Robert Francis Kennedy Junior introduced on Monday that he was ending his problem to the incumbent US President Joe Biden for the Democratic Occasion nomination and leaving the get together to run in 2024 as an impartial.
Talking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, RFK Jr. declared “independence from the 2 political events and the corrupt pursuits that dominate them, and the whole rigged system of rancor and rage, corruption and lies, that has turned authorities officers into indentured servants of their company bosses.”
Kennedy launched his major problem to Biden in April, however has since accused the get together of fixing its guidelines to profit the incumbent and complained that Biden wouldn’t grant him Secret Service safety. His father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 whereas operating for president. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963.
The US “sits atop a effervescent cauldron of fury,” RFK Jr. stated within the Philadelphia speech, describing Individuals as “offended at being not noted, left behind, swindled, cheated, and belittled by a smug elite that has rigged the system in its favor.”
“As an alternative of two events, we now have a uniparty, a monster with two faces loudly bickering with itself because it lumbers over a cliff. On the backside of that cliff lies the destruction of our nation,” he added.
He described it as “painful” to surrender on the get together the place his father, uncles, grandfather and each great-grandfathers helped construct, however in contrast it to the chance the nation’s founders undertook in 1776, after they rebelled in opposition to the British crown.
4 of RFK Jr’s siblings disavowed their brother’s actions, nonetheless, calling his announcement “deeply saddening” and denouncing his third-party candidacy as “perilous for our nation.”
“Bobby may share the identical identify as our father, however he doesn’t share the identical values, imaginative and prescient or judgment,” his sister Kerry Kennedy stated on X. The denunciation was additionally signed by Rory Kennedy, former Congressman Joe Kennedy III, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
Hollywood director Rob Reiner, an outspoken Democrat, additionally denounced RFK. Jr’s announcement as “a harmful and cynical transfer by rich Republicans to place [former President Donald] Trump again” within the White Home. “I talked with Bobby and informed him that what he’s doing might destroy American Democracy. He didn’t care,” Reiner added.
A Rasmussen Stories ballot in September confirmed that 25% of Democrats would again Kennedy within the primaries, however 33% would vote for him if he ran as an impartial.
No third-party candidate ever gained the US presidency. Former President Theodore Roosevelt got here the closest in 1912, when he ran as a Progressive in opposition to the incumbent Republican Wiliam H. Taft. This enabled Woodrow Wilson to win a landslide electoral school victory, turning into the primary Democrat to win the White Home since 1860.
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