2024 is the Democrat's Trump Moment // Variant Perception #21

What’s that phrase, “History doesn’t repeat but it sure does rhyme”. Well the universe is composing a beautiful sonnet for America as we enter the 2024 campaign season.

I’m hearing echoes of 2016 all over again, except, this time, the roles are being reversed. Let’s dive in.

The internet buzzes from a non-conforming, out-of-left-field, independently influential candidate deciding to shake the establishment tree. This individual seems to gaining momentum just like Trump did in 2016, focusing on alternative media (in this case podcasts), speaking to taboos that many people feel, and pointing at the dumpster that’s on fire in the parking lot and saying, “I can fix that.”

If you didn’t catch it yet, I’m speaking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nephew of adored President John F. Kennedy and son of Robert Kennedy. Two political icons assassinated at the peak of their careers.

As I’ve written about before, a candidate like RFK running for office and gaining momentum should not surprise based on where our country sits in the cycle of birth, growth, decay, rebirth. We’re in the decay. That much is clear.

Candidates like Trump and RFK who come from outside the establishment have an advantage for gaining attention and momentum. People are pissed. So, point at what’s wrong (usually what the establishment loathes to admit) and proclaim they’re going to come in and fix it.

So far, the internet is surging with news, media, video, and podcasts about RFK Jr. and his message. I guess we’ll see if all press is good press. Much of the press is downright nasty, running the same playbook as they did with Donald Trump. A full-court press of ad hominem and straw man attacks with a heaping dose of gaslighting.

One stand up journalist went so far as to call Kennedy a “cynical cheese-eating rat.” Huh, a little anti-semitic if you ask me.

Yet, despite all this insult hurled at him, and similar to Trump in 2016, a recent poll by YouGov shows RFK Jr. as having a higher net favorability than Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and even soccer-star Lionel Messi.

Interesting. It’s almost as if the media is attempting to silence someone who’s speaking to a a large cohort of the American public that feels silenced. A group of people who feel as if their government has misstepped, taken a wrong turn, and needs to be directed back onto the road.

Oh, where have we seen this before?

As I’ve said before and will continue to say, as I believe it’s a core wound we must heal before we progress again, all opinions deserve to exist and exist for a reason, regardless of your personal opinions of their impact.

Allowing the opinions of others into your understanding (note: this does not mean accepting, agreeing, or recommending those same opinions), rather than insulting, dismissing, and calling crazy, allows you to create a more full, and I argue SANE, picture of the world today. Especially a world like we have today that holds multiple truths, realties, and convictions.

Such as one extreme reality where this man (supposedly) sleeps in a tent with an air-filter next to his head because his romantic partner has “dropped precautions”.

The attacks and insults lobbed at RFK do not “protect” from his opinions. In fact, they strengthen the resolve of those that feel truth in what he’s saying. The more he’s attacked, the more he becomes a martyr, polarizing the faith his followers.

There is no putting out this fire by shaming and insulting. Do we feel like we’re going to shame and insult the man who sleeps in a tent in his garage to develop a more rational and sane view of reality? Of course not!

What RFK Jr. speaks to deeply resonates with a group of people who have felt wronged, shushed, and ex-communicated.

Just. Like. Trump.

Like I said, Kennedy believes the things he shares for a reason. They’re the culmination of his life experiences, values, conversations, and peer group. Just like you. Just like me. To believe he’s doing this because he’s a “cynical cheese-eating rat,” is more a reflection of how cynical the individual who wrote that than anything about Kennedy.

Of course, none of this proves Kennedy’s correctness. However, popularity of his opinions point to real and alive imbalances in our culture that do need fixing. Pointing at anyone who supports or resonates with Kennedy does not make them an idiot, a crank, or a moron. And, I’ll argue any day that the more the media tries to squeeze RFK into this conspiracy, crank, lunatic box the more pressure that will be built until it explodes.

This is the Democrat’s Trump moment. I’m not saying that in the TDS, orange man bad, kind of way. I’m saying it in this is the moment in time where the Democrats have to pay their own bill to settle up with the people who feel marginalized, not listened to, and forgotten.

