nil to begin with. The only reason he's even being discussed at all instead of being lumped in like the other no-hopers is because he has juuuuuust enough support to be able to make either Trump or Biden's math slightly more difficult.
Was announcing that he (literally) had the brain worms supposed to be good for his campaign? This seems like the sanest trend in politics for at least a decade.
He wasn't ever going to get elected; the big question was whether he could serve as a spoiler and help elect Trump.
I don't get how it would help trump, RFK Jr is such a right-wing nutjob, I don't think anyone who would vote for Biden would vote for him instead. Its much more likely to pull votes from Trump instead since he's just the right kind of nutjob to appeal to the extreme Q-Anon supporting far right who would otherwise vote for Trump.
The idea was basically that having the name Kennedy and touting his environmental work (from before when a worm ate part of his brain) would suddenly induce a bunch of Democrats to vote for him. So he got to dine with billionaires and they tossed him money.
Meanwhile, every single other living Kennedy denounced him and endorsed Biden.
Yeah, but there is a significant portion of the voting public that are willfully ignorant.
He's not running on a platform of pre-brain-worm or environmental work, he's running on an extremist platform, and anyone who votes thinking he'd be an alternative to Biden, probably also has a brain-worm, and will be a very small minority compared to the people voting for him because he's an alternative to Trump.
He's not now but I think that was the pitch to the billionaires.
I think it was also to capture the crowd who maybe disliked Trump, but didn't feel like they could go Biden. His running gives these people someone other than Biden to vote for. It's the reason Trump's backers have been funneling money into his campaign (his "supporters" haven't). And and vote not for Biden helps Trump either win, or with building support for his next insurrection upon losing.
Don’t underestimate the otherwise liberal voters who have been part of the anti (measles) vaccine movement for decades.
It's psychology.
The most common reason people keep giving for voting Biden is "not trump". And lots of people don't like trump, but will never vote for any Dem.
If there's literally any other options, it's easier for someone to pick one rather than leave it blank or write in a name.
2020 was insanely close and decided by a handful of states.
It's a weird situation where for most people their state is decided before the first vote is cast, where other states it could come down to 4 digit votes.
So things that seem like they'd have no effect, can actually be huge.
Like, RFK can cost Biden 10% in Cali, and it doesn't matter at all. But if he costs 0.1% in Michigan it could change the election.
We need to switch to popular vote for president, but it'll probably never happen. Until then random stupid shit like rfk can decide elections
I can't see a world where RFK costs Biden a higher percentage than Trump in any state, that seems like FUD being spread by bad actors. I am not saying anyone here is a bad actor, I am just thinking that people are fearing the worst possible outcome and bad actors are praying on that to push an agenda and because of Wizard's First Rule ("People are Stupid. People will believe anything because they want to believe it or because they are afraid it might be true." [Amusingly that quote comes from an Author that if he were still alive would probably vote for Trump]) it spreads, just like most other misinformation.
You can't just say he'll cost Biden 0.1% in Michigan without also considering how much he would affect trump, if he costs Biden 0.1% and Trump 0.9% he still only gets 1% of the vote, but it hurt Trump 90% more than it hurts Biden, which in the end will actually improve Biden's position. And the newly (within the last 4 years) never-Trumper republicans who would never-Biden as well who votes for RFK Jr can't be counted as a "biden" vote since they would never vote for him to begin with, if anything its a vast majority of 2020 Trump votes that are shifted to RFK Jr.
https://elections2024.thehill.com/national/biden-trump-rfk-general/
RFK makes the race much closer, if he's going down in flames, that's good for Biden.
You can’t just say he’ll cost Biden 0.1% in Michigan without also considering how much he would affect trump
I didn't, I said it doesn't take much in one of the handful of states where votes matter. Because someone was saying they didn't understand how RFK could effect the race.
Everything is hypothetical until the election. But if there's only Biden and trump on people's ballots, it's likely to help Biden more than trump. This isn't just some idea I came up with.
Unless this is one of those things where you're gonna say polls aren't real, if that's the case this isn't gonna be productive
From your own usa today article:
according to the poll of 1,261 adults surveyed May 21 through May 23. It found third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein — not Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — are making the difference, pulling support away from Biden.
Emphasis added by me. And I agree, with the article, other 3rd party candidates are likely to pull more from Biden than Trump, but also in agreement with your article, not RFK Jr. And it goes back to people pushing RFK Jr as a threat to Biden, when in reality he's not at all a threat to Biden. Its FUD being pushed by bad actors and people are falling for it and is distracting people from the real threats to Biden, which is Cornel West and Jill Stein.
Like I said it's all hypothetical until the election.
My whole point was something that's negligible on a national level, can still change the election in the few states that will decide the election.
But Trump voters are trump voters because they want trump. Biden voters are Biden voters... Because they don't want trump.
The less options on a ballot the more "not trump" translates to "Biden"
Right wing nut jobs think Trump is a superhero out to stop an evil organization of worldwide pedophiles. They were always voting for Trump. Nothing he did was going to change that. On the other hand leftists are easy to trick.
Funny thing is, he was so closely aligned with Trump's ideas, the only people I ever heard say they planned on voting for him were my MAGA relatives.
My wife is lefter than democrat and she was contemplating voting for him.
It seems the editors weren’t able to reach his worm for comment
I'm no RFK supporter, but that shit was muckraking by NYT. Granted, I question his choice in using the excuse of having a worm in his brain to avoid paying alimony to his ex-wife, but it wasn't being reported honestly and they acted like this was some new revelation that happened in the last few years rather than well over a decade ago.
RFK is not electable, but I will concede that I like three of his positions quite a bit:
- Money out of politics
- Housing and barring corporate ownership of single-occupancy homes
- Cutting defense spending
He's got so many issues that keep him from being a serious contender, but those three subjects are important and he stands on the right side in that regard.
He’s a whacko but I agree with you on those 3 items, nice.
No, it flamed out when he announced it.
When did it ever really flame in?
Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Always looks like he od,'d on niacin...pink ass pig looking mf
Who? 🙃
Barely even sparked
"Just"? Pretty sure it's as dead as his brain worm.
Wait "essentially nil"? Is it actually possible to become president if your name is only on ballots in 9 states?