Predicting the 2024 Election
Pundits and political consultants are thriving in the volcanic environment of this 2024 election cycle. We the People, who are committed to establishing a strong third party and voting for our presidential nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., may find hope when people like Larry Sharpe make a case for exactly how he can still win.
However, let’s be honest… it’s a really challenging time for supporters and faithful volunteers of the Kennedy/Shanahan campaign. The political chatter is intense, and there’s a lot of information to sort through. Many of us have been together in this canoe of Independent voters for a year or more. Ever since RFK Jr. made the decision to suspend (not terminate) his campaign and endorse President Trump, it feels like we’re now paddling through a hurricane. While we continue to paddle amidst the storm, we’ve got Trump supporters jumping on the Bobby bandwagon from the right and Harris supporters screaming at us from the left.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. often talks about how nature is our greatest teacher. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has said, “This campaign is sacred.” Transformational leaders like Bobby and Nicole, inspire us to look deeper into ourselves and to see the big picture. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow or who the winner will be when we all wake up on November 6th, but what I know for certain is…
The movement of We the People is BIGGER than Bobby.
No matter how you feel about the decisions RFK Jr. has made, it’s safe to say we are in the midst of the most historic election in our history.
As I reflect on all that is unfolding, I am taken back to June of 2018 when a friend of mine on Hawai’i Island asked if I could come help evacuate his elderly mother from a home in which she’d lived for over 40 years. Pele was knocking at her door and there was little time to sort through her precious things. As we drove down her road, I saw a huge fissure spouting molten lava 250 feet up into the air. We pulled our trucks to her front door and started loading up all her stuff in haste. I remember hearing the lava spewing in the distance. It sounded like a jet revving up its engines on the tarmac before taking off. Between the sound of Pele’s vicious roars, cooled lava stretched into tiny strands of volcanic glass, were propelled into the air. I remember walking outside with a load of boxes in my arms and pausing to hear the sound of this “Pele’s hair” dropping onto the kupuna’s tin roof. I couldn’t see it in the air, but I could feel it and hear it as it landed.
None of us can predict what will happen in this 2024 presidential election.
What I feel, however, is the extraordinary dance between destruction and creation that is happening around us. On that day in 2018, I wept at the thought that this family home might be destroyed, all the while standing in complete awe at the power of nature that I may never witness again. I believe this is a metaphor for how many Kennedy/Shanahan supporters and volunteers are feeling right now and what may be evolving in our country.
I’ve spoken to many people in the Hawai’i for Kennedy ohana over the past several days since Bobby’s powerful speech in Arizona last Friday and even prior to that when Nicole leaked the news that a Trump endorsement was a possibility. Let’s just say, “campaign therapy” is becoming a real thing! We’ve all wept over what felt like the loss of a dream that we’ve been holding onto. Then hours later, we were in awe as Bobby took the stage at a rally where 20,000 screaming Trump fans gave the man we’ve come to know and love so dearly the recognition he’s deserved for so long. It is still surreal how it all unfolded.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? None of us are giving up on the dream. In fact, our Hawai’i for Kennedy ohana and the We the People movement feels stronger now than ever. We’re seeing more and more evidence that things are changing. Who ever expected that Mark Zuckerberg would admit to the House Judiciary Committee this week that the Biden-Harris administration had indeed “pressured” Facebook to censor Americans. (He’s also promised to NOT to do it again in this election). Will Zuckerberg stay true to his word? Will Trump?
No one really knows for certain I suppose.
What I do know is that, even in this unpredictable political landscape, We the People have a powerful choice to make and our vote matters now more than ever.
Aloha,
Susan Alden
We the People of Hawaii
