https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-debate-excluded-biden-trump-rcna152392
The independent candidate currently does not meet the qualifying threshold for the first presidential debate Biden and Trump agreed to participate in.
He's not wrong, the two main parties absolutely do collude to create a duopoly.
He's also the wrong messenger to deliver the message.
It's not just that.
Every other election debates are held by a nonpartisan organization and a third party that meets certain requirements can also join.
Because political parties are private organizations not attached to the government.
This election both parties agreed they will only do debates that they arrange.
Meaning they're in charge of who shows up, and they'll never both agree to let anyone else join.
People keep acting like it doesn't matter, but it's a big deal.
Edit:
Obviously RFK is a joke and won't win, but we shouldn't just shrug as the two private parties seize more and more power when they have zero accountability to voters and neither side will ever be held accountable by their own politicians.
Every other election debates are held by a nonpartisan organization and a third party that meets certain requirements can also join.
They change the rules rather arbitrarily to suit their needs anyway. During the 2000 election Nader was excluded from debates under the new rule that the green party had to have gotten 5% of the vote (nationally) in the previous presidential election to quality. Some of the votes for Nader, that helped get Bush elected, were cast to make sure the green party got that 5% for the next election. They didn't, it ended up at 4% and change, but the rule was changed for 2004 anyway so it wouldn't have mattered.
He's being left out not because Trump or Biden are keeping him out. He's being left out because he does not meet the minimum requirements to qualify for a place on the debate stage. He has to have a certain percentage of voters polling for him and he simply does not have that.
I think the point was that the polling requirement was how it USED to work, but this election season the parties are holding their own debates with their own rules. I don’t have a source on it myself but I think that’s the claim here.
RFK Jr wouldn’t be invited regardless though.
The lower one side goes, the lower the other side goes. How are you gonna vote out fascism when the Democrats go a low as they can simply because Republicans go lower. Trump doesn't even need to win at this point for fascism to continue encroaching because Dems will continue to strip liberties like fair debates away under the guise of stopping the other sides fascism. Every day we march rightward.
The two main parties are so big that they don't need to collude. Every single component of our media will do the work for them.
Colluding involves communication and coordinated ation. They don't need to collude because excluding third parties is in their best interest.
Both parties are still wary after the outcome in 1992 when Ross Perot received nearly 20% of the vote after being included in the debates. Neither want to risk having a wildcard on stage.
Neither want to risk having a wildcard on stage
Well thats really none of their business so long as this is a democracy. What they want is irrelevant.
He's polling high enough. He should be included.
Debates are not some kind of regulated and managed thing that exists for candidates to show up to. They are hosted by third parties and all of the rules and setup are decided by the third party and the political parties, so of course rhe two big names get to didctate how they are run. Even having a minimum amount of polling is subjective and part of the process of setting up the debate. If both of the major parties won'rlt show up if a third party candidate with around 10% in the polls is included, the the debate will exclude that third party candidate.
How the hell is captain brain worms polling at 10% without stealing a bunch of votes from Trump? This country is doomed.
This is more of a warning to not listen to pollsters. 10% of voters are definitely not going to vote for this guy, maybe one or two percent. Clearly the polls are way off.
Don't even listen to them. Vote. Help your favored candidate. Donate if you want to. Help get out the vote.
They are self-governing organizations of private citizens. What they want is actually all that matters when it comes to when and where they put their candidate on a stage. As corrupting as political parties can be at times, they're still just groups of citizens who agree to field a candidate in elections. They are under no obligation to give airtime to literally anyone they don't want to win, and so they're under no obligation to do literally anything to help RFK Jr between now and November.
It's the network's rule:
Kennedy has already hit CNN’s 15% polling threshold in two out of four qualifying polls. But the network also announced that participants must “appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline.”
I think as a bare minimum requirement, being able to appear on the ballots of enough states to actually have a chance of winning makes perfect sense as a rule. With all the things to shit on the parties for, why make up a strawman?
