Could Robert F. Kennedy Jr. smash the two-party system in this year’s U.S. election? The one-time Democrat now-independent scion of America’s most famous political dynasty already leads the under-35 demographic as he looks set to announce that he is aligning his ‘We the People Party’ with the Libertarian Party, automatically putting him on the ballot in every state. UnHerd‘s Pippa Malmgren explains what will happen in the very real scenario that RFK could prevent either Trump or Biden from getting over the line in the electoral college.
Many Americans don’t want Joe Biden or Donald Trump. They see the race as a horror-reality show featuring two geriatrics who seem doddery, unwell and angry at being told so. It is increasingly possible that they support independent candidates who could deprive both Trump and Biden of the votes needed to win the presidency. America could end up with a hung presidential election.
How would this come about? The Constitution requires that a victorious President wins at least 270 Electoral College votes, which he must gather from some combination of the 50 states. It now looks possible that neither mainstream candidate will manage that. For a start, the ‘Never Trump’ and ‘Never Biden’ voters are on the rise. Americans are now keen to explore almost any alternative, and independents are offering one in the form of the ‘No Labels’ movement as well as Robert Kennedy Jr.’s campaign. Both have received relatively little coverage so far, partially because of the juggernaut status of the Democratic Party and the GOP, but also because third-party candidates rarely do well in American elections. But, given the staggering sense of frustration nationwide with Biden and Trump and the absence of a unifying figure, an independent candidate could have a historic opportunity.
If neither Biden nor Trump reaches the required 270 Electoral College votes, the Constitution dictates that the voting shifts into a “contingent election”. This means that the incoming House of Representatives will decide the winner based on whoever can form a coalition of red and blue states and win 26 of them first [House state representatives vote as a bloc and receive one vote each]. The Senate would select the Vice President. Given that most Republican or Democrat politicians are hardly able to look at each other, let alone agree any deals, it seems unlikely Biden or Trump could forge that coalition. But Kennedy or the as-yet-unnamed No Labels candidate, who actively cultivate the idea of returning to centrist bipartisan solutions, potentially could, should the presidency slip into the arcana of America’s 18th-century constitutional schematics.
This would represent a seismic rupture in American political culture, breaking the rigor mortis on Left and Right, possibly opening the door to European-style coalition politics and spelling the end of the current party system. Such changes may seem impossible. But there is considerable precedent in American history for such creative destruction. We forget that we are currently on our sixth iteration of the party system, which began in the 70s with the demise of the New Deal era and the realignment of the Democratic and Republican vote. And before that, earlier in the 20th and 19th centuries, Progressives, Copperheads, Whigs and Federalists fought over American Government, flourishing and vanishing with a dynamism unimaginable in the days of our sclerotic party system. Political parties can and do disappear in America.
That said, the transition to a seventh party system would be nothing short of a revolution, and a potentially violent one. There would be a large gap between the election results in November 2024 and any contingent election, which only takes place after the new House members have sworn their oaths of office in the following January. That two-month void could descend into chaos, with contested results, claims of unreliable ballot systems, and wild threats made by reckless politicians. All this could make the hanging chads fiasco of the 2000 election, or even the riot of January 6th 2021, look like child’s play in comparison.
And yet such a scenario looms upon us, and the maths is clear. An independent candidate doesn’t have to win 270 Electoral College votes to win. He needs only deny 37 votes to Biden and potentially even fewer to Trump. That would open the door to a contingent election. This would require hitting both Trump and Biden in their most vulnerable states, where each only had extremely thin margins last time around. But these tend to be the places that would welcome a moderating centrist voice, someone able to speak to the concerns of Left and Right.
Imagine if Kennedy were to win 45 Electoral College votes, just as George Wallace managed in 1968. This is conceivable given that polls show that a bare 27% of Americans now identify as either Republican or Democrat, and some polls show that 49% of Americans already identify as independent. It matters then that Kennedy looks set to announce that he is aligning his ‘We the People Party’ with the Libertarian Party. That will automatically put him on the ballot in every state. He already leads the under-35 demographic, and attracts voters equally from Left and Right. His fundraising looks as strong as Barack Obama’s during his first presidential run.
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We can only hope.
I don’t know much about RFK other than he is “anti-vaxx” which is a plus point. But this article seems like wishful thinking from someone who knows Biden is a disaster but can’t bring themselves to support the vulgar Trump. Trump was a disappointment on “covid” though.
He is also an eco-fascist. Climate ‘deniers’ should be jailed he said. He is a socialist who correctly understands that Pharma (and the military defense industry) own Washington. I don’t think he will get anywhere close to Wallace’s 1968 success, more likely a Perot level or less impact. He will bleed votes from both sides.
It won’t matter anyway if the CIA-DoD implement another vote-fraud and coup.
Trump put his faith in Fauci and Collins, which was a big mistake, as we now know. His Warp Speed approach was aligned to this faith and doing what he was told was the right thing to save Americans from the Rona. It doesn’t stand well as a legacy but I suspect many will not blame him directly but rather the snakes that were around him at the time. Then of course Biden embraced the approach and turbo charged it.
Just imagine.
An end to bigpharma’s evil influence, and the USA’s military industrial complex.
Worry not, The RPTB have ensured that will not happen. Ever.
For a start what would happen to the wealth of the investment/banking cartels – who actully control the western world.
Putin is the only real hope we have of stopping the WEF/Globalists.
