Is this the pairing that Democrats would fear most in 2024? Former President Donald Trump teaming up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of the famed Kennedy dynasty?
Every election cycle there is some toying among pundits and commentators that “if only these two people” would team up, they’d be unstoppable. Usually, it’s trying to get some moderate like Republican John Kasich to pair up with a moderate Democrat like John Hickenlooper. That ticket, the boring Johns, probably wouldn’t go far.
However, the prospect of an unpredictable ticket, like Trump with RFK Jr., would be something to behold. The idea came about days ago when former Trump advisor Steve Bannon proposed the pairing and suggested the ticket would win in a landslide, The Hill reports:
Steve Bannon suggested Sunday that a presidential ticket with former President Trump (R) as president and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (D) as vice president could result in “a massive landslide.”
On an episode of “Bannon’s War Room,” the longtime Trump ally predicted the former president, if he gets through the mounting legal issues he faces, could win in the general election with RFK Jr. as his running mate.
“We stay maniacally focused in the general — particularly as, remember, the firestorm of the lawfare will start next spring with him,” Bannon said on the podcast, referring to Trump. “If you can walk through that, which you can do — you can walk through that fire … and I think get 55 percent or more of the country.”
Bannon continued: “If somehow it worked out [that] you could get Kennedy as a running mate — and I don’t know, that is far from even technically can happen because of the structure of the Democratic and Republican parties and ballot access and all that — you could get 60 percent or higher in the country and win a massive landslide.”
At the moment, RFK Jr. is pulling somewhere around 20 percent of the vote from Joe Biden in a hypothetical Democratic primary. There’s clearly an appetite for his brand of classical liberalism and free-thinking ideas.
RFK Jr. is probably best known for his vaccine skepticism, a trait that has become more meaningful in the face of lies perpetuated about the Covid-19 vaccine by the entire government health bureaucracy.
On the issues, Trump and RFK align somewhat, but not on everything. Kennedy is pro-choice but does support a ban after the first trimester of pregnancy, a position that many Democrats used to hold before abortion become a holy Democratic Party sacrament. Remember former President Clinton’s motto, abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
As for fighting the establishment, Trump and RFK Jr. might be twins separated at birth. Both are ardent supporters of free speech and anti-government censorship.
In fact, perhaps no two figures in recent years have been censored on social media more than Trump and RFK Jr. They both head the club of having been kicked off various platforms whether it’s Twitter (now known as X), Facebook, or Instagram. There are some things you’re not allowed to say and evidence released in the Twitter Files over the past year confirms government agencies were heavily involved with shutting down voices they didn’t like during Covid, especially Kennedy’s.
Alas, with as much as the two have in common, there seems to be one issue where they differ quite a bit which might put an end to the Trump-RFK Jr. ticket speculation, according to Spectrum News:
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said he is a “traditional Kennedy Democrat” who will “not be Donald Trump’s vice president.”
Kennedy, who is running to replace President Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, made the remarks during a campaign event in Beverly Hills Thursday, where he screened a documentary about his June visit to the U.S. border with Mexico and spoke with supporters about immigration issues.
“There’s a lot of politicians throughout our history that have talked about the border issue as a way to stir up or incite xenophobia or raise nationalism,” Kennedy told a small but enthusiastic crowd of about 200 supporters, who gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage. “I might come to this issue from a different perspective, and it’s a perspective of compassion, of humanitarianism, but also just common sense. A country cannot exist if it can’t secure its border.”
Kennedy said he does not think the country needs a 2,200-mile wall stretching from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, “but we do need something,” he said. “Number one, we need to restore those barriers. They don’t all have to be physical barriers, but we need some barriers so that we know every single person who’s crossing.”
He suggested a combination of physical barriers in urban areas and cameras, videos, lights and sensors in more remote places.
RFK Jr. is anti-wall, and Trump is pro-wall, can this gap ever be reconciled?
In reading Kennedy’s comments, he’s not anti-border security or anti-border enforcement, he just doesn’t think a wall is the answer. Much to the opposite of his party, Kennedy supports enforcement and supports the Border Patrol.
The difference between Kennedy’s position on immigration and that of the modern Democratic Party is he actually cares about the toll illegal immigration is taking on average working and middle-class Americans. President Biden, and those around him, seem unmoved by drugs pouring across the border or by the toll taken in human trafficking. It’s not going to affect them in their ivory towers so who cares if cities and states are overrun spending millions on services for illegal migrants rather than taking care of tax-paying citizens?
The Trump-RFK Jr. ticket isn’t going to happen but it’s amusing to explore the possibility.
