Just a while before appearing this Monday in Philadelphia, Robert Kennedy Jr.'s website. registered a striking change. Instead of the expression “I am a Democratic Kennedy” it read “I am an American Kennedy.”
Robert Kennedy Jr., 69 years old, illustrious member of a dynasty of liberal politicians, environmental lawyer and propagator of conspiracies embraced by the extreme right, announced that he is resigning from the party defended by his father and uncle, both murdered, and He becomes an independent candidate for the 2024 presidential elections. His move could alter the electoral dynamics. He now threatens voters of both parties, possibly even more so on the Republican side by giving much more room to conspiracy theorists.
“I am here to declare myself an independent candidate for the presidency of the United States,” he proclaimed in a space full of followers, outside the National Constitutional Center in the city of Pennsylvania.
Since he expressed his intention to run to compete with President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, he has been a staunch critic of the party structure, whose leaders he accused of hijacking the group's machinery. He also stated that the party, which has completely passed on him, like Biden, had lost its spirit and fallen into corruption.
His proclamations have achieved almost absolute rejection from family members by putting the luster of the family name in danger due to conspiracy theories, some clearly anti-Jewish and xenophobic, his rejection of scientific orthodoxy with his role as a preacher against vaccines and, especially, his embrace with far-right and supremacist figures.
The anti-vaccine movement has undoubtedly been the driving force of its campaign, in which it uses theories that are demonstrably false and without any rigor. In addition to its certain popularity, which some surveys put at 20%, a determining role has been played by the projection achieved in media such as the Fox network and in personalities such as Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's ideologue, who have promoted it as a way to wear down Biden.
Little by little it has been deflating and now it has a voting intention of 14% in relation to Biden or Trump who are at 40%.
It was a bad day, from a communicative point of view, to publicize his political transformation. At the time he appeared in Philadelphia, the cable channels were focused on the bombs that Israel was dropping on Gaza, with devastating scenes, on the tragic images of the massacre caused by Hamas and the citizens who are missing or kidnapped. He challenged Kennedy could not compete with these global crises.
Since “old Biden” is no longer the only one in its sights and also threatens Trump, of whom it recalled his criminal charges, Fox no longer seems very willing to continue with its free advertising campaign in its favor and stalking the president. .
And participating as an independent represents a large expense to have reach in the 50 states of the country. It's not the only one. Academic Cornel West, a Democratic scourge from the left, assured last week that he stopped aspiring to lead the Green Party and that he would run for office in 2024 as an independent.
Kennedy Jr. He is one of the sons of Robert Kenndey, who was the main Democratic candidate in the 1968 elections, fatally shot when he had practically already won the nomination. And what can we say about his uncle, John F. Kennedy, assassinated in Dallas in November 1963 when he was already preparing to be re-elected president in 1964.
Seen as the black sheep of the family, he even opposes mandatory vaccination of children. For a long time he was seen as a real outcast. However, the pandemic allowed him to be projected due to his suspicions about the government's management of Covid and his criticism of confinement and vaccine policy. This gave him fame among Americans, on both sides, fed up with the health crisis.
“People sense that the divisions are deliberately created,” he said in Philadelphia. “Citizens are tired of being deceived and are ready to seize power,” she insisted. “This time an independent is going to win,” she said.
