Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video by Professor Peter St. Onge.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has effectively withdrawn from the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, causing a stir in the media across America.
This is obviously great news for Trump’s chances of winning in November.
But it is even more significant because of what it says about the Democratic Party, which has been the de facto ruling party of America since Franklin Delano Roosevelt – the master of the Deep State.
Kennedy made his announcement at a Trump rally on Friday, noting that even when he was a child, the Democrats had been the “party of the Constitution,” standing up for civil rights, opposing authoritarianism and censorship, fighting imperialist wars and corporate power.
He said the party had now turned into a party of war, censorship, corruption, pharmaceutical and technology companies, agribusiness and big money.
It is a party that has given up on democracy – by which we mean the undemocratic coronation of Kamala Harris and the legal action to remove RFK from the ballot and throw Trump in prison.
RFK noted that he had no chance of winning given the censorship, the instrumentalization of federal agencies and the collusion with left-wing media. If he stayed in the race, he risked handing victory to the Democrats, “with whom I disagree on the most existential issues: censorship, war and chronic disease.”
This means he is de facto dropping out and supporting Trump. He adds that the original principles of the Democratic Party are now leading him back to Trump.
Note that RFK is formally suspending his campaign, not ending it, but that’s usually what people do when they give up. In RFK’s case, it also means he stays on the ballot in deep blue and deep red states, where he won’t affect the outcome.
But he will drop out in the swing states where it will help Trump.
Kennedy has been consistently polling at around 5%, which is a big deal considering five of the last six elections have been decided by less than 5%.
Beyond the tactical advantage for Trump, there is a broader moral aspect. People like RFK Jr., Jordan Peterson or even Elon Musk were passionate liberals all their lives before switching sides.
Musk made it clear last year when he said he had not left the Democratic Party; it had left him – on radical social and economic issues and on war.
As for the race itself, five of the last six elections have been decided by less than 5 points, so RFK could well be the difference maker in a second Trump term. In fact, Trump has seen a boost in the betting markets thanks to RFK’s endorsement, so despite the fraud, it’s a very close race. That means all hands are on board.
So what happens next? In theory, democracies correct themselves when a party goes off course. It retreats to the center to win more voters. Scientists call this the “median voter theorem.”
But that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Democrats. As RFK says, they are instead ignoring voters and increasing censorship and authoritarianism, even to the point of imprisoning the opposition.
This has of course happened before, even in democracies. In Germany in the 1930s, the ruling Social Democrats were not moderate. They also went a step further and even had allies of the regime politically executed.
We know how that ended, and it’s not good.
We are in a dark period right now, and Kennedy’s most famous case, which successfully upended party politics, will be a milestone in the history books.
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