Because the country is much more fragmented today. There's a lot more protest votes today. There's just a lot of reasons where RFK can garner a lot of support and build a plurality among centrists.View on YouTube
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ultimately suspended his independent campaign in August 2024 and endorsed Donald Trump, but he remained on the ballot in many states and received about 756–757k votes nationwide, amounting to roughly 0.48–0.49% of the national popular vote; his best statewide share was 1.96% in Montana.(en.wikipedia.org)(en.wikipedia.org) This is nowhere near Ross Perot’s performance in 1992, when Perot won about 18.9% of the national popular vote as an independent candidate.(en.wikipedia.org)(presidency.ucsb.edu) Because RFK Jr. did not come close to matching—let alone exceeding—the Perot-era “ceiling” for a major third‑party/independent candidacy and did not garner an unusually large overall vote share, Chamath’s prediction did not come true.