Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced his bid for the 2024 Democrat presidential nomination Wednesday by promising to end the “toxic” polarization in America that has grown so “dangerous,” he said, “than at any time since the Civil War.”
The lifelong Democrat whose family was portrayed for decades by an infatuated media as American royalty, now appears to be an outlier of his party’s current far-left worldview and is even attracting some conservatives.
Speaking at the Boston Park Plaza, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who runs Children’s Health Defense – a leader in the recent medical freedom movement against the COVID vaccine and mask mandates – asserted that corrupt government and corporate powers have “poisoned our children and our people with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs, strip mine our assets to hollow out the middle class, and keep us in a constant state of war.”
Kennedy, 69, pledged to heal divisiveness in the country by focusing on “common values” and by “telling the truth to the American people.”
These are not just Republican and Democratic ideals. These are American values, and they’re human values, and every one of us should go into the real world with these legitimate expectations.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 19, 2023
Targeting the media, Kennedy also stated, “We know the media lies to us. Everybody knows that.”
The Kennedy family’s aura of “Camelot” is no longer “a thing” for the now far-left Democrat Party and its allies in the media.
The leftist Vanity Fair already declared “rabid anti-vaxxer” Kennedy’s presidential bid “doomed to fail” a couple of weeks ago, mostly because he “has ties” to “shady figures in Donald Trump’s orbit,” including, as mentioned, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn.
ABC News also reported recently that Kennedy’s White House run is drawing fear from “medical experts and health care officials” who claim he will now have a platform for dispensing even more “medical misinformation” since his Children’s Health Defense was thrown off Instagram and Facebook.
“His campaign would platform a set of dangerous beliefs with the possibility of not only harming the health of the public but the health of our communities and economy as well,” a worried Brian Castrucci, president of public health policy advocacy group the De Beaumont Foundation, told ABC News. “We would have a candidate who each day would be spreading scientific misinformation and, in the process, legitimizing vaccine hesitancy and resistance.”
At the same time radical leftists and vaccine mandate worshippers may be cringing at the thought of Kennedy taking center stage, conservative author and senior editor at The Blaze Daniel Horowitz explained in a recent podcast why he “would choose RFK over 90% of Republicans in a heartbeat.”
More on today's show: why I would choose RFK over 90% of Republicans in a heartbeat https://t.co/gvuF7Q0ruy
— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) April 10, 2023
“I think, in general, it’s a really good thing,” Horowitz said of Kennedy’s presidential bid, explaining:
Now, he’s running in the Democrat primary. I can’t imagine he has a chance of getting, you know, getting any traction with the way the Democrat electorate is nowadays. Well, I’m curious to see what percentage of Democrat voters he could attract. But I will tell you this, I think it does help our cause. That for the first time ever – see, it used to be we didn’t have anyone representing our views in either primary. And now, possibly, to some extent, we’ll have it in both, depending on who gets in.
While Horowitz acknowledged he “can’t vouch for where RFK stands on every last issue,” he still asserts that “on the issues that matter – that our government is evil – I mean, he’s ahead of the curve on that.”
“I don’t know exactly where he stands on abortion,” he noted, for example. “I get the impression that he’s not an abortion-on-demand guy, and he has changed a little bit on that. And if he’s willing to give halfway, which I think he is, I mean, look, he’s dealing with much bigger pro-life issues.”
The conservative author admitted that Kennedy is likely still a “social liberal,” but pointed out “you could still be a social liberal and be opposed to transhumanism.”
“From what I see from Children’s Health Defense Fund – which is his outlet – I think they are combating the castrations and things like that,” Horowitz observed. “So that’s gonna be an interesting thing to watch … But, in general, I do think it does help us to have him in the race.”
We have a government today that is scared of its people. And I say to this, if people want integrity, they should vote for me. If people want to protect the Constitution, they should vote for me. If people think that the Bill of Rights is still relevant, they need to vote for me.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 19, 2023
A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll published Wednesday found 14 percent of voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 would vote for Kennedy in 2024.
“That is surprising strength for a candidate who has a famous political name but is now known mostly as the champion of a debunked conspiracy theory blaming childhood vaccines for autism,” USA Today stated.
According to the poll, 67 percent of Biden’s 2020 voters would support him for the 2024 Democrat nomination over Kennedy, at 14 percent, and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, at 5 percent. The “undecided” voters stand at 13 percent.
Regarding Biden, Kennedy said during his announcement “my whole family, including myself, have long personal relationships with President Biden,” but then added that he and his family members disagree on many issues, yet still love each other.
“Is it too much to hope that we could have the same thing for our country?” he asked.
Give me a sword. I need an army, and it can’t be just the Party. I need Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
I won't pretend to agree with you on every position. But I would make America a safe place to debate your positions and I will give you an ear and open mind.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 19, 2023
CNN detailed some of the disagreements between Kennedy and the rest of his clan – most of whom appear to be ardent supporters of Biden:
They see the very namesake of one of the original brothers trying to leverage the most storied family legacy in Democratic politics, for what many of them have been saying privately is a vanity run that is doomed. And that they want to be doomed.
“They’re angry to be put in this position — because they always want to support the family, but they’re being put in a position that makes that impossible,” one anonymous person told CNN.
“This is a difficult situation for me, Rory Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s youngest brother, told CNN. “I love my older brother Bobby. He has extraordinary charisma and is a very gifted speaker. I admire his past work as an environmentalist — because of him, we can swim in the Hudson. But, due to a wide range of Bobby’s positions, I’m supporting President Biden.”
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kennedy’s sister, said she “prefers not to talk,” but CNN pointed to a 2019 article she wrote with another brother, former Massachusetts Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, and her late daughter, Maeve Kennedy McKean, lamenting that RFK Jr. “helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
