(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his campaign team have openly supported reparations for blacks who descended from slaves, the New York Post reported.
Rather than give away straight cash to former slaves, Kennedy’s campaign website suggests “targeted community repair.”
Nonetheless, the surprise shift in tone following his recent exit from the Democratic Party leaves many on both the Right and Left wondering where he really stands as he seeks to shed the perception that he is a fringe candidate mainly appealing to disaffected supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy’s leftward pivot positions him, in fact, to run to the opposite side of President Joe Biden or whoever the mainstream Democrat selection may be, while attempting to peel of black voters who may have lost faith in Democrats’ broken promises but be unwilling to make the leap to the Republican side.
According to Kennedy’s platform, the federal government should give money away to “rebuild black infrastructure” as well as “direct redress payments or tax credits,” targeting those who are “descendents [sic] of the victims of Jim Crow and other victims of persecution.”
He claims the reparations will save black “banks, businesses, hospitals, schools, and farms were targeted for destruction” by Jim Crow era laws.
One of Kennedy’s purported aims is to implement policies that, even if they target blacks specifically. would also be a boon to other races living nearby.
He says this is both “fair” and likely to “win the approval of all races.”
In reality, Kennedy’s leftist positions have long been present on his website. However, he launched his unconventional campaign by reaching out to sources outside the mainstream such as Joe Rogan, Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson, where he conducted a series of lengthy and discursive interviews, often touching on anti-establishment conspiracy theories that appealed to the sensibilities of Trump supporters.
As a result, some feared his decision to run as an independent could do more harm than good. A recent poll by the left-leaning Marist showed Biden running away with the election in a hypothetical three-way race with himself, Trump and Kennedy, the National Pulse reported.
Although Trump himself has made considerable inroads in poaching black voters from Democrats, conservatives may breath easy that Kennedy is now opting to emphasize his true liberal colors.
Biden so far failed to answer the far-left’s demand for reparation payments. Although he expressed commitment to reparations payments on the campaign trail, the president has since backed off, citing larger and more pressing issues.
Likewise, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who seems poised to step into the frontrunner spot should Biden falter, made a strategic miscalculation in forming a reparations task force for his state that came back with such outlandish proposals that nobody could take them seriously—forcing him into an unwinnable political quagmire that could come back to haunt him.
Despite the lack of formal support for direct reparations, however, Democrats have already undertaken numerous actions to redistribute wealth from middle and working class whites to privileged “communities.”
Biden, for instance, has committed his administration to advancing black interests in the federal government, and to addressing what it sees as an existential threat at home: white supremacy.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
