“Trump/Vance + RFK Jr/Shanahan”
Why This is the Only Equation that Succeeds
This past week, a possible tectonic shift — the latest of several in these late-stage-empire times – took place.
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s running mate, former tech founder Nicole Shanahan, released what is known in Presidential campaign strategy as a “trial balloon.” This is the disclosure in public of a possible direction.
There are two reasons to release a “trial balloon”: 1/ To test reactions to an idea that is still under consideration, in order to gauge public opinion about it — and especially to gauge donor opinion — prior to committing to it publicly, and thus to avoid risking an unintended backlash; and 2/ to get those people who might be shocked or startled by the idea used to it before it is formally announced.
Shanahan, as gently as possible, shared a bombshell — that RFK Jr and she are considering possibly joining forces with President Trump and his camp. On the podcast “Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu,” as NBC News reported, Shanahan charged the Democratic Party with seeking to “sabotage” their own campaign. She expressed her regret at having supported the Democratic Party in the past. She went on: “There’s two options that we’re looking at, and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and Walz presidency, because we draw votes from Trump or we draw somehow more votes from Trump….or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump. And, you know, we walk away from that and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”
Shortly thereafter, Kennedy posted on X: he is “willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years.” News outlets turned to President Trump for his reaction. Trump told CNN that he ‘”probably would” consider giving Kennedy a position in his administration if he won following a Kennedy endorsement.
None of this, of course, is spontaneous. But it was all well executed by the parties involved. And in this essay, which I am writing at speed so as to add this argument to the mix before a planned announcement from RFK Jr on Friday, I wish to explain why this union of forces is literally the only way, in my view, that Trump — and RFK Jr, for that matter — can win, and also, the only way that our country can be saved.
As I tweeted yesterday (yes, I am magically back on X): “Speaking as a former Democratic political consultant: the DNC aren’t very scared of Trump/Vance. They are not very scared of RFK Jr/Shanahan. They would be terrified of Trump/Vance + RFK Jr/Shanahan.”
As you know, I am not supposed to be partisan. But since a coup has taken place in the United States of America, with between 18 and 30 million military-age men deployed around our nation, including at strategic locations, likely awaiting direction; and since the coup was engineered by the DNC, with help from our enemies, I no longer think that it is partisan for me to advocate for those leaders and alliances that can restore our Republic and our freedoms.
And at this time, this foursome is that alliance. Indeed, this foursome is the only alliance that can manage to save our Republic.
So I hope that RFK Jr does announce his endorsement of President Trump this Friday, and I hope and pray that Trump accepts graciously, and responds with a hearty public embrace of RFK Jr/Shanahan and with an announcement of a significant proposed role for RFK Jr (and for Shanahan, for that matter) in his administration.
Here is why I believe this must happen.
Trump/Vance, as I have explained in my previous essay here, “How Not to Run Against Vice President Harris”, can barely win with their base alone; to win, they also require significant movement in their direction from swing voters in battleground states. I do not see that the Trump/Vance campaign is doing – or can do, with the personnel in place and the time left before November — what is necessary in order to achieve this. Polls back me up. Trump/Vance are neck and neck with Harris/Walz and battling it out swing state by swing state, with no clear advantage either way. (The margin of error is always four per cent).
Creepy as the vibe at the DNC is, due to the nature of hundreds of people lying at that scale, none of the “principals” has overtly embarrassed him or herself excessively yet at the Democratic National Convention.
In addition, the massive, smoothly-running mechanism erected by the DNC creators of spectacle, lighting and message; the immense deployment of media and influencers; and the eye-wateringly vast, effective fundraising apparatus and ad buys of the DNC, are all conspiring (as I knew they would) to “produce” a decent simulacrum of a solid Harris/Walz ticket.
Though it is built from sawdust, glitter, venality and sin, it looks appealing to people like my mom, who is always my touchstone for intelligent, NPR-listening public opinion on the Left. As in, “Wasn’t Hillary wonderful?”
Add to that the magic fairy dust sprinkled over incompetence by skillful messaging about the first female and first Black/Indian President. Then add the guaranteed cheating by the Democrats via absentee ballots and ballot harvesting; and for certain you will have, disastrously for the country, the world, and for you and me and everyone we love, a Harris/Walz victory in November. (Assuming there is not a crisis or “crisis” that suspends elections altogether, for which I am also braced).
Now shake up the same chessboard, with RFK Jr throwing his support to President Trump, and asking his movement of disaffected homeless Democrats, Independents, health freedom activists, libertarians, moms of injured kids, and stubborn patriots without labels, to align with the MAGA movement.
Now you have a path to victory.
You have a path to victory via the numbers and you have a path to victory and excitement and buzz culturally.
When I say, you have a path to victory via the numbers, here is why. I do not believe polls that say that support for RFK Jr is in the 3 per cent levels. When third party candidates are included in recent polls, Kennedy gets 10% (meaning he likely actually gets about 15%, because conventional polls do not want to find him popular, and now, to my horror, they use “models” and selective demographic sampling to get the results they want).
