ERBIL GUNASTI: Robert F Kennedy JR is polling at 36% with independent voters as American voters baulk at the prospect of 2024 Presidential election run between a geriatric Democrat and a Republican who might have to govern from a cell

It's been said – and frequently – that the 2024 Presidential election is going to produce precisely the line-up that the American voters don't want: a geriatric Democrat who can't tackle a podium without stumbling and a Republican so beset by serious accusations he might have to govern from a jail cell.

Could this explain the surprising popularity Robert F Kennedy Junior, now running as an independent? In part, but not entirely.

Kennedy, the son of assassinated former Attorney General, Bobby, is not exactly without his problems of his own - or critics.

An environmental campaigner and reformed drug addict, he is often portrayed as sitting somewhere at the nuttier end of the free-thinking spectrum.

Now he's ditched the Democrats, however, Kennedy's past has been forgotten - for the moment at least.

In fact, he's polling at 36 percent among independent voters while Biden and Trump trail in the lower 30s. He's also winning among young voters in swing states.

Why? Weary distaste for the two main candidates is rife, but there's more to it than that.

At 69, RFK is a relative spring chicken, certainly in the gerontocracy that is US politics.

He is personally charismatic and seems to reach women voters and black voters, key parts of the undecided constituency.

He has the Kennedy name and recognisability, of course, factors in no way diminished by the 60th anniversary of his uncle's assassination, which falls this month.

RFK Junior, as he likes to be known, has spoken movingly of the day his father, Robert, was gunned down.

But he is playing well in middle America for more than sentimental reasons.

It won't suit governments in London or Berlin, but Kennedy understands Main Street USA and he has caught the mood correctly. The voters have had enough of foreign adventures.

He wants to scale back America's commitments abroad - in Ukraine, for example, but not just there.

And with the US bogged down in a Middle East conflict that shows no sign of ending, support for an America-first policy will only grow.

It's crept upon the US voters, but troops stationed in the Middle East are under constant assault from 'unknown forces' – probably coordinated by Iran – and the body bags are piling up.

No longer encumbered by the Democrat machine, Kennedy speaks freely about illegal immigration, another hot button subject for America's floating voters.

Here's a sample: 'I am talking about issues that no one else is discussing: winding down the warfare state, unravelling the corrupt merger of state and corporate power, improving our food and ending the chronic disease epidemic that debilitates 60 per cent of American children, restoring the middle class, closing the border and enlarging legal immigration.'

The polls suggest it's cutting through.

A surprise Kennedy run might seem like bad news for the incumbent Democrats, and in a way it is.

The sort of old-fashioned decency he preaches is a sore point for a party making such a mess of woke coastal states like New York and California.

There's also a rather sour and personal twist.

Earlier this year, the Democrat machine effectively told RFK he was unwelcome, even if he won the race for the nomination.

To ordinary folk that seemed like bullying – as it did to Kennedy. So now he's doing it his way instead.

Not so great for Biden, then. Yet this might prove dangerous for Trump, too, because whatever his Democratic roots, RFK's appeal is of a 'silent majority' type – to the sort of people who turned against Hillary and helped put Donald in the White House in 2016.

Kingmaker Kennedy?

I doubt he'd return to the Democrats, certainly not under Biden. For all his famous name and campaigning background, RFK is a better fit for the other side.

He is a committed anti globalist. He is saying that American leaders should tackle the ocean of problems at home before they look overseas.

It's a fracture at the very heart of American politics and we'll hear a lot more about it before November next year.

Read more Erbil Gunasti at substack.com/@erbilwrites