“People close to former President Trump made preliminary overtures to Robert F. Kennedy about the possibility of serving as his running mate,” the New York Post reported Saturday.
“I wouldn’t write it off by any means,” an unidentified “insider” told the Post. That assessment said to “still be alive in Trump circles,” was shared by two large donors, one of whom asserted, “Bobby can bring new people to the polls.” And no less a prominent Trump supporter than former White House strategist Steve Bannon, “who remains close to the former president, has also pushed the idea and said in August that a Trump-Kennedy ticket would produce a ‘massive landslide.’”
Judging from reader comments, many are not just open to the idea but enthusiastic about it. And there are similar favorable reader reactions at supposedly “conservative” Fox News’ favorable report on the potential.
It would be a “yuge” mistake. Knowing the truth about Kennedy’s historic support for citizen disarmament would take the fire out of a lot of gun-owning voters’ bellies.
While he’s done respectable work exposing the corruption and bad “science” behind the government/pharma Covid cartel, Kennedy’s climate extremism (“ban fossil fuels, raise taxes, and pass a Green New Deal”), his “flip-flopping” on abortion, and out-and-out socialist embrace of “reparations” are disqualifiers by themselves.
But what about his siding with Texas on the border crisis and pledging to secure it? Assuming that is allowed to happen, how about the tens of millions already here? A “path to citizenship”? Chuck Schumer couldn’t have said it any better.
“RFK Jr. does promote some limited government, anti-establishment policies that conservatives and libertarians strongly support, but his leftist proposals far outweigh them.”
Add his personal and political affinity for citizen disarmament, and we’re talking a hard “No.” Consider a tweet he posted in 2018 – and then deleted; it’s not unfair to assume because it could hurt him politically:
“Let’s be honest. The NRA is as responsible for the MSD child murders as if they pulled the trigger. NRA has turned 2d Amendment into a suicide pact for our children. When do we deal with NRA?”
But wait, he now says, “My position on gun control is that I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns. I’m a constitutional maximalist and the issue has been settled by the Supreme Court.”
Does anyone believe him? Especially after arguing that “gun control cannot ‘meaningfully’ reduce gun violence” and then going for the Holy Grail of gun grabs:
“Kennedy said that he would get behind a bipartisan assault weapons ban, which the overwhelming majority of Democrats support, but has little chance of getting through Capitol Hill given widespread GOP opposition. ‘If we can get a consensus on it, if Republicans and Democrats agree to it and it passes Congress, I would sign it,’ he said.”
Trump has a problematic enough (and wholly self-created) record with gun owners, and putting Bobby Jr. on the ticket would only add to a growing TINVOWOOT sentiment among Americans who see that the left won’t stop pushing as long as they can do so with personal impunity. But say for a minute that Steve Bannon proves to be more politically savvy than he is principled, and a Trump/Kennedy campaign attracts enough independents to where even election interference and cheating can’t slip it to the Democrats:
Trump is getting up there in years. He’s not in the best shape. He’s been having some pretty significant slip-ups, particularly with the Haley/Capitol Security brain f*rt that the Democrat media is having a field day with as it ignores Biden’s daily dotage.
How does it benefit gun owners to put a guy who thinks NRA members are murderers and the Second Amendment is a suicide pact for children a heartbeat away from the presidency?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.