This ten per cent is literally the amount by which President Trump needs to beat Harris, in order to override the DNC cheating factor. (Democrats on state assembly levels actually fought and stalled our election integrity bill, and asked questions in hearings about absentee ballots, meaning that that is how they plan to cheat).
Polls also show that RFK Jr draws more votes from Harris than from Trump. Ironically, given RFK Jr’s family history and legacy, Republicans like him more than do Democrats (a sad sign for Democrats, not for RFK Jr. Today’s Republicans would probably like his father’s and uncle’s policies better than today’s Democrats would, as well.)
This union is not just a path to victory for President Trump. It is also a path to victory for RFK Jr. If he spends four years in a visible and important role in a Trump/Vance administration, it is a straight path for him to the Presidency in 2028, in my view, if he still wants it. (Democrats have no “bench” for 2028 — an older, even more shrill AOC? And J D Vance is very young, and much less charismatic right now, and has lots of time in the future to burnish his character and skills for a successful run.)
It is also a powerful union of people alchemically. This may sound odd; but Presidential campaigns and administrations are not only successful by virtue of policy and message. They also partake of a certain magic related to mythologies. The crafters of “Camelot” understood this well. I can’t say in any detail, due to an NDA, what I did for both the Presidential campaigns that I advised, but I can say that my training as a cultural critic was an important skill set I brought to the job. An understanding of cultural symbols and archetypes is extremely important in knowing how to stir the hopes and calm the fears that people carry unconsciously.
Right now, forgive my frankness, speaking purely symbolically, the Trump/Vance iconography and vibe is almost inert. The set of images the two men create side by side, reads like the past. The two men are both what the medieval science of “humors” would have called “choleric”, meaning that they both tend toward irritability and anger. Vance often looks extremely angry, even when his face is in repose, which really matters to the unconscious minds of voters. (This is why the DNC chose the theme of “joy”; they know how better to play the symbolism game).
One angry white man is a lot; two is insupportable to the subconscious awareness of many sectors of voters. At that less-than-conscious level, many voters will wonder who will stabilize these two irritable personalities. Though President Trump is a well-established and effective leader, the two personalities feel somehow rudderless together.
Enter RFK Jr, and you have a sense that a calm, unflappable adult has entered the room. Where Trump/Vance read as the past, RFK Jr, who is only eight years younger than Trump and 30 years older than Vance, reads somehow like the future. And paradoxically, while both men are accused of having had multiple relationships outside of their various marriages, President Trump still subliminally retains the baggage of the “women’s issues” that caused him problems in the past, while RFK Jr reads like a man who has a past, for sure, but who nonetheless deeply respects women.
RFK Jr will calm the environmentalists, the social liberals, and those who are worried about a theocracy under Trump/Vance. He is deeply read in world history and politics and carries a deep knowledge of America’s role and American history. To some voters, including to many important donors, President Trump will always read like a parvenu, and J D Vance will never, in their eyes, be seen to have left Appalachia (I am not excusing this awful elitism and snobbery, simply addressing it; the divide in this country is even more about social class than it is about politics).
The backgrounds of RFK Jr and Nicole Shanahan reassure those who, for their own classist, unexamined, but lingering reasons, need to see those who are at ease with American elite cultural norms, in the White House.
The “optics”, as we used to say, of a Trump/Vance +RFK Jr/Shanahan alliance, are delicious, visually and symbolically, for visually-oriented campaign consultants (which neither campaign, sadly, seems to have; this is especially sad given how visually arresting, even beautiful, some of the personalities are).
Imagine the fantastic visuals this could generate, with which the Harris/Walz team could not hope to compete: the foursome and their lovely spouses or partners, sailing off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard; the foursome and their allies, glamorous, strolling against the spilling fountains and lush flowers of Bedminster golf course, New Jersey; the foursome and their partners and allies in black tie, the former First Lady and Ms Shanahan and Mrs Vance in cocktail attire, the principals talking world politics, photographed from far away, late at night on a curved salmon-colored balcony at Mar a Lago.
Think about the imagery of Kennedys past, if you want to think about brilliant Presidential stagecraft. It can be beautiful and serious and uplifting all at the same time.
Now it would be Red and Blue royalty, serious, but also on display; Red and Blue symbolism, activities and events, merging, interacting, and healing worlds that were estranged, in America, uniting us all vicariously. Beautiful. And as we used to say in the consulting biz: consequently, tons of “free media.”
And then you can bring this healing down to earth: town halls and speeches with MAGA and RFK Jr’s followers, talking, organizing, debating, sharing, forming friendships. It could be the most exciting media and cultural set of events and images, we have seen since Camelot — or at least since the Reagan years, with their impeccable stagecraft.
And then, on a grassroots, substantive level — the union or unity of MAGA and RFK Jr’s movement (he really should name it) — can change America for the better.
What America has not understood since the 18th century, before the days of the “two-party system”, is that a coalition does not mean a merger.
MAGA does not have to agree with RFK Jr’s supporters, or vice versa, on everything or even on most things, to align to secure the biggest thing: our freedom and our Republic. Coalitions can be bands of brothers and sisters who differ but work well together toward certain, not all, shared goals. If both leaders can explain this to their supporters, America will be well-positioned to save itself via this coalition.
