How RFK Jr. Made Me a Trumper
For this old leftist, the 2024 race had been a depressing choice between two bad options. Bobby Kennedy tipped the scales for Trump.
I had pretty much made up my mind to vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party, as she is the only candidate in the race that is willing to oppose the genocide in Gaza and stand up for Palestinian rights. In reviewing her positions on various issues, I had decided that Stein and the Greens had the platform that was most aligned with my personal stance on the issues, and so I was going to “vote my conscience”.
That was then. This is now. I now believe that the move by RFK Jr. to support Trump heralds a nascent trend in modern American politics — one which I want to support as much as possible.
That trend is the merging of the “Populist Left” with the “Populist Right”.
How I got here
I came of age at a time when the United States still had two discernibly different parties. While there was broad agreement on issues like foreign policy, the two parties differed radically on issues such as economics, civil rights and the environment.
The Democrats once stood for “the little guy”
The Democrats were the party of working people, blue collar “Joe lunchbox” guys — the ones who took a shower after work. That was the old FDR coalition, the one that had given the Democrats a 60 year long “lock” on control of the House of Representatives.
It was also the party of anti-war activists, pro-choice activists and civil rights activists.
Republicans were patricians
The Republicans, on the other hand, represented the genteel upper crust of the country; the country club set, the 1% who ran things, who profited from war, whose “conservative” values resisted almost everything the Democrats stood for.
Back then the American political landscape could be defined in simple terms: the Democrats represented Labor; the GOP represented Management.
The Uniparty of 2024
All that has changed today, having given way to what pundits from the Left, like Ralph Nader. to those on the Right, such as Ann Coulter, all call “The Uniparty”.
As the great liberal-leftist writer Gore Vidal wrote in Esquire way back in 1975:
“There is only one party in the United States…and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
I had witnessed this wicked devolution first hand. I agreed with Mr. Vidal, whom I had always known to be a helluva lot smarter than I — or anyone else, for that matter.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s populist advisor in 2016, seems to have adopted the term Uniparty from the “Ralph Nader Left”, where it originated, and popularised it among the “Breitbart Right”.
Today, the term is barely to be found in mainstream “liberal” media or political outlets. It is wholly owned by the Right, and the DNC-dominated media — as well as the Democratic Party establishment —are constantly denying its existence, referring to the idea of a Uniparty as a “myth”, a “fable” or a “delusion” on the part of “right-wingers”.
Nowhere to go but Green?
Given that I could perceive no visible light between the two parties on the issues that matter most to me (e.g., foreign policy, war, economics), I decided that all I could do was join the Green Party USA, which I did, in 2022.
But I gradually came to believe that there was much more in play than simply war and peace, guns and butter: we were looking at a runaway rogue state in charge in Washington — and that rogue state was run using the Democratic Party as a front.
Yes, there is a Deep State
I know some people (mostly Democrats) scoff at the idea of a Deep State. That is why I wrote an article entitled “How to Explain the Deep State to Someone Who Refuses to Believe It Exists”. If you are a sceptic, you should read it.
How to Explain the Deep State to Someone Who Refuses to Believe It Exists
In the years when I was in college, I, like many Americans, spent a lot of time working in restaurants. When I took a year off to travel around the US, I expanded my experience base in the “hospitality” industry even more.
Like the Uniparty, the term “Deep State” is now also one that is almost entirely attributed to “delusional” right-wingers and MAGA fanatics. And yet, this was also a concept that was born on the Left, as they were the victims of the Deep State long before the Right ever was.
After all, it was always Leftist ideals such as communism and socialism, as well as Black Liberation and other civil rights movements that posed threats to the Establishment. The Deep State is the mechanism that guards against such threats.
When Gil Scott Heron declared that “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, he attracted the attention of those guardians: the FBI (Operation COINTELPRO), the CIA (Operation Mockingbird), and other government agencies all worked to infiltrate and obliterate the Left, from the Palmer Raids in the 1920’s to the bombing of MOVE in the 1980’s, it was always the Left that was in the Deep State’s crosshairs.
It was also elements of the Deep State that were behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom had “run-ins” with the CIA and its infamous head, Allen Dulles.
I suppose at some point the Democrats decided they were tired of having their leaders assassinated by the Deep State, and so decided to become the Party of the Deep State.
The Party of the Deep State
Whereas lefties in general had always regarded “shadowy” government agencies such as CIA and FBI with suspicion if not contempt, today’s Democratic Party is positively in love with what is euphemistically called “the intel community”.
