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Larry Lindsey President & CEO, The Lindsey Group
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President Biden just isn’t cool

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Larry Lindsey President & CEO, The Lindsey Group
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For some Americans, politics is only about policy, while others prioritize core values, ideas, aspirations or beliefs. Still, for others, politics may be a reflection of culture, where voting serves as a symbolic act to proclaim cultural group identity. But for some Americans, who they vote for and support is more of a popularity contest, a consequence of which candidate they perceive to be socially “cooler” than another.

Straight Arrow News contributor Larry Lindsey argues that the flaw with modern Democrats — and with President Biden in particular — is that they simply aren’t “the cool guys” anymore. Biden, an elderly white man, cannot captivate a young, diverse audience the same way that his close friend Obama did. Meanwhile, prospective third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appear to be much “cooler” than Biden, potentially posing a threat.

So we got to ask the question: How are Kennedy voters and Trump voters the same?

Well, first, Trump and RFK are iconoclasts. They’re attacking the establishment. They’re attacking the so-called Deep State. And that’s popular with a lot of voters who are dissatisfied with how the government and our elites are running the country. In fact, RFK has gone so far as to say that the censorship and other suppressions under Biden make him a much bigger threat to democracy than Trump. That’s the opposite of the message Democrats are sending.

Biden, by the way, has returned the favor. He has declined to provide Secret Service protection to Kennedy, which I’ve got to say is rather unusual, since the Kennedy family has been subject of more assassination attempts than any other family in American history. And as I mentioned, he lost an uncle when he was six, and he lost his father when he was eight, to assassins. Sensible thing, take some insurance, give the guy Secret Service protection for God’s sake. But the real difference here has to do with being cool.

Now, iconoclasm is cool, attacking the establishment is cool. Having your brothers and sisters attack you and standing up to them, which is what’s happened in the rather dysfunctional Kennedy family, I think is also cool, and shows he’s a man of principle who isn’t going to be pushed around by others. Cool. He’s also had two drug arrests, which I don’t know if it’s cool or not, but it certainly is unusual for a presidential candidate. And two other arrests for protesting.

His running mate is cool — Nicole Shanahan, she’s only 38, which is definitely cool, she’s a Silicon Valley denizen. Very cool. And she was, at one point, married to Sergey Brin, the very cool co-founder of Google.

Well, that’s the cool candidate. Now, why are the Democrats not able to understand what’s going on?

Conventional wisdom has it that Robert Kennedy is a spoiler candidate, and that he’s going to hurt Joe Biden. Well, I checked the facts on that, and they don’t support the hypothesis, or the last four national polls and seven swing state polls, all lead to the same conclusion.

 

If you compare a Trump to Biden head to head match with a situation where there are five candidates in the race, which would include Kennedy, Cornel West, who’s a Princeton professor, and on the left, and Jill Stein, who is the Green Party candidate, it is true that Trump’s lead widens from the head to head match. But the West vote and the Stein vote, which combines to about 4%.

 

is in comparison to the fact that Trump’s overall lead widens by only two.

 

This means that Kennedy must take two more points from Trump than he does from Biden for the mat mat to work.

 

So we got to ask the question: How are Kennedy voters and Trump voters the same?

 

Well, first, Trump and RFK are iconoclasts. They’re attacking the establishment. They’re attacking the so-called Deep State. And that’s popular with a lot of voters who are dissatisfied with how the government and our elites are running the country.

 

In fact, RFK has gone so far as to say that the censorship and other suppressions under Biden make him a much bigger threat to democracy than Trump. That’s the opposite of the message Democrats are sending.

 

Biden, by the way, he has returned the favor. He has declined to provide Secret Service protection to Kennedy, which I’ve got to say is rather unusual, since the Kennedy family has been subject of more assassination attempts than any other family in American history. And as I mentioned, he lost an uncle when he was six, and he lost his father when he was eight, to assassins. Sensible thing, take some insurance, give the guy Secret Service protection for God’s sake.

 

But the real difference here has to do with being cool.

 

Now, iconoclasm is cool, attacking the establishment is cool. Having your brothers and sisters attack you and standing up to them, which is what’s happened in the rather dysfunctional Kennedy family, I think is also cool, and shows he’s a man of principle who isn’t going to be pushed around by others. Cool. He’s also had two drug arrests, which I don’t know if it’s cool or not, but it certainly is unusual for a presidential candidate. And two other arrests for protesting.

 

His running mate is cool. And Nicole Shanahan, she’s only 38, which is definitely cool, she’s a Silicon Valley denizen. Very cool. And she was, at one point, married to Sergey Brin, the very cool co-founder of Google.

 

Well, that’s the cool candidate. Now, why are the Democrats not able to understand what’s going on? Well, they tend to think that cool voters belong to their party. I mean, after all, they say that all young people, women, people of color, LGBTQ plus, you name it, all those groups, all those cool groups are supposed to be Democrats. The only people Republicans have [are] decrepit white males.

 

Well, the problem is, Joe Biden just isn’t cool. Now, part of it isn’t Joe Biden’s fault. He’s the incumbent. And incumbents generally tend not to be cool. They’re kind of stale. They’ve been around for four years. But even as a person, I think Joe Biden doesn’t pass the cool test. I mean, ask yourself, suppose you’re gonna go out to a bar drinking. And you had a choice between Kennedy, Trump or Biden to share a few drinks with? Well, you know, Kennedy is definitely cool and you’d have some engaging conversation with him. He likes to talk about just about anything that Trump doesn’t drink, but he doesn’t have to.

 

It used to be the entertainment at the dinner no matter what happens. He’s an entertaining guy. Maybe not cool, but definitely entertaining. Joe Biden. You’re gonna have to drink just to endure the boredom of going out with him. So no, Biden is not the cool candidate and the Democrats are not the cool party. Kennedy is and if he’s a spoiler, what he’s going to be doing is spoiling Trump’s chances by dividing the anti government the anti establishment vote, one of them being cooler than the other. Trump’s probably still going to take more votes than Kennedy. But we’ll see whether the establishment wins the selection or whether the anti establishment iconoclasts win it.

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