There is a lot of talk about surprise political endorsements in American politics right now, and one in particular is interesting: reports suggest that Robert F. Kennedy may abandon his presidential bid later this week and endorse Donald Trump instead.
There is disagreement among experts as to whether or not this move could give Trump an advantage in a US election campaign that is expected to be a close one.
Alongside these breaking news events, a slower wave of support built over months, culminating in the Democratic National Convention.
This concerns the numerous officials who once worked for Trump and now oppose his candidacy for re-election; several of them have spoken out in favor of Biden.
Trump will not be supported by his former Vice President; be second And third national security advisors; several White House press officer; a chief of staff; and half of his previous cabinet.
Now two representatives of the Trump White House spoke at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago and asked Americans not to vote for their former boss.
They included Trump’s press secretary and a national security official, among other Republicans, who gave speeches at the convention.
“Being in the Trump White House was terrifying,” said Olivia Troye, a former counterterrorism adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“But what keeps me awake at night is the question of what will happen when he returns there. … The guardrails are gone. The few adults who were in the room the first time have quit – or been fired.”
She said Trump will undermine this next election just as he did the last one, and she said America’s enemies around the world will revel in it.
Addressing her party members watching from home, Troye said: “You are not betraying our party. You are standing up for our country.”
As she spoke on Wednesday, the crowd chanted “USA.”
“No empathy, no morals”
A day earlier, Trump’s White House press secretary had announced that she would vote for Kamala Harris. Stephanie Grisham said she was not just a Trump supporter: “I was a true believer,” she said, spending Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
For her, the turning point was the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters tried to prevent the certification of the previous election.
She recalled asking then-First Lady Melania Trump if they could issue a statement supporting the right to protest – but without violent protests.
“(Melania) responded with one word: ‘No,'” Grisham said. She said she resigned that same day.
She described seeing Trump in private gatherings when the cameras were off and recalled him mocking his supporters, calling them “basement dwellers.”
During a hospital visit to an intensive care unit where people were dying, Trump became angry because the cameras were not focused on him, she said.
“He has no empathy, no morals and no loyalty to the truth,” Grisham said.
“He always told me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it often enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter. What you say matters, and what you don’t say matters.”
Walz: “They are warning us”
Grisham has often been criticized for a landmark act in her office: she did not hold a single daily press conference in the White House. On Wednesday, she said she did not want to be forced to lie.
“Now I’m standing here, behind a podium,” supporting a Democrat because, as she said, she loves her country more than her party.
The scoreboard in the convention arena showed a video showing graphic scenes of violence from January 6: police officers’ bodies being smashed, Pence and other officials running to safety while Trump remained silent for hours in the White House.
Overlaid on the images was an audio recording of Trump talking about possibly pardoning those convicted on January 6 during his second term.
The crowd applauded a police officer protecting the Capitol that day, Aquilino Gonell. “I was attacked with a pole. Attacked with the American flag,” he said. “President Trump sided with the attackers.”
The National’s Adrienne Arsenault asks U.S. political analysts Tia Mitchell and Brian Stelter and CBC’s Paul Hunter to analyze the key moments of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night.
In a spirited speech accepting his vice presidential nomination on Wednesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz mentioned the Republicans who spoke at the convention.
“They have stood by him for four years. They are warning us that the next four years will be much, much worse,” said Walz, who in his remarks tried to define freedom in the Democratic sense: as access to quality education and health care, as the right to same-sex marriage and abortion, and as freedom from the fear of school shootings.
He had the crowd shout “We are not going back.”
Reach persuadable voters
With these convention speakers, the Democrats want to reach a small but crucial part of the American electorate: the few who can be persuaded to switch parties.
“(They are) a very small subset of the American population,” said Robert Creamer, who has served as a party strategist for decades, at a strategy workshop during the convention.
“But they are important.”
Trump tried something similar at his party convention last month, inviting several former Democratic voters to speak on stage about their reasons for switching sides.
Among the party switchers at the Democratic convention were coincidentally some more familiar names, such as the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, a Republican, who reported that police were stationed outside his house because he refused to help Trump overturn the election.
“Let’s get the hard part out of the way: I’m a Republican. But tonight I stand here as an American,” Geoff Duncan said.
“His actions disqualify him from ever, ever, ever setting foot in the Oval Office again.”
Duncan also looked into the camera and addressed all the Republicans watching. Millions of them, he said, are tired of making excuses for Trump.
He compared their party to a cult led by a criminal thug.
“(Our party now) is neither civil nor conservative. It is chaotic and insane,” Duncan said. “The only thing left for us to do is get rid of Trump.”
He added: “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you are not a Democrat – you are a patriot.” Again, people chanted “USA!”
Other speakers at the convention spoke on a similar theme: They wanted to shape the election in a way that would focus on a candidate who cares about the well-being of others and a candidate who does not.
Or as former President Bill Clinton described the election on Wednesday night: “We the people” versus “Me, myself, and I.”
Polls suggest the race is deadlocked. In a game of inches, any move, in any direction, could make a difference. Endorsements could be important.
We will soon find out whether the reports that Trump could defeat Robert Kennedy are true. However, the consequences for the election remain to be seen.
