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Republicans, led by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, have been instrumental in recruiting conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into the Democratic major. Of their goals, President Joe Biden would wrestle towards the well-known household scion, damaging Biden forward of his anticipated rematch with Donald Trump subsequent yr.
However as a substitute of working within the Democratic major, Kennedy spent all his time constructing an viewers and help on right-wing media. Now that he’s working as an unbiased, it’s Trump’s group that’s hilariously freaking out.
The “Leopards Ate Face” meme hails from this iconic tweet:
It refers to individuals who undergo the implications of their very own actions. Leopards Ate Face tales are insanely standard on this web site, together with the primary story in all of September. All of us like to bask within the schadenfreude of dangerous folks supporting dangerous issues, and the three folks most affected right here—Bannon, Trump, and Kennedy—are fairly actually the worst folks.
It began with Bannon, who reportedly spent “months” recruiting Kennedy into the race.
Bannon is basically into the entire “chaos agent” factor, from guiding Trump’s first presidential marketing campaign to most lately serving to orchestrate former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. “You create a firestorm now that completely modifications issues,” he mentioned on his podcast explaining why he was working to interrupt the Home, as reported by The New York Occasions. “Folks proper now assume authorities is a profit. I’m going to indicate authorities spending as cootie-infested.”
He hoped for a similar sort of chaos within the Democratic major, with Kennedy undermining the sitting president’s help and constructing a media narrative of “Biden is in bother.”
Sadly for Bannon, Democrats had little curiosity in Kennedy, and neither did any left-of-center media. He’s a rabid conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer who’s actually killing folks together with his regressive ideology. What a part of Kennedy, apart from his final identify, was presupposed to attraction to Democrats? It definitely wasn’t his proclamation that he supported an abortion ban at three months, or his participation in a sham Home Republican “weaponization” listening to. And claiming that “they” had bioengineered a COVID virus that spared Jewish folks didn’t land properly.
Heck, even that final identify isn’t the draw folks thought it was. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, or 60 years in the past. Bobby Kennedy was murdered 55 years in the past. Sen. Ted Kennedy died in 2009. The nation has moved on, and Democrats simply don’t do the “cult of persona” factor that fuels conservatives.
So Kennedy spent all summer season attempting to achieve Democratic major help by … spending all his time on conservative media. Was that the sort of “chaos” Bannon anticipated from his challenge?
What’s worse is that conservative media cherished Kennedy. Trump nationwide safety adviser and fellow conspiracy theorist Mike Flynn tweeted, “I’m actually beginning to like this presidential candidate’s perspective.” Conservative speaking head Charlie Kirk mentioned Kennedy was “one of the articulate and considerate political activists going after the executive state.” Conservative speak present host Steve Deace tweeted, “So long as he doesn’t go trans, a person with excessive character and braveness like RFK Jr will likely be tempting.”
So a humorous factor occurred: Democrats laughed Kennedy out of their major debate. He was an irrelevant non-factor. However Republicans? They embraced him. In non-public Civiqs polling, Kennedy has a 46% approval score amongst Republicans, with simply 20% unfavorable. Amongst Democrats? It’s 15% favorable, 69% unfavorable.
Kennedy’s tremendous PAC itself has numbers displaying their candidate will draw extra voters from Trump than he’ll from Biden. “All instructed, the ballot reveals that in a common election between Trump, Biden and a generic ‘unbiased candidate,’ the result’s Trump at 40 %, Biden at 38 % and the unbiased candidate at 17 %,” reported Politico. “In a matchup between Trump, Biden and ‘Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’ because the unbiased candidate, the result’s Trump and Biden tied at 38 % with Kennedy at 19 %.”
In different phrases, Kennedy sliced off 2 factors from Trump, and had zero impact on Biden.
Democratic voters have been by no means fooled.
Now, unbiased candidates by no means carry out as excessive as they ballot. As a lot as folks complain concerning the two main events, ultimately, few wish to waste their votes on third-party spoilers. Kennedy can be no completely different.
However regardless, it’s clear that the extra folks study Kennedy, the extra he’ll attraction to precisely the sort of people that help Trump: anti-science and antisemitic conspiracy theorists with solely the thinnest grasp on actuality. That’s why the Republican Nationwide Committee simply despatched an e mail trying to hyperlink Kennedy to each Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “RFK Jr. is aware of full properly he’ll ‘take extra votes’ from the Republican nominee; that’s why he’s working,” mentioned the RNC e mail, as reported by The Messenger. “However don’t be fooled — the one option to reverse America’s decline by the hands of Biden is to elect a Republican as president subsequent yr.”
The Trump marketing campaign is definitely sweating it. “One individual near Trump’s marketing campaign mentioned [polling] confirmed that Kennedy took extra votes from Trump than left-wing unbiased Cornel West drew from Biden when each have been examined,” reported Semafor. “It’s single digits, but it surely’s sufficient the place it counts to make a distinction.” The story notes that the Trump marketing campaign is able to unleash on Kennedy, citing a “Trumpworld individual”: “We’re gonna be dropping napalm after napalm on his head reminding the general public of his very liberal views, relationship again to 2012. We have now numerous stuff on him.”
Kennedy thought conservative media cherished him. We’ll now see how a lot of that appreciation was real respect, and the way a lot of it was an opportunistic effort to sow chaos on the Democratic aspect. The primary trace will likely be when (and if) Kennedy speaks on the Conservative Political Motion Convention working Oct. 18-21. He was scheduled to attend when he was nonetheless pretending to be a Democrat. It’ll be attention-grabbing to see if the invitation nonetheless stands now that he’s working as an unbiased who’s threatening Trump, and the way the group treats him if he finally ends up on stage.
Bannon thought he was sowing chaos within the Democratic major. As an alternative, it’s Republicans sweating Kennedy’s presence within the race.
Nom nom nom.
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