Trump Jr.: This 2024 Presidential Candidate Is a 'Democrat Plant'
In a political system so obviously stacked against anti-establishment candidates, one can hardly blame those who imagine conspiracies everywhere.
According to NBC News, Donald Trump Jr., son of former President Donald Trump, told supporters in Iowa on Thursday that the independent presidential campaign of longtime Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears calculated to undermine the Trump cause.
“It legitimately always felt like it was a Democrat plant to hurt the Trump thing,” Trump Jr. said. “He wouldn’t be there if the Democrats didn’t want him.”
On the surface, conventional wisdom suggests that a Kennedy campaigning for president should hurt the incumbent Democrat.
Anecdotally, however, Kennedy has had an unmistakable appeal to some anti-establishment voters, including Republicans.
For instance, in an August interview with Tucker Carlson on X, Kennedy asserted what many Americans who distrust the deep state already suspected: that the CIA had a hand in the 1963 assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy.
Then, when Carlson asked about reported U.S. bio-labs in Ukraine, Kennedy gave a very matter-of-fact answer.
“We have bio-labs in Ukraine because we’re developing bio-weapons,” RFK Jr. said.
Ep. 16 RFK Jr. explains Ukraine, bio-labs, and who killed his uncle pic.twitter.com/RMr5VZVqSM
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 14, 2023
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The longtime Democrat also has a lengthy history of vaccine skepticism. In fact, Trump Jr. cited this history as a major source of Kennedy’s appeal among anti-establishment voters. But Trump Jr. also cautioned Trump supporters to look beyond this single issue.
“Once you actually look at his voting record, you’re like, no, he’s just a liberal that is anti-vax,” Trump Jr. said. “Being anti-vax, I don’t think that’s enough.”
Meanwhile, according to The Hill, another Republican challenger has depicted Kennedy as a legitimate threat to Trump.
“RFK Jr. will be a vessel for anti-lockdown and anti-Fauci voters if Trump is the nominee,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said in New Hampshire earlier this month.
At this point in the campaign, Kennedy’s candidacy looks to be a genuine wild card.
On one hand, Trump Jr. had it right. The independent candidate has indeed taken liberal positions on issues such as abortion, climate policy and the Second Amendment.
Likewise, according to the New York Post, Kennedy has also expressed support for race-based reparations, though he later modified that stance.
On the other hand, with the exception of a benign-sounding reference to environmental clean-up, Kennedy has not identified any of those insidious liberal initiatives among his campaign’s priorities. Instead, he has focused on traditional working-class concerns such as housing, civil liberties and ending foreign wars.
Thus, in his public statements, Kennedy has more or less downplayed his liberal ideas and amplified his populist views.
From Trump Jr.’s perspective, therefore, that certainly would sound like a “Democrat plant” calculated to undermine the 45th president.
Events, of course, have a way of complicating an already confusing situation.
For instance, in recent weeks President Joe Biden has lost substantial support among pro-Palestinian Democrats over the Israel-Hamas war. Likewise, Kennedy has backed Israel and, for that reason, has lost support among antiwar libertarians, according to Yahoo. Only time will tell how the Middle East might reshape electoral politics.
In short, before Hamas’ Gestapo-like rampage through southern Israel on Oct. 7, U.S. domestic political alignments had developed some clarity.
Now, however, with Biden having blundered his way to the brink of World War III, nothing appears certain. As a result, the nation’s political outlook ahead of the 2024 election seems muddier than ever.
Nonetheless, were we to discover that Trump Jr. had it right — that in fact savvy Democrats, gauging the electorate’s intense anti-establishment mood, have clandestinely propped up Kennedy as an alternative to Trump — nothing about that discovery would surprise us.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
