My (Extensive) Thoughts as a Disaffected Democrat – Please Read

Hi all,

I don't expect many of you to care about what I have to say given I am not an influencer type or known figure, but I know many of you responded well to my analysis of polling data manipulation and have tagged me elsewhere, so I thought I'd provide my perspective. I was just a supporter like the rest of you who also enjoys analyzing political data, and I found hope for a better future in the Kennedy campaign. I've taken a bit of time to process recent events, and would like to share for anyone willing to listen.

First, I think it's important to talk about my own ideology for a bit, because that is the framework from which I processed things the way I did. I am a registered Democrat. I supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 but was too young to vote, and I saw how the DNC rigged that primary with superdelegates and media coverage. Still, things were not yet blatant enough for a young 16 year old to understand the lengths or depths of that corruption, and I still considered myself a Democrat due to policy priorities and other social issues. I was mortified when Trump won. My upbringing was very focused on sustainability and awareness of environmental issues around deforestation, pollution of air and water, renewable energy sources, mitigating carbon emissions, etc. I have long said that I am not a single-issue voter, but if there was a single issue I would vote on, it would be the environment.

In 2019, I wanted to follow the Democratic primary extremely closely, because I knew we would need to put someone strong up against Trump. Originally, I was drawn to Pete Buttegieg, as he was young, new, energetic, and seemed to be talking about the things I cared about. I closely monitored debate qualifications status of all candidates, and looked into all 20 who qualified for the first debate by polling at 1% of higher in some national polls. It was around this time that I took a strong second look at Andrew Yang, who I had originally brushed off as a meme candidate after watching the Good Luck America segment on Snapchat in March. I watched him speak on all sorts of podcasts, and truly went down a deep rabbit hole. I learned about UBI, about all sorts of policy positions which no one was even talking about. I made my first donation to a political campaign after watching his CNN climate town hall (they let all candidates have a segment one day on CNN to discuss climate policy). He was articulate, extremely intelligent, and GENUINE. I was then that I realized the scummy politician-speak we see from other candidates across the board, and that stuck with me. I was fully in the Yang Gang.

I watched as mainstream media entirely ignored him, even as he climbed the polling ladders to 5% in national surveys in a crowded field. He consistently won battles of enthusiasm, and his organized online presence was enough to win any Twitter poll if it got into our circles. But they excluded him from coverage, sometimes in the most ridiculously blatant ways. Please see this long list of documentation by Scott Santens, one of the original champions of UBI. There are countless examples there, but one of the most egregious includes a graphic from MSNBC which claims "10 candidates on debate stage in September" and proceeds to only list 9 names, leaving off Andrew Yang.

Yang Left Off MSNBC Graphic

They always claimed these were accidental, and that there was no conspiracy to ignore him or portray him in a negative light. However, a whistleblower from MSNBC left the network and has provided evidence of a deliberate campaign not to allow Andrew on their network. Through Yang's campaign, I saw firsthand how the media can silence and smear a candidate with immense support. This was someone who arrived on the scene from nothing, and received donations from hundreds of thousands of people. He outlasted sitting senators, governors, members of congress, etc., and became beloved my millions. But the corrupted media silenced him and his ideas, because it did not fit into their desired narrative at the time. I have not, and will never forget, my experience as a die-hard supporter of the Yang campaign.

I wrote Yang in on my primary ballot in New Jersey, but voted for Joe Biden in 2020, because I viewed him as the lesser of two evils. Yang was young, and the Democrats were still better on policy. When he founded the Forward Party, I immediately joined. Ranked Choice Voting was clearly the best viable path towards positive change, because the spoiler effect was preventing people from picking their first choice without feeling like their votes would be wasted. But there was something else that bothered me, that the Forward Party calls out but doesn't have a great response to. And that issue is the corruption of our media, and the collusion that became evident shortly after between that media and the government itself. Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I remember in March of 2023 when he announced, I saw the news and was like "dude, you're running in the wrong party!" I knew of him from family members who said they wouldn't get the vaccine, close family members in some cases. These family members also voted for Biden in 2020, but identified themselves as Independents. I read about him briefly and his work with CHD, and discarded ever supporting him. I had gotten the vaccine to attend college, and I was on the side that it made sense to mandate them since its as the only way to keep us all safe. I had heated arguments with my family defending the vaccines and the Biden admin for pushing them. I went as far as defending their blatant lies in the name of keeping Americans safe. I wanted so badly for the vaccines to be good, like everyone told me, and I wanted to feel I and all of the people I knew and respected (including Yang) had made the right decision.

In July of 2023, I made my first donation to the Kennedy campaign against Joe Biden. It became increasingly clear over those few months that Biden was too old, holding onto power beyond what he was capable of, and the Democrats were not allowing debates with his challengers (including Marianne, who I would have clearly supported at that time). Simultaneously, I saw data coming in showing vaccine efficacy waning, showing masking wasn't as effective as we had been told, that the lab leak "conspiracy" which had gotten people banned from Twitter, and which many of the people who I trusted also claimed was conspiracy, was now essentially fact. Suddenly, a bunch of things clicked into place—and I watched his interview with Joe Rogan. I went down a deep rabbit hold in late June/early July, watching all the Kennedy content I could. He was saying things that no one else was saying, things that made sense, but that would get you banned or cancelled for talking about.

Without my experience with the Yang campaign, I never would have been able to come to these conclusions. I needed to be led to good information with evidence that these organizations which claim to protect democracy were actually subverting it. I needed to SEE it happen to believe it—simply being told would never have convinced me. But not only did I see it, I lived through it for many months. And in the end, I found myself agreeing with Kennedy very quickly.