Indeed, while George H.W. Bush had served as CIA Director before becoming President, he seems destined to be the last intelligence professional to go into the GOP.
Today, there are hundreds of lawmakers and candidates who have formerly served in the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA or other intelligence services. And they are ALL DEMOCRATS. In 2017, the Washington Post, notoriously linked with the CIA, ran this headline:
Obviously the “clandestine services” were not happy that Trump had won. They were no doubt caught off guard when the best laid plans of their CIA colleague, John Brennan, who is credited with running the Russiagate hoax, failed to keep Trump out of office.
So the intel community rallied:
Abigail Spanberger is just one example of these “Spooks-turned-lawmakers”. She is even more notable, however, in that, having served two terms in Congress, she is now running for Governor of Virginia.
What kind of country has former spies running its government?
RFK Jr.’s announcement hit home
When RFK Jr. announced that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing Donald Trump, I was not surprised.
The Democrats had, after all, made it impossible for him to run, using “lawfare” to keep him off the ballot and using social media censorship to suppress him, his campaign and his followers.
Bobby then took on the Democratic Party, condemning them for all the same reasons I do:
“I’m sorry to say that while democracy may still be alive, at the grassroots, it has become little more than a slogan for our political institutions, for our media, and for our government, and most sadly at all, for me, for the Democratic Party.
“In the name of saving democracy, [the] Democratic Party set itself to dismantle it.”
Having been a supporter of Bernie Sanders both in 2016 and 2020, and having seen the Democratic Party literally rig the Primary elections in order to steal the nomination from Bernie both times, I was 100% on board with what Bobby was saying.
Watching RFK Jr.’s heartfelt announcement, and his damning takedown of the Democrats, I was fully sympathetic toward both him and his cause.
But that was not enough to make me switch my vote to Trump. Not yet. THAT would come later, when he appeared onstage with Donald Trump at a rally in Arizona.
Trump and Bobby get it
Both Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy obviously have personal experiences with assassination attempts. Trump himself has been the victim of an assassination attempt, and RFK Jr. told Joe Rogan that he is aware that the CIA could assassinate him.
This alone would seem to make them simpatico on at east one level.
That is why I am sure that Trump’s announcement that he will form a Presidential Commission to investigate assassination attempts. He also promised to release all the remaining classified files on JFK’s murder.
This must be music to RFK Jr.’s ears. I know it makes sense to me.
Taking on the Deep State
But both of them are also aware of the Deep State and its machinations, and moreover, both are determined to rein in those shadowy forces. Trump is on the record laying down a marker, according to The New York Times:
Donald Trump, the former president and current candidate, puts it in apocalyptic terms: “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” This is not an empty threat. He has a real and plausible plan to utterly transform American government.
Indeed, Trump has a 10-point plan that includes firing “rogue government employees” and populating the government with his own appointees, and not to allow the “career bureaucrats” to thwart his plans at the execution levels — as they did in his first term.
Trump’s first Presidency was marked by his being ill-prepared to staff the White House, and he ended up being surrounded by advisors and appointees who were often 180 degrees opposed to what Trump wanted to do — and what he was elected to do.
That is not going to happen again, according to Trump. Helped by various think tanks and other institutions, Trump is ready to “hit the ground running” and put his own, loyal people into those government positions responsible for POLICY.
Of course the mainstream media and the punditocracy are clutching their pearls, saying that Trump will create “an army of suck-ups” (CNN) and he will “dismantle the federal government” (The Atlantic). According to NPR, Trump’s plan will give him “unprecedented power”.
The New York Times claimed Trump would “upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law” (to that I say, “if only those things actually existed”).
The Financial Times quoted David Rothkopf, a former investment banker and veteran of the Clinton Administration and Kissinger Associates, who said:
“Trump is a kind of reverse neutron bomb: designed to destroy our institutions while leaving those people within it who are loyal to him still standing, or kneeling before him”.
Sounds scary, right? Except Rothkopf wrote those words in a May 16 article in The Daily Beast entitled: “All Signs Point to a Trump Debate Meltdown”.
So perhaps David is not the best political prognosticator.
What Trump’s plan really means
What has the sh*tlib punditocracy’s collective knickers in a twist is the fact that Trump plans to create a new type new employment category for federal workers called “Schedule F.”
The category, according to Newsweek, will affect ONLY those civil servants with jobs tied to “policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating”. Specifically, those policy-related workers will no longer qualify for civil service employment protection, which means they can be fired and replaced by Management (just like private sector workers).
