• AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    He also opposed the bipartisan establishment’s position on trade (saying if NAFTA were approved, it would lead to a “giant sucking sound” of American jobs going to Mexico) and foreign policy (arguing that the Gulf War was in part the US’s fault).

    He made gaffes on hot-button social issues, saying he wouldn’t appoint any gay Cabinet officials (before reversing himself), and referring to Black Americans as “you people” at an NAACP meeting.

    But he was a populist billionaire businessman who didn’t talk like a traditional politician, acted erratically, was condemned as a potential authoritarian threat, ran on a “drain the swamp” campaign, and questioned the bipartisan consensus on trade and foreign policy.

    During the George W. Bush administration, there was much finger-pointing from liberals at people who voted for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore in 2000, and this experience likely suppressed third-party energy on the left for some time.

    Like Perot, Kennedy is making a populist pitch to voters disenchanted with both parties, he has a rhetorical mode that’s very different from the typical politician, and he has a penchant for conspiracy theories.

    Many have speculated that these numbers are inflated by respondents who don’t know much about him but do like the last name — and that, as the stakes of a Trump-Biden general election and Kennedy’s own kookiness become clearer, voters will line up behind one of the major-party contenders accordingly.


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