I also want to address Nicole Shanahan. A Trump/RFK Jr alliance is deeply benefitted by her persona and achievements, in ways that no one has fully recognized, in my view. Sexist and even classist filters — former “trophy wife” of a chief Tech bro, billionairess — have obscured the reality, that she is a leader of significant accomplishments. The fact that she is young and conventionally attractive has also, predictably, been used against her, to obscure her gravitas.
Here is her LinkedIn bio, which has not been updated to note that she is a candidate for the Vice President of the United States:
“Nicole Shanahan is a California based attorney and the founder and president of Bia-Echo Foundation, a private foundation that aims to invest in changemakers at the forefront of innovation who are tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges: reproductive longevity & equality, criminal justice reform and a healthy & livable planet. Initial investments and projects led by Bia-Echo include the launch of the world’s first Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Stanford Computational Policy Lab to drive social impact on criminal justice reform via data analysis and technical innovation. Prior to launching Bia-Echo, Nicole supported these efforts through the Sergey Brin Family Foundation.
Prior to shifting focus to philanthropic efforts, Nicole founded ClearAccessIP (now part of IPWe, Inc.), an integrated patent management company using AI to help the creators and owners of IP assets effectively develop, manage and transact patent-protected technology. She is also an academic fellow of CodeX, the Stanford Center of Legal Informatics, a joint center between Stanford Law School and Computer Science, where she launched the Smart Prosecution project, a multi-disciplinary effort applying data science to the prosecutorial process, involving partnerships with district attorneys and community organizations. Apart from the practical applications of legal technology, her academic research centers around Ronald Coase’s work on transaction cost theory. Entitled, “Coasean Mapping,” she theorizes on the pace and nature of society’s adoption of artificial intelligence for law and government.”
This woman is now only 39. In her own right — that is, in her twenties, and by 2013, that is, before her 2018 marriage to Google cofounder Sergey Brin — Shanahan had become a female founder, in Silicon Valley, of a successful IP company, presciently using AI.
Only 23% per cent of venture capital goes to female founders; for her to have achieved this feat is extraordinary.
Whatever you may think of the above bio, this is a woman who understands a world that men of Trump’s and even RFK Jr’s generation are likely not fully to understand — a world of which J D Vance has no experience; that is, the digital present and the AI-enhanced future.
And given the alliance of Big Tech with the globalists and Democrats, it is exciting and important to have an emerging assemblage of pro-liberty tech heavyweights on the other, emerging (potential) team: Elon Musk, Trump, Peter Thiel, Vance, Shanahan, and a number of hedge fund investors, donors and techies who are being drawn like magnets to a possible Trump/RFK alliance. “It takes monsters to fight monsters,” says my husband, as you know, and an aggregation of next-gen Silicon Valley libertarians or health freedom activists, with MAGA, alone can create the nexus of money, talent, media and culture; the aggregation of resources and innovation and momentum that can stop the assault on our precious Republic, and even generate an exciting new ferment.
I want to end with a note of compassion. If RFK Jr throws his support to President Trump and aligns with him, it will be the right thing to do for the sake of our country, which I know he loves dearly and serves unreservedly. But I speak from personal experience when I say that for both RFK Jr and for Shanahan, this will demand a personal price.
For RFK Jr especially, given his family’s legacy, this action will provoke attacks even more vicious than those he has already endured, and an even more complete exile and excommunication, from the lovely world of affluent, elite, highly judgmental and increasingly cruel liberals that he and I both once inhabited.
People will insult him, attack him verbally at social events, shun him; even colleagues, and no doubt even family. He has endured a great deal already; but a step like this will ratchet up the savagery against him from our “side” even more. It is unforgivable enough to be a traitor to our “tribe” if you are an ordinary person like me; but it is beyond unforgivable to “walk away” if you are an heir of our most storied Democratic family in our nation’s history. It will be a set of attacks that will be beyond vicious and there will be no going back from such attacks, for him.
That said, I have every confidence that RFK Jr will do the right thing — for history and for the country. He almost always has.
If they do join forces, the last reason I believe this alliance will be unstoppable, does have to do with personal qualities. President Trump, whatever you may think of him, is a brave man. July 13 2024 revealed that more starkly than ever. RFK Jr is a brave man. Just to step outside to attend an event every day, given his family’s history and the dearth of Secret Service engineered by the murderous Biden regime, takes unbelievable personal courage. RFK Jr has already shown he will face almost any attack in order to do the right things for public health, for liberty, for our country.
And whatever you may think of the other side — they are not personally brave people. With a show of real moral and grassroots force, from this alliance, they will crumple.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12.
I believe RFK Jr believes that, and I believe that President Trump does as well — perhaps now more than ever. And for this reason, above all the other reasons I have named, I hope that on Friday we will hear that these men will join their forces.
With these men and their VP picks’ true understanding of the forces arrayed against us — that is, the ones that that quote describes — our country may indeed be saved.
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