Friends, my latest article is hot off the digital presses, and you get to read it first! Behold!
The subject is the politics behind RFK, Jr.'s recent proposal of a "no spoiler pledge". Basically, he's trying to make Joe Biden responsible (which in a sense he is) for his (Kennedy's) independent candidacy, which may well end up handing the election to Trump. See what you make of my analysis...
RFK, Jr.'s Proposed “No Spoiler Pledge” is a Stroke of Genius
In case you missed it – and you probably did, because the mainstream media is determined not to cover him or his campaign – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. just announced a proposal for a “no spoiler pledge”. He suggests that he and President Biden both agree to cosponsor a poll with a massive sample size in mid-October, and for whomever of the two of them is then performing the worst in a hypothetical matchup against President Trump to drop out of the race. In other words, the country would have a straight up, binary choice between Donald J. Trump and an anti-Trump – and that anti-Trump would be chosen based on popularity and viability. In this way, says Kennedy, the country could be spared a purely negative choice between Biden and Trump, with the possibility that a more hopeful, optimistic candidate (like him) would replace at least one of them. In addition, Trump would not win by default, i.e. because the anti-Trump vote was split. He would only win if he was more popular than the most popular of his rivals.
Of course, there is precisely zero chance that Joe Biden will accept this intriguing offer. The Democratic Party would never agree, under any circumstances, not to field a candidate for president, even if fielding a weak candidate, as they are, makes it extremely likely that one Donald J. Trump, whom Biden and virtually all Democrats absolutely despise, will thus be gifted a second term in the White House. If preventing a Trump victory – and, with it, a “fascist dictatorship” – truly was the objective of Democrats and progressives, they would seriously consider taking RFK, Jr. up on his offer. Alas, the actual raison d'être of the Democratic Party is, and long has been, the conquest of power for power's sake – and, now, secondarily, the stroking of one octogenarian ego, in particular. If “democracy” burns to the ground in the process...well, Democrats are prepared to take that risk.
Ergo, Democrats will treat RFK, Jr.'s proposed “no spoiler pledge” with the same contempt with which they've treated him, and, indeed, everyone in their own party who has dared to question the unsurpassed leadership skills of Joe Biden, or the moral imperative of masking and vaccines, or the nobility of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or the sacrosanct human right to abortion-on-demand. Straying from the approved narrative, running for office against an establishment-approved candidate, or any other sort of coloring outside the lines, is simply not allowed on the modern left – period. And surely no one has come to understand that better than Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who would by now have been stripped even of his Kennedy genes, if DNC scientists could only figure out how that could be done.
Having said all this, RFK's no spoiler pledge should be seen for what it is – a stunt, designed to insulate Kennedy himself from the charge that he is, in fact, a spoiler. In all probability, RFK, Jr. is much more likely to play the role of spoiler than he is to be President of the United States. He knows it, I know it, and you know it. By generously giving Joe Biden an opportunity to remove him from the playing field, however, Kennedy can claim that, if indeed he ends up handing the White House to Trump, he is not morally culpable, because he was willing to step aside to prevent exactly that – but Joe Biden told him to take a hike. And not only would this be true, but it would be, in a sense, doubly true, because Biden would have had two opportunities to dispense with Kennedy's candidacy in an honorable and direct fashion: by debating him and confronting him, as an equal, in the Democratic presidential primaries, or, later, by agreeing to his “no spoiler pledge”. Biden would have – will have – given Kennedy the cold shoulder twice, thus sealing his own doom. And RFK, Jr., presumably, will offer him no solace, except perhaps a well-deserved “I told you so!”
How much does any of this impress the voters themselves? Probably not much, because few of them will hear about Kennedy's pledge to begin with. What every American citizen has become very well-acquainted with, however, is the imperiousness that has come to define the presidency of Joe Biden, and the absolute contempt that Biden, and his fellow Democrats, have for the opposition party, for third party candidates, for the Supreme Court, for free speech, for political dialogue, for real journalism (as opposed to toadying), and for, broadly speaking, alternative points of view.
In the end, it will not be the Kennedy campaign that is Biden and the Democrats' undoing this November – it will be their own splendid isolation from political and democratic realities, scrupulously and scornfully maintained in the face of all opposition.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at Townhall:
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteIt's not RFK Jr. who is going to hand the election to Trump. It's whatever The Leftist pukes (Democrats) are going to do in the next six (6) months to hand the dictatorship (sorry, I meant presidency) back to Biden and his gang.
First of all, you assume that the elections are going to fair all around. No guarantee of that, as you already know, not to mention a number of other scenarios our home grown Bolsheviks can think up to retain power.
Just musing, but how about a war, and suspending elections with martial law, or better yet, another timely pandemic as a national emergency to suspend elections.
After all, politics in the U.S. is progressing very well to the point of becoming a criminal enterprise. In addition, The Left always has the ready available help of the entertainment industry, the media, and higher education, all well staffed by a fleet of dupes and an assortment of all sorts of fools.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: What a fiendishly grotesque image of our pathetic President! But it is the antiamerican left which has degraded and disgraced our public life beyond measure. They deserve any measure of excoriation and ridicule since wielding it is what they arrogate to themselves a unique right due their unimpeachable righteousness. I would agree that the antiamerican left which has "turned out"(like the criminals they extol) America pursues power with the intent of exercising it as incidence and their whim moves them , certainly including the pleasure of vindictive tyranny. But their greatest threat, I think, lies in their by now clearly demonstrated intent to use such power to force "fundamental transformation" on the proven insane marxist model on America. The recent reckless urging by a far left collegiate worker ant of a renewed "Final Solution" is no anomaly; it is fully and frankly predictive of the antiamerican left's murderous intent to reprise the 20th century's horridly demonstrated total physical condemnation of multitudinous proscribed "classes" They are marxists, so how could they be otherwise? Takes power, wielded with almost (but unfortunately not quite) unimaginablely subhuman evil to get it done! That, I think, is the antiamerican left's compelling purpose. Oh yeah, we've already had ample demonstration, even in the White House, of their voluptuary delight in the perks of office ,as was true of all empowered totalitarians in the past some 100 years (eg Stalin with his numerous dachas in his abysmally ill housed commie hellhole). But their driving motivation goes terribly beyond such frippery. They are showing us right now just what they are made of; will we finally take heed?
