How Our Party Is Different
This party is independent but can also work as an organized caucus within the established parties.
This party is independent but can also work as an organized caucus within the established parties.
There is precedent for such dual-party affiliation. For example, Ron Paul once ran for president as the candidate of the Libertarian Party, yet he also served several terms in Congress as a member of the Republican Party – all while remaining true to his core principles.
Given that RFK, Jr. himself is now aligned with Trump and the Republican Party, and there is a current within the Republican Party that is now standing up for peace, civil liberties, opposition to censorship, opposition to corporate capture of regulatory agencies, and other Kennedy values, it makes sense for our party to act as a force both within the Republican Party (like the "Tea Party" movement of 2009-2016) and as an independent body, simultaneously. Similarly, to the extent that "old school" Democratic Party liberals – those who believe in peace, free speech, support for working people and opposition to corporate corruption – may still be found in the Democratic Party, our party can also work within that party.
This party will be based on a firm set of principles, to guard against corruption.
The party that we aim to build must be different in kind from the Democratic and Republican parties. It must be firmly grounded on a set of principles, to prevent the forms of corruption and betrayal that have marked American politics for generations. We have all seen it many times before: Candidates make various promises to voters to get elected but betray those promises once in office. They instead do the bidding of their corporate donors, PACS, super-PACs, and the army of lobbyists who have turned our representative democracy into a plutocracy, or rule by a small wealthy elite.
In order to break this pattern, we must build a party in which a pledge of support and loyalty to core principles is a requirement of membership and a requirement for serving as a candidate for public office. Members and candidates must be held accountable for their actions and subject to removal if they betray those principles. We need a party in which the will of the people controls the actions of our office-holders, and not the other way around. We need a party that will truly hold its office-holders accountable, and ensure that they act with integrity, not allow them to sell out their constituents to the highest bidders.
The set of principles around which we organize our party must be limited in scope. It is unrealistic to organize a party around the entire Kennedy 2024 platform, which was highly detailed and included some positions on social issues around which even his supporters disagreed. However, there were certain central or core positions that were at the heart of his campaign.