On the first day of this month, the American Thinker kindly published my piece:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may well mop up the mess on the floors in November
 

My piece was greeted with close to 100% distain and disgust by AT online commentators.

Making use of a writer’s and researcher’s professional prerogative of timely defense, I would like to review, today, what has happened in the press immediately after the Thursday night debate, where President Trump clearly bested Joe Biden, about which, naturally, a good deal has already been discussed.

The below outlines what some media, such as RedState, are now saying regarding the speculation about Democrats replacing their candidate:

Under the DNC's Call for Convention, it's essentially impossible for Biden to be replaced at the convention against his will because of the rules related to pledged delegates. He'd have to drop out. However, there's a provision allowing the DNC to replace the nominee for President or Vice President after the convention occurs in the event of "death, resignation, or disability of a nominee."

And here we have some of the immediately post-debate major media coverage of RFK Jr, published yesterday:

RFK Jr. warns Biden isn't running the country after panned debate performance: 'It's scary'

Presidential hopeful argued Biden is unfit for a second White House term on 'Fox & Friends'

FOX went on discuss RFK Jr.’s status:

RFK Jr., who failed to meet CNN's requirements for the first debate, held a rival event instead where he answered the same debate questions in real time on X, formerly Twitter. 

He doubled down on the need for both candidates to answer to inflation, explaining how important it is to mitigate the housing crisis and make buying homes a reality again for young Americans. 

"This whole spectacle was a sad story for democracy," RFK Jr. said. "We have 341 million people in this country, and the two political parties produced two men who bickered over, really, irrelevancies without telling us how they're going to get our kids into houses. This is the first generation in American history who's going to be worse off than their parents."

It is interesting that RFK Jr was the headlined figure in a FOX piece that actually trashed Biden’s debate performance, but also referenced CNN’s John King:

This was a game-changing debate in the sense that right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate, and it continues right now," King said. "It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they‘re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket, and they‘re having conversations about what they should do about it.

Additionally, from the New York Times on Friday, the day the Times editorial page called for Biden’s resignation as a candidate:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Debates Alone, Upset Over Being Left Out

The independent presidential candidate answered the same questions that the CNN hosts asked of former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, was not invited to Thursday’s party in Atlanta. But that did not stop him from taking part remotely in this year’s first presidential debate, streaming live from Los Angeles, thousands of miles away.

Standing alone on a stage that was decked out in red, white and blue, and next to a screen showing CNN’s debate, Mr. Kennedy answered — or, in some cases, evaded — the same questions posed by the CNN hosts to former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden.

The event moderator was John Stossel, a libertarian and former host on ABC and Fox Business who now runs an online commentary platform. The event, billed as “The Real Debate,” was livestreamed by X, and Mr. Kennedy began his remarks by thanking the platform’s owner, Elon Musk.

From Newsweek, yesterday:

Kennedy, who previously challenged Biden in the Democratic primary before changing his party affiliation to independent, was pressed by NewsNation's Chris Cuomo about whether he would be open to replacing Biden as the nominee.

Cuomo said Biden is "in freefall," and that Kennedy being the Democratic nominee could "really solve their problems and yours at the same time."

From the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wasn’t with his better-known rivals, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, when they debated Thursday in Atlanta.

But Kennedy responded in real time to the same questions — about inflation, the COVID-19 response and abortion — that were posed to Biden and Trump in an unusual livestream on the social platform X. Host John Stossell kept Kennedy’s answers to the same strict time constraints imposed on the other candidates.

Standing alone on a stage in Los Angeles, Kennedy opened his event, dubbed The Real Debate, by accusing CNN, host of the main contest, of colluding with the Republican and Democratic parties to keep him off.

“This is something that’s important for our democracy because Americans feel like the system is rigged,” Kennedy said during his opening remarks. “This is exactly the kind of merger of state and corporate power that I’m running to oppose.”

You can see it on the left:

RFK Jr. calls Biden-Trump debate 'sad,' sees political opening

This is from All Things Considered.

And on the right: Victor Davis Hanson put all this RFK Jr denial into perspective, immediately pre-debate, here:

Victor Davis Hanson on Wednesday told FOX News host Brian Kilmeade that the Democratic party would not allow presidential candidate RFK Jr. to debate President Joe Biden because it would be a disaster for the president.

"We have a poll that came out today, 62 percent of Democrats give [Biden] high approval or approve of him but you know who else has high approval? 19 percent to RFK Jr. Fringe candidate with a big name. Does it tell you anything that he's got 19 percent support already?" Kilmeade asked.

"It does," Hanson said. "It confirms what you're saying about how unpopular he is but remember there will be no debates. They will not let Mr. Kennedy on the same stage with Joe Biden in the primaries. I can guarantee that. They will not allow that to happen because to do that would be a disaster for Joe Biden."

What I take from that is that so often in politics, reality catches up with spin and knocks down certainties and assumptions.

Just saying.

Image: Associated Press, via Wikipedia // AP1948 public domain