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeletePlease CONSIDER "spacing out" your comments, like smaller paragraphs instead of one long paragraph, which is difficult to read. Thanks.
OK , I'll try. Jack
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteThanks. Your comments are very good. It would be easier for me if you had more paragraphs, so my feeble brain could ABSORB them as thought blocks.
Thanks.
Ray, you are of course 110% correct: we cannot naively assume that the 2024 election will take place, and that, if it does, it will be conducted in a fair and upright manner. There are a lot of things the Dems can do to game the system, or to make the engine of democracy grind to a halt altogether. There is a decent chance, however, that they don't yet have the moxie to cancel an election or steal it outright. There's also a chance that they might graciously allow Trump to win the election, and be president again, on the assumption that they will be able to kneecap him in office and prevent him from threatening their privileged position in the long term. But yeah, there's also a chance that you and I will be Soylent Green a year from now. I've got an open mind, believe me!
ReplyDeleteJack, you keep suggesting that leftists want to reprise the worst atrocities of mid-twentieth century Marxism, as well as impose a Stalinesque totalitarian system on the world, but I think the truth may be that 90% of modern leftists are only vaguely familiar with the historical precedents you cite -- and, of those, virtually none PERCEIVE themselves as fanatical or bloodthirsty. In fact, probably many of them see themselves as "conservatives" of a sort. They think that the Left has built up this glorious legacy of civil and human rights, social welfare, etc. that they are trying to preserve and protect against the depredations of right-wing radicals like ourselves. I guess what I'm getting at is that the totalitarian and bestial record of Marxism may have little or nothing to do with the current theory and practice of neo-Marxism, at least from the point of view of your average "progressive". How would you convince HIM that his armchair and effete version of leftism has anything to do with Stalin and Mao? It's a serious question...
Dr.Waddy from Jack: I agree, it is a creditably controversial issue. Here is why I hold to my view: No doubt many reform minded people (progressives if you will) were cynically used by totalitarian monsters to gain power in so many unfortunate lands. The newly empowered Bolsheviks were quickly perceived by some who had supported them, as deceitful and barbarian: Trotsky led the way in summarily savaging them though he could not prevent the desperate attempt by the Whites to save Russia in the Civil War.
ReplyDeleteI think some Marxist fundamentals obtain widely on our left even among people of good will: eg the mechanical perfectability of human nature and the belief in the inevitability of that end; the ability of science to fully comprehend history and make irrefutable predictions thereby of its "progress; the atavistic evil of free enterprise due to its production of unequal results and freedom defined as "freedom from. . . "rather than "freedom to. . . . " PP :True, most progressives probably know little of the 20th century's theretofore unimaginable suffering caused by Marxism in power and by imposition of Marxist principles. But I do not doubt the totalitarian intent, inspired by and amounting to neo Marxism, of people with real power today: eg. the Squad; those who control pathetically "progressive" Biden ; those who have reduced the American academy to a swamp of perversely antiintellectual, now apparently murderous, reflexive disdain and bigotry ( and they DO know Marxism and its record in power); corporate powers who pusillanimously succor the far left while Madame DeFarge knits and waits for them; disgracefully compromised partisan "journalists"and silly voluptuaries who dominate entertainment and delight in playing with social fire. PP: Mao, Stalin , Pol Pot and Castro had to pretend to be human for awhile at least. But I cannot think of any regime indoctrinated by any of a wide range of Marxist convictions having governed without brutality, repression and catastrophic mismanagement of the comprehensive centralized control of both public and "private" life they mandate. I think our country harbors an appallingly assertive neomarxist faction which does purpose totalitarian "fundamental transformation" and is disastrously trusted by many of good will .
Dr. Waddy from Jack: The recent manifestation of open Jew hatred on our far left provides fair warning of their ESSENTIALLY vicious nature. Advocacy of that ancient subhuman belief and support for those who EVEN TODAY, intend to bring it to physically annihilating consummation, opens a window into their barbarian hearts. Of course, they would be similarly murderous towards any who doubt them, in a manner fully exemplified by Marxists in power already.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I think marxism is historically proven to be ineluctably totalitarian. It was famously said that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and marxism in practice confirms this.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Yes. historically the American left has brought about some beneficial changes. It also gave us Eugene Debs, the "International Workers of the World", Harry Bridges , a union commie who tried to shut down the San Francisco docks in WWII, AOC, Ilhan Omar , a President who before he succumbed to the perks of office meant to "fundamentally transform" a nation already painfully evolved into a prosperous, democratic and justly intended country. I knew a loyal working guy who was convinced of the "necessity "of Stalinist Marxism in a UMW school in the 50s. Imagine the vindictive far left imposition Hillary would have visited on us had she filled those Scotus openings with devotees of the Marxist Critical Legal Studies school of legal intent. When I worked in the NY Corrections Dep't taxpayer money was used to mandate the placing in NY prisons' law libraries of books by the far left National Lawyers' Guild which advocated and gave instruction in "justified" resistance to law enforcement. Today's American left is dominated by people like that and their intent becomes more open with alarming rapidity.
ReplyDelete