I don't think I need to explain how watching this campaign has further exacerbated my hatred for the mainstream media and the Democratic Party. They cancelled their primaries entirely while pretending he didn't exist, leading to his move to Independence. The fact that I was supportive of this decision at the time showed how much they had already lost me, but it was nothing compared to how they outright rigged the debate qualification structure, to how they sued him mercilessly to keep him off the ballots, and to smear him however possible regardless of merit. I saw that the collusion between the media and the Democratic Party had become so blatant during this time not by choice, but because there was no other way to prevent Kennedy from winning outright. They really did pull every trick in the book on this one, and it almost didn't even work. I believe they were incredibly terrified for at least some duration of time that he would overcome everything and end party politics as we know them. But they managed, because there is only so much a man can do in the face of a unified front of media and government.

I would be lying if I told you that this experience didn't give me sympathy for Trump and his supporters, who have undoubtedly been smeared and lied about my the mainstream. That said, even after this endorsement and promise of a cabinet position, I will not support Donald Trump for president. I will also not support Kamala Harris for president, a person who has not received a single vote to get to where she is and who stands for nothing. The person I support is Robert F Kennedy Jr, and I plan to vote for him in the deep blue state of New Jersey. The 5% figure to form a party is great, and I really do hope we can hit that, but I wouldn't care at all if that figure didn't exist. Kennedy is the candidate I support. I support his ideals and values and policy—and I support his judgement, even when he does something I myself could not, because I know he has good intentions. Of course, it is not just about intentions, but there is not a doubt in my mind that his decision to endorse something as vile as Trump did not come easy, and he needed to make great sacrifice in his personal life to make that decision. He clearly cares more about the issues he fights for than himself, and that is something I respect immensely. It is what I look for in a leader, and while it may not appear this way at first, it proves to me that he will ALWAYS put country before party. If he cared about his own personal status or ambitions, he would not have run the way he did, and he would not have made this decision now. To me, it is clear he felt this was the only option to pursue the goals he has laid out, and I can commend that while refusing to back a candidate who doesn't align with me.

I hate Donald Trump, but I do not hate people who support him in as screwed up a political landscape as the one we live in. I have family and friends who will vote for Trump, and I love them dearly. I do not see Kennedy's decision as disqualifying or showing a lack of character, but rather as one which only a true leader with a vision for the future could make. Here is my hope for the future:

As the Democratic Party strays further from the values I care about and which it has proclaimed to care about in the past, there are only really two options. One is to establish Ranked Choice Voting in every state and allow for real alternative options to emerge. I will continue to support the Forward Party in this endeavor, and I hope meaningful change can come from their efforts quickly. The alternative to this is to reform the Republican Party. This may seem impossible, but Trump did this not too long ago in 2016. Unfortunately, Trump is a fraud and criminal. He has no moral compass, and his following went from a group with principles (agree or disagree, they had beliefs) to a cult of people who care only about their leader. But deep down, I do believe his followers want what is best for America, and I believe the same of the Democrats. Most people want what is best for America, and the reason we are so divided is because we are given mostly bad information for which policies would make a difference, while the policies which actually would have an impact are purposefully ignored and silenced. Anyone who watched the Trump rally with Kennedy the other night saw how Trump's base loved him. They see him as an ally now, despite their disagreements on some issues. My hope is that in a post-Trump era, which is an inevitability either in November or 2028, is that there isn't a clear successor to the Trump base. JD Vance is not particularly strong, and although I'm sure the Republicans will prop him up in 2028, conservative media at least appears much less influential to their voters than on the Democratic side, which seems to have a lock on who they want as their candidate.

A Kennedy 2028 run not as an Independent, but as a Republican, would be something I could get behind under the following conditions: He must go into that race with the goal of reforming the party, not running as a regular Republican. He must make it explicitly clear that he is going to do everything he can to protect the environment, the same way he does now. He is very patriotic about his framing on this issue and I honestly don't think it would be much of a stretch for Republicans to get behind clean air, water, soil, etc. The main roadblock is abortion, but you have to imagine if the pro-choice side is winning direct ballot initiatives in red states like Kansas and Ohio, there's enough support in the GOP for bodily autonomy and freedom and social libertarianism to allow for a shift in this issue. It is clear abortion is the biggest political liability for Republicans, and if they could rid themselves of it with a candidate like Kennedy, they would be much better off.

Additionally, you all know that I love polling data, even if it is heavy skewed or biased. See the following Quinnipiac poll from February showing a 3-way race between Biden, Trump, and Kennedy, as well as a 3-way race between Biden, Haley, and Kennedy:

Quinnipiac Polling from February 2024

Kennedy pulls a massive chunk of the Republican base directly from Trump. This shows to me that he would knock an establishment Republican like Haley clean off their feet in a potential primary. Against a DeSantis or similar, the path is less clear, but it would be a fight, and they would let him debate. I believe there is a lane here which doesn't compromise his values or positions, but rather wins over the GOP base in a similar way to how Trump managed this in 2016.

Of course, I am under no illusion that this is not a likely outcome. It would need to be pursued and circumstances could dramatically shift over the next 4 years where it doesn't make any sense. But something needs to give soon, because there is such a large group of disaffected voters across the political spectrum with no home, and for me, as someone with mostly left-leaning views, things have gotten so bad that I would be willing to give the Republican Party another look, so long as Trump is out of the way and they can focus on real issues which actually matter. I can dream of a Kennedy-Yang unity ticket in 2028, because without hope, we are left to realize exactly how screwed we are.

I hope you all keep an open mind as we move forward. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be proudly voting for Kennedy in November. As a vote against Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, as a vote against Donald Trump and the current Republican Party, and as a vote FOR Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the ideals he represents to me. I have loved being here with you all for this beautiful time of hope, and I wish you all the best and more hopeful times again in the future. Thank you.