So, as I’m sure will shock absolutely no one, it turns out that Trump had some not so nice things to say about RFK. This past April, he tweeted:
Trump’s opinion of others is completely transactional - if you say you like him, then he likes you right back. You’ll notice he’s completely stopped rambling about electric planes and tanks and boats since Elon Musk endorsed him.
Likewise, this is why he spent last weekend calling Harris “beautiful” and saying Obama was smart and nice - sociopaths assume everyone else thinks the same way they do, so by attempting to flatter them he assumed they’d have no choice but to be nice back.
Oh, I’m aware of the transactional nature of Trump’s relationships. I just wonder how deep the denial will be among the MAGA crowd. Xwitter has already had a bunch of people on my feed saying that RFK’s endorsement is guaranteeing a landslide victory for Trump.
Counterpoint:
Let MAGA believe it anyway, so they feel they don’t even need to bother voting this time.
For whatever it’s worth, Nate Silver has rerun his model without RFK and according to him, it makes virtually no difference:
I don’t think that’s true. If you have something Trump wants, he will say nice things in order to get it. If you’re not useful to Trump, it won’t matter how many nice things you say about him.
The 1/6 insurrectionists and the Charlotteville Nazis have little if anything to offer Trump, but they praise him constantly, which is all it takes for them to be “very fine people” in his book.
Eventually, though, you have to pledge fealty.
Good find. I have a lot of problems with Silver’s leanings, but he got this model revision out quickly and resisted the urge to poke at Harris while there was a ready excuse to do so.
You know, it was never as if RFK Jr. “controlled” some huge number of loyal supporters. At best, he was a convenient name for the “I don’t follow politics” and “Both sides are bad!” cohorts. On Election Day, they’ll sleep in, or ask someone else who they’re voting for, or something.
I read somewhere here that Trump is throwing a fundraising party dedicated to the insurrecitonists, and charging $1,500 a head. And who knows if he might need them to rise up again. Trump gets plenty for himself for saying nice things about them.
This part of the article is interesting:
Any word on whether his electors will go along with his plan to endorse Trump and remove themselves from the ballots?
Electors?
We both know he was never going to have a single one of those.
Presidential candidates put forth electors from their party that will vote for them in the Electoral College. On the ballot you don’t vote for the candidate, you vote for electors that promise to vote for the candidate. Nowadays they put the candidates name and party in big letters, but you still vote for electors.
Or am I losing it in my old age and misremembering how it works?
It would have been a percentage point or two to Trump. Since Harris became the candidate that’s been the difference in the polls with and without RFK jr. That sucks but actually seeing as Trump went all out and appeared with RFK i’m not so sure (rather than just quietly accepting his endorsement and moving on). RFK is one of the very few politicians that can stand next to Trump and be the out there crazy one. I think this could hurt Trump more than it helps.
He said he “won’t take sides on 9/11” FFS. There is nothing worse an American politician could say (even Trump’s “I habitually carry out sexual assault” pails in comparison). And Trump just stood on stage with him and accepted his endorsement. I can see it costing him more than the percentage point or two RFK dropping out would help him
I really hope to see the Harris ad featuring the two of them on stage with that 9/11 quote.
I figure he’s got a good chance at a cabinet position if Trump wins. Trump’s been the target of at least two assassination plots; he might want to keep a Kennedy nearby to draw fire away from him.
Not in either state I’ve voted in.
When you vote for president, you are actually voting for who gets sent to the Electoral College. Then they vote for president.
This page has a good description of the two phases:
Anyway my point was it would be nice if some true-believer electors refused to remove themselves from the ballot.
Up-thread I linked to what happened in AZ: RFK Jr, his running mate, and all of the electors requested removal from the AZ ballot. So it’s not likely, but it would be nice.
I just checked two swing states to see (Michigan and Arizona) but it seems clear that Kennedy’s electors have no independent “existence” without his candidacy. Once Kennedy withdrew, his electors essentially went “poof”. Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump does not bind Kennedy’s former electors in any way. Trump already has a slate of Republican electors as it is.