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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   2256 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 1, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What's the deal with RFK Jr.? I haven't paid too much attention to him, and considered him kinda minor player whose appeal probably entirely lies in his last name, and even then it's not that much of it. But I read a lot of commentary that treat his endorsement of Trump as some kind of a big deal. Is it actually a big deal? Why? What is his significance?

The press have refused to interview him and the DNC cancelled early primaries because they were afraid of him winning a few of them.

Polling wise he was doing much better than Nader ever did. As a spoiler candidate he was putting Biden - Harris in a position where they would have do dump campaign resources into moderately safe states. So there's been an unprecedented legal effort to keep him off of ballots.

Basically he's an outlet for disaffected hippy-ish Dems who have objections to the Big Government / Big Corporate administrative state policies in things like agriculture and health that are currently unquestionable in the DNC. Also things like should we really be pushing for war against Russia and Iran. Or is having "ex" CIA agents as reporters really a good thing. Or is having the FBI & feds identifiy "misinformation" or "malinformation" on social media really a good thing.

He has a bunch of connections to lib left people in tech.

The big thing is that it will give social cover to people on the left who aren't keen on Kamala. It undermines the whole "anything to stop Hitler" message. It's easier for people to not donate now and speak out against some of the "thumb on the scale" stuff Google has been doing in elections.

It's another example of a moderate Democrat getting disillusioned by the party's authoritarian streak and then eventually supporting Trump. But I doubt he moves the needle much. Having yet another free thinker move over to Trump probably doesn't matter, IMO. The election will be determined by normies and their emotional reactions to pictures and videos.

Democrats tried to keep him off the ballot because they were worried that older Democrats might vote for a Kennedy. But then they decided that he wasn't a threat after all and are now trying to keep him on the ballot against his wishes.

In terms of his views, he's a bit of a kook. Although directionally correct about the sad state of America's health, I'm not sure he has any answers. And some of his beliefs are pretty out there. He believes that exposure Wifi has harmful effects, for example.

The election will be determined by normies and their emotional reactions to pictures and videos.

100% this. Always.

As far as I know, I've heard he's got a decent chunk of people willing to vote for him as an independent candidate, so if half or so switch to Trump and the other half don't vote, Trump gets an additional 1-2% in the vote, something like that. Haven't been following it too closely.

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