Maybe of smashing the criminal org called NATO and bleeding the criminal states of the US and its puppet German empire (EU) dry.
Putin was apparently cool with the Rona fascism and is fully onboard with the Climate Change bullshit, not to mention deeply in love with the cult of Muhammad (40 million squat along the Volga and central asia).
If you have evidence of criminality within NATO, set it out here.
But you do not, so you have made yourself look ridiculous.
Aha what a joke.
Ah 55 campaigns since WW2 might be a clue for the clueless. Bombing Sarejevo?
How is that WMD in Iraq or the 2004, 2014, Uke coups? And now the endless Uke war.
NATO is the criminal military wing of the criminal US empire.
$1 Trillion industry that needs a reason to exist.
As usual, no evidence.
The operation in Iraq was not a NATO operation.
The war in Ukraine quite clearly has nothing to do with NATO; simple barbaric expansionism, pathetic attempts at justification via some nutty invented historical myth.
The whole idea of a military industrial complex in the West has been comprehensively demonstrated to be a myth. We have virtually no military or any industry……
‘Humanitarian pre-emption is a valuable form of intervention. It can prevent violations of human rights in the first place, protecting human life and wellbeing better than post-hoc humanitarian interventions. Furthermore, perhaps more contentiously, it can act as a strong form of deterrence against humanitarian violations which may cause more severe conflict in the future. Belligerent states may feel an impunity to act in contravention of international law if the scope of humanitarian intervention is limited.’
The justification of humanitarian intervention has a great deal of precedent:
‘…….cited humanitarian grounds, specifically the halting of the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of Greek Christians, to support the Greeks. In the Syrian Civil War in 1860, France intervened in Lebanon and Syria to stop the Ottoman Empire from massacring Christians. Additionally, in the Russo-Turkish War between 1877 and 1878, a coalition led by the Russian Empire intervened against the Ottoman Empire for atrocities in Bulgaria……Outside Europe, in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States intervened in Cuba, citing humanitarian justifications inter alia, based on the alleged construction of concentration camps by the Spanish to house Cubans.’
‘…..classical liberals like JS Mill supported the right to humanitarian intervention…’
‘The United Kingdom has historically asserted a right to humanitarian intervention, having invoked it as early as the 19th century.26 It asserts that it has the right to intervene in a country militarily on humanitarian grounds if three criteria are fulfilled.
These are
(a) the existence of ‘generally accepted’ and ‘convincing’ evidence of ‘extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief’;
(b) the lack of any reasonable alternative to the use of force
(c) the necessity and proportionality of the proposed use of force with relation to the ‘aim of relief of humanitarian need’
Shastikk Kumaran, Mateus Norton de Matos
Putin is a criminal and, one way or another, will receive what he so richly deserves.
Says the guy who lived through a Rona fascism. Probably enjoyed it as well.
I have been pointing out that covid is a simple common cold coronavirus since mid March 2020, on here and its predecessor…….
I have vaccine damaged relatives, one now with severe dementia; friends dead from eminently treatable cancers.
Your comments on here sum you up for what you clearly are, obvious to all……
77th out in force tonight…
Doubt it – just people who don’t like something about what you and GHF have posted but are too lazy/busy to say what.
I suspect RFK is part of the whole program. If he’s being pushed as a saviour of sorts, then one should ask why, by who and for what reason.
Personally, I subscribe to MiriAF’s assumption of that ‘if you know the name, they’re in the game’ and I doubt RFK is any different
Wasn’t it Lenin who said – “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”?
Having said that, I could be wrong…..but I doubt it
Well nobody is honest all of the time and nobody reflects exactly your view of the world, and both of these things are much more likely to be true of politicians. So I don’t think any of them should be trusted completely. But that doesn’t mean some are not better than others. They will to an extent do what they can get away with – it’s up to us to hold them to account.
Whenever I have heard him speak what he says is reasonable and non partisan. I think he is the best candidate running.
Where is our own RFK?
In terms of his potential impact, someone like Farage – but Farage is much more mainstream in his politics. In terms of being outspoken, perhaps Bridgen. It seems to me there are a lot more of what the MSM like to call “conspiracy theorists” in the USA than there are here, so someone like RFK is unlikely to get much traction here.
RFK Jnr is a socialist.
He is merely being deployed against Trump. Nothing more.
Remember there are trillions at stake.
How did this guy go from wanting to jail “climate deniers” to aligning himself with Libertarians? —-Todays politicians seem to float about in an ideologic breeze that blows in different directions everyday.
It seems a little strange that he can see through the military industrial complex, but not the climate industrial complex. Either way, it will be interesting to see what if anything he does to the result. I hope he has a stout hat and starch in his collar…
Joe Rogan asked him that in the interview he did with him. Unfortunately he didn’t explore the point in any depth, but RFK Jr did acquiesce and appear to indicate yes he can now see there could be deceptions. He did not give a ringing endorsement of the MMGW position and said he is going on what others have said and hadn’t looked into it as much as he has, say, vaccines, and – if I remember rightly – he is open to the fact there may have been manipulation of the research results.
I read somewhere that RFK was refused security protection despite both his father and uncle being assonated . The only presidential candidate ever to be refused In US history.
If correct, I shows how scared the establishment are of him
Yes, Biden refused to provide it.
He needs to up his Security Detail ….. and make absolutely sure none of them are plants of the CIA or he’ll go the same way as his uncle and father.
That last might be difficult to achieve. I’m sure that other countries have their own Novichok equivalents.