Why RFK Jr. Will Probably Be America’s Next President

Eric Zuesse

RFK jr is maybe one of the few outsiders who can get enough momentum to shake the status quo.

So far, there have been only two national U.S. pollings about the “Favorable” and “Unfavorable” ratings by America’s registered voters, regarding announced and possible though as-yet unannounced U.S. Presidential candidates, that included as an option Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s nomination, on 18 April 2023. (At least two other pollings have been done that excluded his name from the listed options.) Each of those two pollings was done by the Harvard-CAPS-Harris polling organization, and sampled 2,000+ registered voters, the first of them being taken in June, and the second one being in July. Both times, only one of the many listed announced and unannounced candidates scored a stellar-high net favorable rating, it was +21% both times, and that person was RFK Jr. (Despite this, when the Economist/YouGov Poll sampled 1,500 U.S. registered voters during 26-29 August 2023, they excluded his name from among the ones that were listed for the respondents to rate, and this is remarkable, since he was already known to have been by far the highest-rated person in each of those two prior pollings about this.)

Both of those Harvard-CAPS-Harris poll-results are described and linked-to here.

In the July Harvard-CAPS-Harris poll, the second, third, and fourth highest net-rated candidates were Vivek Ramaswamy +34%-18%=+16%, Tim Scott +33%-22%=10%, and Elon Musk +44%-35%=+9%. Trump was at -4%, and Biden at -14%.

In the June one, they were both Musk and Scott +9%, and Ramaswamy +8%. Trump was -3%, and Biden -11%. 

(In the August Economist/YouGov poll, of the names that the majority of the voters knew anything about, the top-rated ones were Scott at -1% and Ramaswamy at -8%. Perhaps as they were becoming better-known, they were losing not gaining net support.) 

What explains the extraordinarily high respect (or perhaps even love) that Americans have for RFK Jr.?

The CNBC cable TV channel on the economy is owned and controlled by the Democratic Party billionaire Brian Roberts, and is one of the few liberal mainstream U.S. news-media to have interviewed RFK Jr., which was headlined on August 30th, “Watch CNBC's full interview with Democratic Presidential Nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”. By September 8th, it had 337,725 views and 3,745 comments. Here were the “Top Comments” (the most liked):

@bismuthinuffin
A real president
@zakmayo1804

Democratic party will never let him run,  can you imagine if they let him debate Biden?  There is no comparison, RFK speaks so much sense and exactly what this country needs.

@williston8
It's rare to find a candidate that I believe, genuinely cares about the country and its people.

@chrystinejohnson6261
I’m happy to see mainstream media giving this man a platform to speak! Other mainstreams should follow!

@WarHammer1989

Shout out to CNBC for an actual fair interview. I didn’t know the mainstream media was capable of that anymore. Thank you!

@danfitzpatrick4112
The American people deserve/ have the right!,  to see what choices they have in any Democratic election. Whether it be between two Democrats two Republicans or a Democrat versus Republican etc!

@cm9859

Mr. Kennedy most definitely has my vote in 2024!  Love ️ his intelligent responses. He talks to the lower to middle class, we are struggling. Food, gas, rent, mortgages, taxes have sky rocketed, especially since Covid. Biden needs to stop sending Billions and Billions to Ukraine. Ridiculous! We need those Billions and Billions for our own people !

@SethPattersonTheEFIguy
It’s so refreshing to listen to an intelligent politician who is not owned by corporate interests

@caseyclyde3006
Love that he is talking about real issues, and real solutions.

The Fox News cable TV channel is owned and controlled by the Republican Party billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and has interviewed this Democratic Party candidate many times (perhaps simply because he hates Biden; Murdoch is famously partisan). They did so on August 29th, headlining “Jesse Watters interviews RFK Jr from New York's Central Park”. By September 6th, it had 243,829 views and 13,640 comments. Here were the “Top Comments” (the most liked): 

@Godpleasesaveamerica
I have a lot of respect for RFK Jr. He's what real Democrats used to be

@jameskuhn432
This is the interview I've been waiting for! Thank you Jesse for doing this! It's crazy that he's a Democrat, but FOX is the only one that will talk with him.

@changingworld7467
As a veteran, RFK jr is the best candidate of my lifetime. The Dem Party of my youth was mostly a party of peace and free speech, and bodily autonomy. Now, it is a party of Wall Street, forever wars, censorship, lockdowns and forced vaccinations. RFK jr is going to keep rising in the polls. The US needs better leaders in both parties.

@THINBLUELINE.K9-OFFICER-5558
Thank you, RFK Jr. and Jesse for allowing us to actually see & understand this.  I'm not a Democrat. I have much respect for RFK Jr. 

@ladikmk
RFK Jr is a humble man, who truly cares about not only the security and welfare of our country and its citizens, but humanity as a whole.  He actually walks what he talks.

@Nanno00
Thank you for airing an interview with RFK Jr. If you keep this up, I may have to stop avoiding and badmouthing Fox News.  As a centrist, I’m really impressed with RFK Jr so far. I hope there is a longer length continuation of this interview.

@yochevedbrachasimon4979
Whatever party RFK JR is on, I will vote for. I want my country to be restored to sanity. He is the real deal.

RFK Jr. appeals to large numbers of people in both Parties. He is the only candidate or prospective candidate, thus far, who does. Obviously, if he wins the Democratic Party’s nomination, then he will almost certainly become America’s next President. The same thing can’t be credibly said about Biden or any of the other candidates. Trump is the same as Biden: respected only by the public in his Party — not by Independents or the other Party. (So: a Trump-v.-Biden contest would be a contest between two nominees neither of which would have any chance at all of becoming the national leader in any truly democratic country.)

To get a better and fuller view of this unique candidate, RFK Jr., look at the show he put on, on 18 April 2023, in Boston, his campaign-announcement. But you might want to start viewing it at 34:00, when the introductions start. RFK Jr.’s extemporaneous 13,797-word, 108-minute-long, speech — delivered without any prepared text — starts at 46:00 (46 minutes) and goes till 2:34 (154 minutes), a total of 108 minutes. Because there was no written text, no transcript has been supplied; but someone (not affiliated with the campaign) transcribed and posted to the Web “RFK Jr. Presidential Announcement Speech” [without the introducers], and it has lots of errors. This is the sort of thing that often happens when a speech is delivered without a prepared text. Anyway, this is one instance in which one has to see and hear the speech in order to be able to understand its full meaning, about him, and about America.