Comparing the Second Tier

Early take on how RFK Jr and DeSantis factor into 2024

Whether we like it or not - whether we are ready for it or not - the 2024 presidential race is in full swing. While the early stages of this quadrennial ritual are oft notoriously ludicrous, this particular cycle is already producing a myriad of phenomenon I am finding fascinating.

Normally we go through an excruciating process of whittling down a large field of candidates until a winner is declared; while this has not recently been the case for Democrats, in this century (excepting 2004 and 2020) the Republican primaries have been incessantly messy.

This time around, however, has a different feel to it; the Mainstream Media [MSM] has pretty much determined that the candidates will be Presidents Joseph R. Biden and Donald J. Trump. While I understand the former (Democrats seldom rock their own boat, even if it might benefit them) I find the latter utterly baffling. Ugly primaries make for better ratings, after all, so why these media-grifters are essentially bestowing the Republican nomination to Trump is beyond me.

All of this being true, I wanted to get a sense of how the (for lack of better phrase) ‘second tier’ candidates - Democrat Robert F Kennedy Jr [RFK Jr] and Republican Ron DeSantis - would perform head-to-head, if given a chance. To help ascertain this I recently ran a poll on Twitter; the results were telling…

To get a gage of what these numbers tell us you have to understand that a vast majority of those who would be likely to even see this poll are either conservative or libertarian; I do not have many Leftists (or even traditional liberals) following my page, so the fact that RFK did this well… on this poll?

Yeah.

To be fair, RFK Jr. is not your standard-issue, circa-2023 Democrat; he himself is a traditional liberal, an anti-war advocate and feisty defender of medical liberty and parental rights. As far away from the Leftist/Globalist paradigm as a Democrat can get, several of his stances do resonate with many who lean right, especially libertarians.

But the fact that DeSantis scored so poorly (and winning by only 6-7 percentage points with this crowd truly equates to ‘poorly’) is what surprised me; sure, he took some questionable stands in the early stages of the recent ‘pandemic,’ and yes, he has some suspicious backers (Bush Family, anyone?), but how he has actually governed in Florida over the last three years has been nothing short of a Republican’s political dream.

So what has happened?

I think the biggest thing is the aforementioned Trump. He has been utterly relentless - DeSantis supporters would even say vitriolic - in his attacks on DeSantis, which is certainly taking a toll; many Trump supporters have gone from saying DeSantis is a good governor whose turn has yet to come… to personally hating the man. Even with this poll said-supporters took the time to leave comments, making sure I knew that their loyalty to the President was fervent and unwavering.

[It was a hypothetical question, folks, just to collect specific data for an article like this one; I wasn’t asking you to abandon your allegiances.]

So where does all this leave us? Of course it is still far too early to draw any definitive deductions, so to speculate beyond the most basic of appraisals would be grossly irresponsible. Still, I think we can draw two simple conclusions…

1) RFK Jr. is much MUCH stronger with ‘the people’ than the ruling Leftists in the Democrat party - or, quite frankly, in its Republican counterpart - are willing to acknowledge.
2) Trump’s strategy appears to be designed to utterly destroy DeSantis and his political future… never mind 2024, his entire political future. And - based on whatever data we can derive from this admittedly unscientific poll - it may well be working.

As for our (barely covert) media propagandists? The MSM appears to have already - and, as usual, foolishly - coronated each party’s candidate; the people, however, have yet to have their say, especially where RFK Jr. is concerned. One thing I can state with a degree of confidence: It is going to be interesting to watch all this unfold.

Very interesting, indeed.