What is RFK Jr.’s Pitch to Voters?

A mix of nostalgia for American exceptionalism + personal wellness + anti-establishment politics.

With No Labels officially calling off its drawn-out search for a presidential ticket composed of disaffected centrists, focus now turns to the most viable remaining third-party challenge to President Biden and former president Trump—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid.

So far, Kennedy has officially qualified for the ballot only in Utah but his campaign claims to have the signatures necessary to make the ballot in five additional states. With a wealthy new vice presidential running mate in Nicole Shanahan, the campaign hopes to supercharge the signature gathering and qualification efforts to appear on as many state ballots as possible.

Polling on RFK Jr. currently shows the independent candidate with anywhere from 2 to 15 points nationally—9.9 points in the RCP average—drawing disproportionate support from younger voters and independents as Nate Moore recently reported in The Liberal Patriot.

As expected, both political parties and their outside supporters are aggressively tarring RFK Jr. as either a conspiracy-minded spoiler and stalking horse for Trump (from the Biden camp) or as a radical leftist and extreme environmentalist (from the Trump camp).

But how does RFK Jr. himself characterize his vision and agenda for voters?

Kennedy to date is best known publicly for his criticisms of the COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns, his anti-corporatism as it relates to physical and mental health, and, somewhat incongruously given his opposition to the “forever wars,” his ardently pro-Israel stance in the Israel-Hamas war.

Is there a sizable coalition of anti-vaccine, pro-wellness, pro-Israel voters in America? No. But there might be a critical mass of people who support RFK Jr.’s particular blend of nostalgia for American exceptionalism, concerns about personal health, and hits on political divisiveness and the two-party system.

For example, Kennedy recently released a rather long video as an alternative to Biden’s State of the Union address that put his overall message into a story form—a story of American greatness squandered by poor leadership and selfish decisions by a corrupt two-party system.

Act 1 begins with Kennedy’s brief historical overview of America’s unique standing—how our founding values and spirit help to spread democracy around the globe, made us the “City on the Hill” with respect and moral authority, built the freest and most prosperous nation in history, and made America the economic and cultural envy of the world with the best institutions, businesses, cars, music, and even “blue jeans.”

Although America had problems around race, pollution, and hunger, emerging civil rights, environmental, and anti-poverty movements intervened to help set the country straight. For RFK Jr., America peaked during his childhood around the time of his uncle’s presidency and his father’s run for president—a time he claims when people were genuinely proud to be American.

Act 2 then goes into a litany of societal and political failures over the past fifty years since his father’s assassination—drugs, despair, homelessness, an uncontrolled border and rising migration, loneliness, chronic disease, obesity, suicide, debt, crumbling infrastructure, endless wars, and the inability of middle-class workers to buy a house and raise a family on one income.

The villains here are corporations, corrupt government officials, and greedy billionaires—and a lack of “honesty” about our problems from the political class.

Act 3 takes us to the present moment and the possibility of change. “We were once a free and thriving nation, the healthiest and strongest in the world. What we once were we can be again,” through the work of “ingenious healers,” innovators, and entrepreneurs leading us back to greatness. If only the two-parties would get out of the way:

Our nation has become artificially divided by political forces that can only serve when we the people are at war with each other.

People are tired of being manipulated by fear. We learned that lesson during COVID. We recognize that the same techniques of manipulating fear are being used by elites today to corral us into voting for one political candidate or the other.

Americans are tired of these dire warnings that to preserve democracy itself you better vote for our guy.

I can tell you that in every state of the Union people are rejecting fear mongering. Eighty percent of Americans say they don’t want to be forced to choose in this election between the lesser of two evils.

Kennedy finishes by pledging to voters that he will lead “a nation that hungers to heal, it’s a nation ready to face reality, to rebuild, to end the forever wars, to clean out the corrupt Washington establishment, and turn again toward peace, freedom, good health, and prosperity.”

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If you couldn’t hear Kennedy’s distinct raspy vocal patterns (caused by spasmodic dysphonia) or see his physical resemblance to his famous father and uncle, the RFK Jr. message could be a version of Trump’s MAGA pitch about lost greatness, a Bernie Sanders-like denunciation of corporate power and greed, a progressive NGO’s infomercial on poverty and pollution, or maybe a public service announcement by a group of concerned mothers worried about their children’s health and well-being.

Enchanted partisans won’t break off from their party’s respective nominees for this pitch. RFK Jr. will remain a “kooky conspiracy theorist spoiler” to most Biden Democrats and a “radical leftist green” or “communist” to most Trump supporters.

Yet, in a strictly analytical sense, it’s easy to see how disenchanted voters might give RFK Jr.’s message a serious hearing—assuming they are paying attention at all. Nostalgia for American greatness and freedom is potent among Americans who don’t like the social and economic trends they see across the country and in their communities—especially when you add in a strong critique of divisive two-party politics and a dash of therapeutic culture and clean living.

This pitch won’t be enough for RFK Jr. to win any states in 2024. But given how disappointed many voters are today with their choices for president, it may just be enough to tip the balance one way or the other in a handful of critical battleground states.

For this reason alone, it’s probably worth one or both candidates and their parties actually listening to Kennedy’s message and trying to understand how it might appeal to others—particularly young people and political independents—who don’t identify with either Democrats or Republicans.

The effort to get No Labels to stand down centered on targeting potential candidates and convincing them not to run as likely spoilers. RFK Jr. obviously has not been dissuaded from running. So the two party leaders—particularly Biden who is arguably most affected as the unpopular incumbent president—must figure out a way to convince potential Kennedy voters in key states to make a strategic choice not to vote for him.

This is no easy task.

One thing is certain: the two parties and their candidates won’t win over these potential RFK Jr. voters by calling them names or decrying them as threats to democracy. If they want to get a fair hearing with these disaffected Americans, they should first try listening to their concerns about politics and society, and then provide some concrete responses in a reasonable and welcoming manner.