Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he will drop his Democratic bid for president and run as an independent or third-party candidate, adding a new wrinkle to a 2024 race currently heading toward a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy’s campaign has teased the announcement in the days leading up to a Monday afternoon speech in Philadelphia. In a recent video, Kennedy said there is corruption “in the leadership of both political parties” and said he wants to “rewrite the assumptions and change the habits of American politics.”
The video came shortly after Mediaite reported he planned to launch an independent bid.
Yeah. My eyes got WIDE open about the “function” of third-party candidates in the US after I saw in hindsight (because isn’t hindsight always clearer?) Jill Stein’s role in a prior election. They’re basically there to shave off just enough votes from one of the major parties to tilt things one way or another. Easy for 3rd parties–no matter of they’re crazies OR if they actually have legit policy stances that really should be considered, such as climate issues–to be turned into agents of chaos. People working the USA’s political system from the outside work BOTH sides–the right and the left, pretending to be either one to sow discord as it suits their goals. The more division the better, for them.
I really want various ballot initiatives to succeed in changing how voting is done in the US, so you can safely vote for the candidate you actually want without handing the election to the worst candidate. Voting would be much invigorated if you could vote for someone with pride and enthusiasm instead of, “At least they’re not XYZ” which is what has to happen now working within the rules our system has for us.
Here and there, a few states have implemented better systems with various flavors of ranked choice and such for their state elections, so they’re not stuck in a two-party horror show for local elections at least, but there’s a lot of hard work that has to be done before that gains enough momentum across many states and towns and smaller localities in the US that it might be feasible to change the way voting is done on a federal level.
Yeah if third party candidates were actually serious they would work to get ranked choice voting passed then run
That is exactly what the Forward party is doing. Their top political policy position is promoting ranked choice voting.
I have deep, intense skepticism of anything Andrew Yang touches or endorses
EDIT: Also look at the fucking wikipedia article for the “Forward Party”. It’s literally bankers and Republicans, if I wanted to ruin the country this sounds like a great idea
I can certainly get that it feels like most third parties are there to siphon votes from major political parties and sow discord.
I really want various ballot initiatives to succeed in changing how voting is done in the US, so you can safely vote for the candidate you actually want without handing the election to the worst candidate.
Funnily enough their is a third party for that. One of the Forward’s main policy is Ranked Choice Voting.
They plan to start focusing on local and state elections as those positions make the election laws.
there’s a lot of hard work that has to be done before that gains enough momentum across many states and towns and smaller localities in the US that it might be feasible to change the way voting is done on a federal level.
Indeed, there is lots of work to be done. You can volunteer with your state’s local group if you think it is important. They have groups organized in 43/50 states.
