Harrowing predictions of national political division for 2024 have heightened as polls show Joe Biden’s approval ratings plummet. 

Haters of Donald Trump are froth-mouthed over his clear and growing lead, notwithstanding a pull-out-all-ethical-stops legal and propaganda campaign by Democrats to discredit him and even knock him out of the race. 

Neither of the traditional parties will accept their Democrat or Republican adversary as POTUS. 

Into that breach strides the increasingly influential third-horse option: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

His natural base begins with disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters. It is very possible that Bernie Sanders would have defeated Donald Trump in the 2016 election had he not been cheated by the Democrat leadership of the nomination for president in lieu of Hillary Clinton. 

Many erstwhile Sanders supporters then shifted to Donald Trump, swinging the election away from the presumed Clinton dynastic succession. 

RFK, Jr. has been even more bluntly snubbed than Bernie Sanders by the Democrat establishment. 

Unlike the Bern, though, RFK, Jr. has not laid down and played possum – he has mounted a viable, steadily expanding third-candidate challenge.

When he announced his presidential candidacy, RFK, Jr. emphatically declared that he identified as a Democrat.  Despite the vaunted Kennedy name, and decades of RFK, Jr.’s aggressive environmental litigation against chemical pollution, the mainstream media and DNC shunned him, because of his willingness to question COVID vaccines and the wisdom of lockdowns during the pandemic. 

Rather than fall on his sword for Joe Biden’s ascension a la Bernie redux, RFK, Jr. then tirelessly toured the alternative media world, reaching millions of American ears through Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Bari Weiss, Jordan Peterson, and others.

Kennedy’s favorability ratings have since grown to 52% of the American public. 

This has revealed the toxic bias of many media outlets to Americans intrigued by Kennedy’s willingness to speak truth to power.  Kennedy directly fingers Big Pharma and government health agencies for their COVID-19 pandemic actions, alleging mRNA vaccines were unsafe for children and insufficiently tested, that alternative therapies were unreasonably discouraged, and that the disease was exploited to expand government powers.  His recent book is titled “The Wuhan Cover-Up and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race.”

RFK. Jr. has vigorously challenged the national media, and that is giving some Americans hope.  His Kennedy name is a political phoenix from the nation’s 1960s ashes which appeals to some. Yet plenty of Kennedy family members in the Democrat establishment disavow him, which kills the 'dynasty' vulnerability.  He is growing in popularity with younger voters disenchanted with established two-party perfidy.  And he is attractive to people who hate Trump but can’t stomach Biden, and vice versa.

When Ross Perot famously challenged the two-party establishment as an independent candidate in the 1992 presidential election, he ominously warned the nation of the “giant sucking sound” of lost American jobs if the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted.  Perot was right about job losses, but the nation was distrustful of third-party dark horses and the candidates (George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton) did not deliver the vitriol of the 2024 Trump-Biden battle. 

Now, the political climate may be warming for an odd underdog.

Though many observers predicted that RFK, Jr.’s run as an independent would throttle Joe Biden’s election run, and it has, Kennedy’s popularity has also drawn from votes that would otherwise be cast for Trump.  The Los Angeles Times, in a story dated January 8, projects that 16% of voters from the Democrat side would move from Biden to RFK, Jr, while 11% of Republicans would move to Kennedy from Trump. Kennedy’s frank depiction of globalist corporations seeking to dominate the world through control of currency, food, and health is a message that resonates even with some conservatives.

Democrats who refused to contemplate Bernie Sanders in 2016 likely threw Hillary to the historical dustbin and propelled Donald Trump into the White House.  With monkey-wrench RFK, Jr. robustly running as a third-party candidate, will Democrats repeat the 2016 election blunder and back Biden over Kennedy, undermining the Camelot candidate and resurrecting The Donald?  That risk has escalated dramatically since Kennedy announced his independent challenge.

The stakes for an American election have arguably never been higher than in 2024.  RFK, Jr. is roiling the political landscape as he speaks truth to power.  Not since Ross Perot has an independent candidate garnered as much electoral support.  A January 10 Quinnipiac poll puts Kennedy at 11% of the vote in a five-way 2024 match-up: already enough to swing the election result.

RFK, Jr. is the only candidate whose positive favorability ratings have outweighed his negatives.  Bobby, Jr. is an unheard-of animal: a Democrat favorably viewed by most Republicans. This makes him a force to reckon with – not ignore – in 2024.

The Democrat party is prepared to lose the election with Biden rather than win with Kennedy. However, Republicans too must now be wary of the implications of a three-way race for Donald Trump….

Attorney-farmer John Klar hosts the Small Farm Republic Substack and podcast from his Vermont farm. His new book is Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival.

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