Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he will drop his Democratic bid for president and run as an independent or third-party candidate, adding a new wrinkle to a 2024 race currently heading toward a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy’s campaign has teased the announcement in the days leading up to a Monday afternoon speech in Philadelphia. In a recent video, Kennedy said there is corruption “in the leadership of both political parties” and said he wants to “rewrite the assumptions and change the habits of American politics.”

The video came shortly after Mediaite reported he planned to launch an independent bid.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Covid-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

    -RFK Jr.

    • Silverseren@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The scientific evidence and statistics say half the opposite. Ashkenazi Jews actually had poorer outcomes overall as compared to other ethnic groups. It’s just that they were more likely to follow masking and social distancing rules and got their vaccinations, so had less infections overall. But if they did contract Covid, it was way worse for them.

      Same with the black population, (though there were issues of not getting vaccines in those communities due to past genocidal testing by the US government on said populations) so I guess he’s half right there.

  • Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You’d think that if you’re gonna position yourself as a third party alternative, you’d drop the wild antivaxx shit since the crazy people already are going to vote republican.

      • IonAddis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah. My eyes got WIDE open about the “function” of third-party candidates in the US after I saw in hindsight (because isn’t hindsight always clearer?) Jill Stein’s role in a prior election. They’re basically there to shave off just enough votes from one of the major parties to tilt things one way or another. Easy for 3rd parties–no matter of they’re crazies OR if they actually have legit policy stances that really should be considered, such as climate issues–to be turned into agents of chaos. People working the USA’s political system from the outside work BOTH sides–the right and the left, pretending to be either one to sow discord as it suits their goals. The more division the better, for them.

        I really want various ballot initiatives to succeed in changing how voting is done in the US, so you can safely vote for the candidate you actually want without handing the election to the worst candidate. Voting would be much invigorated if you could vote for someone with pride and enthusiasm instead of, “At least they’re not XYZ” which is what has to happen now working within the rules our system has for us.

        Here and there, a few states have implemented better systems with various flavors of ranked choice and such for their state elections, so they’re not stuck in a two-party horror show for local elections at least, but there’s a lot of hard work that has to be done before that gains enough momentum across many states and towns and smaller localities in the US that it might be feasible to change the way voting is done on a federal level.