James Sherk, former special assistant to the President on the White House domestic policy council, explained Trump’s Schedule F thusly:
“Schedule F was designed to allow the president to hold that relatively small subset of the federal workforce accountable, allowing him to replace senior employees who are not getting the job done for the American people. It was similar to reforms adopted by many state governments.”
Trump’s plan has met stiff preemptive opposition from the Biden Administration, but those measures are unlikely to stand should Trump win the election.
A truth and reconciliation commission
Trump also plans on creating a “truth and reconciliation commission”, which I imagine will be a public airing of dirty state secrets like the similarly named commissions in Canada and in post-Apartheid South Africa:
“We will establish a truth and reconciliation commission to declassify and publish all documents on deep state spying, censorship and corruption,” said Trump. “And there are plenty of them.”
I doubt that will be easy, but I say God bless for the attempt. Certainly this will tie in with the commission on assassinations, which would all be truly awesome if it ever really happens.
Bobby delivers The Speech that got me
It was on Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, that RFK Jr. commanded a presence and delivered a speech that clinched my vote for the Trump ticket.
Around 19,000 Trump fans braved the 104 degree heat (40C) to pack a giant stadium to see Donald Trump hold forth. But Trump had a special guest that evening, and when he introduced Bobby Kennedy, the crowd went WILD as RFK Jr. strode up to Trump, with fireworks illuminating the stage and “There Goes My Hero” by the Foo Fighters blaring.
The cheering and applause continued, as Trump took a beat, obviously impressed. “I don’t think I’ve ever introduced anyone who got applause like that”, Trump said, amazing.”
Bobby explained:
“…a few hours after the assassination attempt at Butler, I got a call from a safe food advocate named Kelly Means, who’s been fighting for many years to try to end the corruption at the CDC, FDA, and USDA”.
The crowd applauded and started chanting, “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby”.
RFK Jr. continued:
“…he’d been advising me for many years and on my campaign. That night, he told me that he was also advising President Trump and asked if I would talk to President Trump. I said, “Of course.”
Bobby went on to ask a series of questions, each one eliciting a thunderous YES! from the crowd:
“Our children are now the unhealthiest, sickest children in the world. Don’t you want healthy children?
Don’t you want the chemicals out of our food?
Don’t you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption?”
More thunderous applause and cheers.
Then, as Trump looked on approvingly from a discreet distance, Bobby uttered the phrase that won me over:
“That’s what President Trump told me he wanted. He also told me that he wanted to end the grip of the neocons on U.S. foreign policy.”
More thunderous applause. And my heart jumped.
“He said he didn’t want any more $200 billion wars in Ukraine — that we could use that money back here in the United States. The best way to build a safe America is to rebuild our industrial base and the middle class in this country.
“Don’t you want a President who’s going to get us out of wars and rebuild the middle class in this country?”
The crowd went wild again. Thunderous applause — again. Chants of “Bobby” and “USA” carried on for what seemed like a while.
I was hooked, and I suddenly knew who I was voting for.
What this means for America
The mainstream media made a lot of hay out of a Kennedy endorsing a Republican. It was, after all, unheard of. Indeed, it only took a few minutes for a group of Kennedys to denounce Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump.
But it was too late. That thunderous applause in Glendale signalled a sea change in American politics: the Populist Left joining with the Populist Right to take on the Establishment.
If Bobby Kennedy can get a leftist like me to go along with Trump, I am sure there are millions of others like me — or maybe not even not so lefty — who can make the same decision.
As Bobby said, taming the military and the MIC and ending the “forever wars” is enough reason to vote for Trump.
The Uniparty has made it impossible for populists like me to find a home in the “traditional” party structures. Both parties are captured by big money donors and special interests, catering to the PMC, and no one is looking out for the average Americans — or indeed the world.
The Ukrainian war, as Bobby pointed out, is an excellent example of this.
So while the mainstream Democrats and Republicans support the Military Industrial Complex, the populist elements on each side are now forming a sort of “populist horseshoe coalition” that might just make a difference this November.
#End.
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Great article- I really appreciate your sharing your honest views that were not previously in favor of Trump. Good for RFK Jr that he can put the good of the Country first! Keep up the great articles!!
You're out of your mind. Trump has only one goal and that is his personal self-glory, power, and profit. He will continue the genocide of the Palestinians. He's a corrupt, inveterate liar and a felon. Both of them are mentally deranged. I'm voting for Jill Stein here in safely blue California.