We thought we had seen everything.
Image courtesy of FOX News Channel
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post appears on this site out of sequence. It was intended for publication on August 28. A technical error prevented it from publishing on that date.
We are back from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week. Labor Day is at hand and the final sprint of the 2024 presidential cycle has begun.
This news-based radio station and its website began our quadrennial Decision series with Decision 2004 in the contest between President George W. Bush and John Kerry. It was a fairly typical presidential cycle with a fairly traditional story arc.
As were the races that we chronicled in Decision 2008 and Decision 2012.
Then came Decision 2016 and the race between a highly favored Hillary Clinton against the highly unlikely candidacy of a real estate tycoon turned reality TV star named Donald Trump. Trump’s upset victory was a political earthquake, the aftershocks of which are still being felt.
Follow that cycle with a COVID-impacted Decision 2020 cycle and we thought we had seen everything.
Then along comes Decision 2024.
In the span of about 40 days, we have seen the Republican Party nominee nearly killed by an assassin, a sitting Democratic president removed from the ticket against his will by his own party, and a nominee elevated in his place who has not garnered a single primary election vote.
All of that is enough to make this election cycle one about which poli-sci textbooks and page-turner novels will be written.
But then, another earthquake happened. A member of one of the bluest of blueblood Democratic families turned his back on the party of his storied family and endorsed the Republican candidate.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the namesake son of the man who was attorney general and who was assassinated during his own run for the presidency in 1968. He is the nephew of Democratic Party icon John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.
In giving up on his own run for the presidency this past weekend, he delivered a scathing indictment against the Democratic Party and its nominee, Kamala Harris. Here is part of what he said:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon…nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus. There in Chicago in a string of Democratic speakers mentioned Donald Trump 147 times just on the first day. Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate?”
Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump has been seconded by another now former Democrat. Tulsi Gabbard, who represented the State of Hawaii in the House of Representatives, said this on Monday:
Tulsi Gabbard: President Trump is showing that he can bring people together who may not agree on every issue, but who value what is most important, which is protecting and defending our fundamental rights and freedoms that are enshrined in the Constitution and making it possible to live in a truly peaceful and prosperous society.”
We have 67 days until Election Day. An eternity…and no time at all.
The good Lord alone knows what will happen next.