That's way too high a requirement. I don't like this guy but it's essential we start getting more than two options each election
We have more than two options each election. In 2020 there were 4, in 2012 and 2016 there were 7, in 2004 and 2008 there were 6, in 2000 there were 8. Having options isn't the problem. It's that all the losers get out of running and losing, is absolutely nothing. The only thing that matters is the winner.
Those are never taken seriously because they're never in the debate, which for most of my life where people actually made their decision on who to vote for.
No, they're never taken seriously because it's a winner-take-all system. The number of people who make a voting decision based on debates is vanishingly small, if it ever even mattered.
edit: Proof that debates are irrelevant.
Didn't use to be the case. Everyone use to say they would make up their minds after watching the debate.
It’s an arbitrary percentage they came up with in 2000. It should be lower, and it’s not like they stick closely to their own made up rules.
Lowering the percentage would be another step toward breaking this ridiculous 2 party system.
Lowering the percentage puts us back in 1992, and we saw where that led us: to today, where the 2 party system is as strong as it ever was. Giving RFK airtime does nothing to meaningfully alter the US political landscape, or the fundamental structure of our election rules.
Hard disagree. He has the possibility to siphon off enough trump voters to maybe give Biden a way to win. We also didn’t have two 80 year olds on stage back then. The people deserve debate edit: this even if all we are allowed to add is someone with a starved-dead worm in their brain.
He also has the possibility to siphon off enough Biden voters to maybe give Trump a way to win. Neither of them have an incentive to give him airtime, and no offense, but as a society I'm not sure I'd say we "deserve" anything, much less a WWE-style debate where a bunch of old dudes yell at each other.
edit to add: Presidential Debates Have Shockingly Little Effect on Election Outcomes.
There is no way he’s pulling anyone away from Biden lol Especially at this point considering Biden’s stance on Israel. AND yes, the society should see what state the “democracy” is in, it’s the only way for people to maybe get the hint that the current system is broken and needs to be fixed.
Edit: if debates don’t have effect on outcomes, why would it even matter then? lol
I don’t think there’s rules this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates isn’t organizing these debates.
Duopoly kinda makes it sounds like there are 2 options, instead of 2 right wing factions with same end game
This is it. That is the man's legacy now. His tombstone will read "brainworm guy".
Not sure what he thought he had to gain by divulging that info.
BTW guys sorry I was off the Fediverse for a while, had to go get some polyps removed...big'uns too, size of a golf ball. /s
Oh my God, he's getting better, he finally invented a conspiracy theory that doesn't implicate the Jews! Progress!
Not to bash on anyone who has a disability, but I wouldn't want to have to listen to him. Not that I'll tune in either way.
I actually tuned in to his Rogan episode to kind of hear him out and see what he was all about (surprise, it's antivax conspiracy shit) and yeah man, idk how he even thinks a debate will help him with a voice like that. He's super hard to listen to.
This shouldn't be a big surprise; In a winner-take-all contest, the two bigger players are going to gang up and eliminate the smaller one first before focusing on each other. Neither Biden nor Trump are going to allow RFK to waltz in and get a boost off of those two fighting each other; it would just make it harder for them to eliminate him later.
It shouldn't be a surprise because there are rules to qualify for presidential debates and he does not meet the minimum requirements. It has nothing to do with Biden or Trump.
I’m pretty sure there are no rules this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates isn’t involved.
Rfk jr should just accept this as the blessing it is. These events aren’t debates, these are like all the worst parts of reality tv stitched together into an inane freakshow of attacking one another and dodging questions, without any accountability for their lies and deceit. It’s void of nearly any intellectual nutrition, served as entertainment to the American public.
That's just the worm talking Bobby. In reality, no one respects you or sees you as a real candidate.
There are a few RFK signs by houses in a rural area by me. They used to have Trump signs though, so I think it's a wash.
He should get someone to make a high quality edit of himself in there answering the questions alongside them and then release the video himself. He's not great, but the juxtaposition with those two would make him look great and people would get a kick out of some nice editing/AI tricks or whatever.
"Vaccines cause health problems, WiFi gives you leaky brain, and that's how the worm got in my head"
Yeah, he'll look great.
