We saw two very prominent Democrats endorse the leading Republican for President. I don’t remember it happening before. These two Democrats have both run for president. Tulsi Gabbard ran in the Democrat primary election for president against Joe Biden back in 2020. Robert Kennedy Junior ran against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024, first as a Democrat and then as a political independent. Why are we seeing this political shift now?
Robert Kennedy Junior clearly was a Democrat. He supported his father, Robert F. Kennedy Senior, in his campaigns. Kennedy Junior was and is a passionate environmentalists. He supported both species and habitat conservation. He is a lawyer and was instrumental in bringing lawsuits against Mobil Oil and the US Department of Defense for their environmental practices. Kennedy questioned the role of chemical contamination affecting the health of children. He was considered for a role in the Environmental Protection Agency by President Obama. Kennedy long questioned the safety and effectiveness of medical vaccines. He was against mandatory vaccination for Covid19. Kennedy recently complained at the lawfare committed by the Democrat Party to keep him off the primary ballot and out of candidate forums.
Congressman Tulsi Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii State House of Representatives as a Democrat. She was later elected to a seat on the Honolulu City Council. She was a US Congressman as a Democrat and served for four terms. She was the Vice-Chairman of the Democrat National Committee under Chairman Deborah Wasserman Schultz.
Gabbard joined the Hawaii National Guard in 2003. She was deployed to Iraq as an enlisted man. She graduated from Officer Candidate School and was later deployed to Kuwait and the Horn of Africa. She describes herself as a political progressive and an international isolationist. When Gabbard ran against Hillary Clinton in the 2020 political campaigns, Democrat operatives accused Gabbard of being a Russian spy. President Biden’s TSA put her on a security watch list so federal air marshals kept Congressman Gabbard under surveillance whenever she flew.
Both Kennedy and Gabbard would have called themselves committed Democrats. Rather than campaign openly against them, both Democrats were attacked by the Clinton and Obama political machines. The ‘big tent’ of the Democrat party has become extremely small. There is no tolerance for debate if the viewpoint doesn’t match the approved party line or the machine-approved candidates.
Both Kennedy and then Gabbard came out in support of Donald Trump in his second run for President. Now I think I know why. Obamacare and the vaccine mandates wedded the Democrat Party to the pharmaceutical companies. Robert Kennedy Junior questioned that alliance. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris continue to support the Obama interventionist foreign policy. Congressman Gabbard thinks that foreign wars don’t benefit the United States.
When a politician speaks, are we hearing their ideas, the opinions of the voters who elected them, or the interests of the donors who funded them?
Political parties go through cycles. The party makes affiliations with special interests so those interests then receive special treatment. When they say that Donald Trump is a ‘threat to Democracy as we know it’, they mean he threatens those relationships with special interests. Those special interests can’t co-exist with Trump. Many of them couldn’t exist with Kennedy or Gabbard either. The political parties are more affiliated with the special interests than with the candidates or their voters. Those special interests tried to drive Trump out of the Republican Party and to drive Gabbard and Kennedy out of the Democrat Party. In Donald Trump, both Gabbard and Kennedy found a natural ally against the entrenched special interests. That is an easy step for populists to take. I like it.
How else do you explain these endorsements?
