The first abbreviated work week of the new year is now all but behind us and nothing truly ground shaking has happened yet in the 2024 presidential election year story. So thereβs still time for me to go out on one of those limbs that is, unfortunately, my happy place.Β
Obviously I can't see into the future (okay, maybe that hasn't always been so obvious) but here's some things that I think are very likely to happen this year.Β
I think it's ever more likely that either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump or both might be unavailable to voters by November. That's about the most generic way I can put it. Don't over think it. Iβm not. Whatever, however. And look, typically in American politics, election year is almost as much about selecting the eventual party nominees as it is choosing a president. And I get that. In the old days, we didn't even know until after the conventions late in the summer. So in normal election years past, the parties could take half the year to decide upon their candidate.Β
But these are different times and this is a vastly different election year than any of us has ever seen. Trump is now like a mythical American political figure. He's both a former president and the leader of a movement. MAGA. He has the Republican Party base in a passionately emotional heart and soul head lock. That part of the country is ready to explode as it is right now. Look at January 6th. However you feel about them, those people and that part of America is exponentially more agitated now than they have ever been before. They see these really corrupt banana republic legal efforts (I mean, who doesn't?) by multiple partisan jurisdictions and entities to remove Trump entirely from the elective processβeither by indicting and convicting him or by literally having his name taken off the ballotβand they are quite literally seething.
But no matter the passionate displeasure of so many of our fellow Americans, I think it very possible that these efforts will be successful to the degree where it becomes impossible for Trump to win due to the pile up of enough disqualifying cases and successful efforts to remove the former president from ballots so that the Republican Party, maybe as late as the convention, will then be forced to put forth another candidate at the top of their ticket. Somehow, some way.Β It might happen.
So let's just stop right there and consider what that would be like in this country coming at some point later in this already guaranteed to be explosively chaotic election year.Β
Everything this massive base of Trump supporters believes is wrong with their party, their country and their elective processes will unfold exactly as they fear, right before their eyes. That alone is going to make for a sβ show unlike anything we've ever seen. Trump is already a folk hero in much of this country. This will elevate him to political martyrdom. If MAGA can't vote for Donald Trump on election day the national turmoil this is going to create is going to make, in my opinion, every political uprising we've ever seen in this country pale in comparison. JMO.Β
But now think of the mad scramble AGAINST THOSE HEADWATERS of the Republican Party trying to replace Trump on the ballot. What an absolute losing proposition. Mission accomplished, Democrats! Itβs VERY hard to see any Republican candidate other than Trump bringing out the 80 million or so voters it's going to take to win the White House.Β
Okay? So what about the other side? Well, I think it's even LESS likely that Joe Biden will be available as the Democratic candidate come November. I'm not even going to go into arguments why. Come on! He's the incumbent and yet he is DEEPLY unpopular, and the American people believe, quite correctly, that he's not physically or mentally up to the job and they are, I believe, very disappointed in his policies and in the direction the country is heading. You can pump up, as I know some will, his accomplishments but you're talking to yourselves. Out there in the eyes of America, this is a president and a party that is in deep trouble. I'll leave it at that.Β
So, just like the Republican Party's problem, but not as explosively problematic, they're going to have a hell of time selling either Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsome as America's best choice for its next president. You could even trot out Michelle Obama and it's not going to sell with much of this country. Look, I hate to break it to anyone who isnβt quite there yet, but people are REALLY starting to see through this elite duopoly that controls our country and they are, I believe, desperate for another option. Hold that thought.Β
But step back now and take in the entire picture. Election Year 2024. Starting right now. Week One. Incumbent president running against his immediate predecessor. Then suddenly, slowly, whatever!, like a disaster movie, one by one or together in short order, both candidates fall out. I've only hinted at the actual chaos that will ensue. That chaos, all of it predictable, will only further disgust the American people.Β
The spectacle put on by both parties will cause Americans to be even MORE disenchanted with our current national politics. They will be looking for some safe harbor in what would be a complete sβ storm of an election year meltdown by both of our major political parties.Β
Have I set the stage? I believe I have.Β
So now there's this guy out there named Kennedy whoβs managed to get himself on all 50 states' ballots. There he will be. The son of RFK. People will be hearing his message, which is EXACTLY what they are going to want to hear. If you haven't heard him, trust me, it's exactly what the people of this country are going to want to hear, and HAVE wanted to hear, for DECADES.Β
These things are all very possible to even more than mildly likely to happen this year. And I think this is how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will become our next president. And that's what I'm predicting will happen.
