Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (D) has been a polarizing figure in the 2024 presidential election cycle. With the announcement that President Joe Biden (D) will not be debating any of his Democratic primary challengers, Kennedy has gained a significant amount of support. Although Kennedy is running as a Democrat, he’s been critical of the party since making his announcement to run for the White House. This week, Kennedy penned a letter describing how the Democratic party has “lost its way.”
Kennedy has quickly risen in popularity as Democrats question Biden’s age and ability to run for reelection. Quickly becoming the most popular challenger for Democrats, he’s avoided directing criticism at President Donald Trump (R) despite claiming that news outlets have baited him to do so.
Despite this rise in popularity, Kennedy argued that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is not facilitating a fair election.
As such, he has penned a letter to the DNC Chairperson Jaime Harrison, urging the DNC to “Please, lead by example and hold the most transparent, equal, accessible, and accountable election that has ever been seen in this country.”
In the letter, Kennedy calls the Democratic party his family while also admitting that “families tell one another the truth, as best we are able with grace and love and, above all, with candor.”
“When we take wrong turns, or fail to live up to our best selves, it is our family’s responsibility to hold up a mirror and recall us back to our true purpose and highest self-expression. And so I feel compelled to write to you now, because in my view, limited though it may be, the Democratic Party has gone off track,” he laments.
He argues that the leaders of the party “have succumbed to the siren of control,” meaning that “they have compromised the defining democratic principle of one person, one vote through repeated interference in the primary elections.”
Citing that “they have hijacked the party machinery and, in recent years, directed the power of censorship onto their political opponents, raising political victory onto the altar in place of honest democracy,” Kennedy calls on the DNC to “cede more power to the public, not less, and thereby do right by yourselves, by the American people, and by the ideal of self-determination that inaugurated our great nation.”