Remember when a classic liberal used to be pro-free speech, anti-corporate greed, and pro-peace?

Now, just for fun, here are some other similarities I see between Trump and RFK Jr.

RFK, like Trump, is reviled by the establishment media, except they can’t help but talk about and to him.

RFK is shunned by the party leaders, labeled as dangerous, not taken seriously, and generally dismissed.

RFK comes from outside the established team of insider politicians waiting for their turn to be elevated to the President (cough, cough, Gavin Newsom).

RFK is leveraging new forms of media to speak directly to voters. For Trump it was Twitter. For RFK, it’s podcasts.

RFK holds many non-consensus, controversial points of view and has a loose tongue when he’s interviewed.

RFK speaks clearly and plainly to what he believes is not right in our country.

RFK is anti-war and anti-international military intervention.

When you stack them up together it’s a little jarring. Now, I don’t say this to vilify RFK and to label him as “bad man who we hate.” I’m sharing this to hopefully broaden your perspective, Dear Reader, as to a more helpful lens for looking at both Trump, RFK Jr., and anything else that triggers the institutional powers’ immune system.

We as a population are in a time of transition. The institutions and systems set up post-WWII and scaled by the baby boomers have run their course. We’re now in a period of decline, transition, and discovery (key word, discovery).

Trump was the first manifestation of this in the political world. He came out as a deeply anti-establishment (politically) candidate who spoke out loud the things people felt but either dared not say or could not articulate. Trump spoke to the rust belt citizens who have been left behind for the last 40 years as American jobs and factories were shipped to China and the Sackler family pumped these communities full of Oxycontin.

RFK Jr. speaks to the people who see the country prioritizing the interests of corporations over individuals, specifically the pharmaceutical industry, defense contractors, and industrial polluters. RFK is speaking to the group of people who’s trust was shattered during the covid pandemic.

These people’s feeling and frustrations are real. They’re not going away with shallow insults.

I try to remember that nobody is just an individual, single point of data when I come across people I disagree with. We’re both individual and contextual. Individual meaning we have our own points of views, values, and sense-making. Contextual meaning our points of view subsist from those that we surround ourselves with.

Trump’s winning narrative in 2016 came because he understood that there existed a large group of people forgotten by the modern world which no longer worked for them.

I argue that Kennedy feels this same dislocation and speaks plainly about it.

America has a massive spending problem. As a 30-year old my base case is that I’ll never see a cent of the Social Security money that I pay each year.

Our health as a country is declining. Trends of drug-use, depression, suicide, and anxiety are all moving in the wrong direction. We’re bombarded daily with toxic pesticides, plastics, PFAs, and chemical waste everywhere. Chronic diseases and auto-immune disease are consistently on the rise.

I personally know of three adults who have accidentally overdosed from fentanyl just this year!

Add on top of that, our healthcare is the most expensive and least-effective of the modern world.

We’ve been waging war and military conflict across the globe almost every single year of the last 60 with trillions spent and a laundry list of negative consequences.

RFK speaks even more plainly about one of the biggest issues that has arisen in this last institutional cycle, corporations having a direct line to influencing public policy for their maximum benefit.

Now, I do not believe that RFK Jr. even if he did everything right is going to solve all of these problems. I don’t think it’s possible for a lone president to do it. The role he plays in all of this is a transitioner of new ideals, new solutions, and new identities.

He’s playing the role, like Trump, of pointing to the elephant in the room of the mess our country needs to clean before we can move on to building the next iteration of American progress.

We’re in the period of time where things will break. The institutions, ideas, and concepts that got us to this point in time will not be the ones that take us forward. And for that process to ignite, we need to clear the broken, rotten, and unyielding parts of our society out of the way of progress.

The way forward does not contain insults, division, and elitist group-think. It also doesn’t contain vilification, conspiracy, and fallacy.

Except once again, at the root of it all, the way I see it, is the pursuit of truth through skepticism, a respect for the thoughts of others, and a passion for what we believe in.

Let’s all strive to create a more beautiful world.