Robert F Kennedy Jr and the end of the party

Why former Democrats and once stalwart Republicans are now switching sides.

The Republican and Democratic parties both have some notable fresh recruits. Last week Robert F Kennedy Jr suspended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump. The former president said that the Kennedy Democrats – the family members and followers of the late John F Kennedy – now belonged in the Maga movement. Then, on Monday 26 August, Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, joined Kennedy on the Trump train, offering her official endorsement at a Republican campaign event.

Kennedy and Gabbard’s conversions are, perhaps, not that surprising. The son of Bobby Kennedy has long bought into beliefs prevalent on the Maga right. He rails against mass censorship, the corporate capture of the food industry and certain vaccines. In 2017 he claimed that then president-elect Trump had asked him to lead a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity” following a meeting at Trump Tower. The offer did not materialise but the episode showed that Kennedy would sacrifice his dynastic affiliation with the Democrats in the hope of fighting for what he sees as a higher calling. He made clear in his speech last week announcing the suspension of his campaign that he thought the modern Democratic Party had become an anti-democratic, pro-war cabal in hock to the corporate class. For their part, Democrats, including most of his family, talk about Kennedy with the disgust that some in the 1970s spoke about the pro-segregation Democratic governor George Wallace.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who became an independent in 2020, shares Kennedy’s scepticism about America’s “forever wars”. Beside Trump on stage at the National Guard Association general conference on 26 August, she praised Trump for not starting a war during his presidency. “Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or an independent,” she said, “if you cherish peace and freedom as we do, I invite you to join me in doing all that we can to save our country and elect President Donald J Trump”. Kennedy and Gabbard’s endorsements were quickly rewarded: Trump has named both as honorary chairs of his campaign, alongside his two elder sons, Donald and Eric.

This shift in party loyalties goes both ways. The DNC convention in Chicago last week was awash with Republicans. Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the convention that Trump privately calls his own supporters “basement dwellers” and that she would vote for Harris because she loves her country more than her party. One of his former national security officials, Olivia Troye, said in her speech that knowing what Trump would do back in office “keeps her up at night”.

This week, on the same day that Gabbard endorsed Trump, 200 former staffers of George W Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain signed an open letter promising to vote for Harris. They wrote: “Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice-President Harris and Gov Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.” A similar letter was published before the 2020 election, but the group are even more trenchant following the Capitol riots of 6 January 2021.

It’s not uncommon for politicians to claim that a forthcoming election is the most important in American history. They want to motivate voters, after all. But the fear with which both sides view the other’s victory is recasting traditional party lines. Some Democrats who found Bernie Sanders’ criticism of liberal capitalism and foreign intervention attractive in 2016, such as Kennedy and Gabbard, now find Trump less repulsive than their own party. The inverse applies to those Republicans who think the constitution cannot survive a second Trump term. As Troye said at the DNC, “To my fellow Republicans: you aren’t voting for a Democrat, you’re voting for democracy.”

Each party talks fervently about protecting democracy from those who want to destroy its institutions. For the Republicans, it is the Democrats’ pursuit of Trump in the courts. For the Democrats, it is Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the election result. If there has been one constant in this extraordinary campaign season, it’s the pervasive existential angst. For some, it is so profound that it surpasses long-held partisan loyalties.