Robert F. Kennedy Jr. excoriated the Democrat Party, U.S. government, and our supposedly free press during his Friday press conference. Kennedy’s announcement that he will remove his name as a candidate for president in swing states and endorses Donald Trump brought cheers from Trump supporters and derision from Democrat die-hards.
But what does the alliance between Trump and Kennedy mean to the future of the Republican platform? Properly understood, nothing.
Friday’s speech was not about the policies of the Grand Old Party any more than it was about whether Kennedy’s old-school Democrat belief system remained intact. As Kennedy acknowledged, he had been “a ferocious critic of many of the policies during [Trump’s] first administration,” and the two will “continue to have very serious differences” about “issues and approaches.”
Yet an alliance will allow him and Trump to “work[] together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance,” Kennedy explained during his press conference last week. The key “existential issues” Kennedy identified, and the hopes he professed for our country, transcend partisan politics and harken to the days of our founding.
Kennedy identified institutional corruption of both the government and the press, manifesting itself in “government propaganda,” a “resort to censorship and media control, and the weaponization of the federal agencies” as foundational threats to the country. Lawfare at the voting booth, against both Trump and Kennedy, further built the former Democrat’s case for exiting the race.
These complaints are not Republican or Democrat: indeed, every American should be horrified by the weaponization of our government and the censorship-industrial complex that converted the press from a check on our government to a co-conspirator.
Whether peddling the Russia collusion hoax against Trump, censoring information about Covid-19 vaccines, or hiding Joe Biden’s mental incapacity from the public, the press’s complicity in interfering in both elections and governance leaves Americans with one choice: an electoral revolt against the party responsible for the government’s corruption. As Kennedy put it: “When a U.S. president colludes with or outright coerces media companies to censor political speech, it’s an attack on our most sacred right of free expression, and that’s the very right upon which all of our other constitutional rights rest.”
“Securing our border,” “protecting freedom of speech,” and “getting the U.S. intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing and censoring and surveilling Americans and interfering with our elections”—all pressing issues Kennedy identified as reasons for his decision to suspend his campaign and endorse Trump—aren’t matters of partisanship or policy, but a matter of survival for our constitutional republic.
What of Ukraine, ending the forever wars, and fighting “big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money,” as well as ending the childhood disease epidemic? Kennedy also identified those as areas of agreement with Trump.
For some of these issues, such as ending the war in Ukraine, Trump has made his position clear, prevailing with his view in the Republican primary. Trump’s alliance with Kennedy, then, changes nothing about these. On other issues, Republicans will need to assess any forthcoming proposals—just as Kennedy and his supporters will. There well may be fierce disagreements.
Here, though, is the key to why the alliance matters: No one, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, can properly assess a proposed policy without transparency and honest reporting. Nor can a country founded on liberty survive if the government commandeers the press to brainwash its citizenry.
There will be plenty of time for Republicans to fight over policies. Now is the time to win on the fundamentals. Just as Kennedy’s decision to limit his campaign and support Trump does not represent an abandonment by the lifelong Democrat of his policy positions, Republicans welcoming Kennedy and his supporters to the revolution aren’t sacrificing their core conservative convictions either.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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