Dick Cheney is backing Kamala Harris; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is backing Donald Trump. Why?
“The Bush-Cheney dynasty isn’t backing Trump,” David Jackson marveled for USA Today on September 8. “There’s a time that would have been unthinkable.”
“Former President Donald Trump’s bid to regain power is generating all kinds of odd situations, including stalwart opposition from party leaders and members of the Republican political establishment such as Cheney, former Rep. Liz Cheney, and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney,” Jackson began. “The Cheneys have gone so far as to say they will vote for Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.”
“Speaking of dynasties, former President George W. Bush does not plan to endorse his party’s standard bearer this year, and he won’t say how he or former First Lady Laura Bush will vote in November, a spokesperson confirmed over the weekend,” added Jackson smugly. “It’s a dynamic that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago: The GOP’s most recent president and presidential nominee who came before the party’s current pick won’t publicly back him.”
And while Mr. Jackson somewhat glaringly failed to mention it for USA Today, the high-profile defection of another political dynasty is another surprising development.
Could Democratic Party leaders have possibly predicted four years ago that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would endorse former President Donald Trump?
Yet, here we are. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent op-ed, “Trump Can Make America Healthy Again” was published in the Wall Street Journal last week.
“Chronic diseases have reached crisis proportions, and Kamala Harris seems uninterested in the issue,” Kennedy warned. “Mr. Trump has made reforming broken institutions a cornerstone of his political life. He has become the voice of countless Americans who have been let down by our elites. He could unite the country by making it his priority to make America healthy again.”
“Mr. Trump has told me he wants to make ending this chronic-disease calamity a key part of his legacy, while Kamala Harris has expressed no interest in this issue,” repeated Kennedy. “His political courage and moral clarity about the danger of our compromised institutions give us the best opportunity in our lifetimes to revive America’s health.”
Why the sudden rise in political homelessness?
“Tim Walz’s Democrats Are Not the Blue Dog Democrats,” complained Kirsten Kukowski for Real Clear Politics on September 9.
In the estimation of Kukowski, they spend too much: “In six years, Tim Walz took our state budget from $44 billion to $70 billion, squandered a $19 billion surplus, and turned it into a deficit even though Minnesotans overwhelmingly wanted tax cuts, raised taxes by $10 billion, increased state government spending by 40%, adopted a California emissions standard.”
Grow the government too much: “created more government mandates and regulation including expensive leave policies, welcomed illegal immigrants and gave them driver’s licenses, and cemented Minnesota as a sanctuary state, to name a few of his accomplishments.”
And waste too much: “The waste, fraud, and abuse in Walz’s administration show just what his leadership could bring to Washington, D.C. He failed at government oversight of a massive Feeding Our Futures scandal, and another Walz administration program is under FBI investigation for potential fraud — the program saw 3,000% growth over the period of just a few years.”
What is to become of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans in our increasingly polarized political landscape?
Will we see more high-profile defections and surprise endorsements in the run-up to the big election?
(contributing writer, Brooke Bell)