The scenario that Iβm describing and predicting is, of course, completely unprecedented. Here now in the year of the election, the two major party candidates, an incumbent president and his immediate predecessor as president, both involuntarily rendered by, in Biden's case age or infirmity and in Trump's case the actions of his political opponents, no longer available for the voters to choose as their president. This alone would be something none of us have ever seen before and would set the stage for further unprecedented upheavals.
I mean, we're clearly heading for something like that on the Trump side of things. This is already very likely to be a quite ugly possibility. But if MAGA can't vote for Trump because he's not on the ballot then I predict they're going to vote for Kennedy.
If both Biden and Trump aren't on the ballot then I believe Kennedy will win fairly easily and thatβs really the point of this piece. I don't, at this time, want to get into all of the things that have gone wrong in the last seven years under both of these candidates' administrations and by way of the actions and direction changes of their political parties, but all of that is weighing against the establishment at this time. This is a country that elected a TV guy seven years ago. It remains vastly misunderstood and willfully misrepresented as to why that happened. But here it is. People were just that desperate for someone else. An outsider. Someone who was telling them what they wanted to hear as opposed to someone telling them the same old sβ.
This country is on the brink right now. People are already scared. If you had a clean election without RFK Jr. in it, Trump would likely win, but it would be very close. The Democratic Party is scaring the hell out of so many Americans and no one more than those of us who now self-identify, reflexively, and as a pre-emptive act of self defense, as life-long Democrats. And Iβm predicting that no matter who is running for either of the major parties the most important collection of letters on the ballot won't be Kennedy or Trump or Biden or any other candidateβs actual name. It will be the word INDEPENDENT. And that word will be sitting right next to Bobby Kennedy's name. For that reason alone, even with Biden and Trump still in the race a Kennedy win is possible. But if you remove Trump or both Trump and Biden I think RFK Jr is going to be our next president.
The context all this is taking place in now is so different than anything we've ever seen with the exception of what the climate must have been like in America leading up to the Civil War. We are truly living on the brink as a nation of democratic ideals because we have so often and so routinely betrayed those ideals. The chickens have now come home to roost and, as Iβve said, the American people really are waking up and seeing through their government, the relationship between the mainstream media and their elected officials, the donors and industrial complexes who ultimately call the shots, etc. LIKE NEVER BEFORE. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 is all the proof anyone should need that this is the case. Now more and more Americans are there. It's a trend and it's going to continue to trend for the rest of most of our lives.
The people of this country are attempting to take it back from those who control it. I would agree with anyone who maintains that it is doubtful as to whether we will actually be able to do so. But the only thing that will stop we the people is undemocratic authoritarianism as realized by the now all powerful duopoly, its donors, and maybe most especially the vast landscape of NGOs that employ the elite political classes that inhabit the Washington DC area and the other affluent coastal regions of the country. This element is already using authoritarian and even fascist tactics to smother free speech on social media or wherever else they may find it and they are NEVER going to stop. Should Bobby Kennedy Jr. become the second President Kennedy he has vowed to dismantle the national security anti-free speech elements in our government and most prominently within the Democratic Party and allow the people of this country to once again speak on their own behalf and be heard.Β
Is this Kennedy simply telling so many of us what we want to hear in order to get elected? If you stay tuned youβll get my take on that and so many other questions and issues that are sure to bombard us here in 2024. Buckle up. This is going to be an election year like no other.Β