As the 2024 campaign unfolds, numerous faces have added themselves to the list of candidates seeking the White House. For Democrats, the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Cornel West don't just make the playing field more diverse, they pose a real threat to Joe Biden being reelected.
According to The New Republic's Michael Tomasky, opposition to Donald Trump should be unified due the unique threat he poses to the country if he's elected again.
"But instead, a lot of people have chosen this moment, when the democracy is hanging by a few tattered threads and its future depends directly on the result of next year’s election, to say, Hey, let’s have some fun! This is all a game anyway," Tomasky writes.
Tomasky slams the timing of Kennedy's "quixotic and corrosive presidential campaign" with his penchant for pushing conspiracy theories designed to "fuel cynicism not just about Biden but about the whole system," citing specifically his recent comments where he suggested that COVID-19 is designed to target certain minorities while sparing Chinese and Jewish people.
While it's highly unlikely that Kennedy will win the Democratic nomination, Tomasky says that isn't the point.
"The threat is that his out-there beliefs and cuckoo theories and refusal to denounce expressions of support from right-wing extremists up to and including Alex Jones (in his recent interview with David Remnick) lend support to the Trumpian view of the world," he writes.
Then there's Cornel West's candidacy under the Green Party ticket managed by Jill Stein — who is also known for enabling conspiracist thinking and whose "own 2016 presidential campaign was supported by media blitzes from Russian internet trolls directed by Moscow."
Tomasky says he's been an admirer of West, but "his campaign website calls for disbanding NATO, which would give Putin Ukraine and everything else he wants."
Also troubling to Tomasky is "the effort by the 'centrist' group No Labels to run a 'unity ticket'" — a label that Tomasky says is "overly charitable."
"These are political professionals, deep insiders, and they all understand very well that their efforts are likely to help elect the anti-democrat. And they don’t care. In fact, what we know so far tells us that the people at No Labels prefer the anti-democrat."
Read the full article over at The New Republic.
