It wasn’t long ago that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign—amid his unsuccessful lawsuit against Daily Kos to reveal the identity of a community member who dared criticize his interaction with neo-Nazis in Berlin—was taken seriously by the political press.
He was polling favorably among the public, often with Republicans delighted at his anti-vaccine activism and shots at President Joe Biden. His independent presidential bid was being financed largely by Republican megadonors eager to see him eat into Biden’s support. As recently as early July, a Pew Research Center poll had him garnering 15% of the national vote.
Now? He’s all but forgotten, a loser trying—and failing—to trade his endorsement to both Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris for a Cabinet position.
Kennedy is, as we’ve long established, a bad man. He thinks America’s gun epidemic is caused by video games and antidepressant medications. He thinks Wi-Fi and cell phones cause brain tumors, like glioblastoma. (My father died of glioblastoma before either Wi-Fi or cell phones were common.) Kennedy thinks chemicals in drinking water make people gay or transgender. He said COVID-19 vaccine mandates were worse than Nazi Germany: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You can hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did.”
Can someone please tell him what happened to Anne Frank?
He even thinks I’m a CIA agent.
And all that is before you get to his extremely dangerous anti-vaccine work. A March 2021 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which monitors online hate speech and disinformation, found that just 12 people were responsible for a whopping 73% of vaccine misinformation on Facebook—and No. 2 on their list? Kennedy. More recently, he “won” Politifact’s 2023 “Lie of the Year” for his body of conspiracy theories.
It was a stretch that Kennedy would hurt the Democratic presidential ticket. Not only do his views often line up with the QAnon conspiratorial right, but also the main media outlets willing to platform him were right-wing. Indeed, his presence on conservative media was so pervasive that even Trump’s people sounded the alarm.
“It is concerning and beyond logic,” Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita told Politico.
“They see an opening, they see a robust ecosystem on the right that they can pull votes from,” Matt Gorman, a former communications adviser for South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s presidential campaign, told Politico. “I think sometimes, Republicans tend to lull ourselves into believing, ‘Oh, he’s just taking votes from Biden.’ No, he’s going after everybody.”
A Politico analysis of Kennedy’s media appearances the first four months of 2024 found that nearly half of his 69 media appearances were on right-wing outlets.
The joke is on them. Kennedy draws support disproportionately from Trump, according to an April poll conducted for NBC News. That alignment in Kennedy, his base, and Trump was made extra clear when the two met in July, at the Republican National Convention, in a meeting brokered by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which should tell you everything you need to know.
Here’s The New York Times:
The independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with former President Donald J. Trump on Monday in Milwaukee, a remarkable encounter in the hours before Mr. Trump officially became the Republican nominee.
The Kennedy campaign confirmed the meeting after early reports of the encounter stirred speculation that Mr. Kennedy was planning to drop out of the race and possibly endorse Mr. Trump.
That story was published on July 15, and exactly one week later, The Washington Post reported that in that meeting and other conversations, Kennedy and Trump discussed an endorsement from Kennedy and a potential role—possibly a Cabinet position—in a second Trump administration.
On Thursday, The Washington Post also reported that Kennedy had reached out to the Harris campaign for a meeting with the vice president “to discuss the possibility of serving in her administration, perhaps as a Cabinet secretary, if he throws his support behind her campaign and she wins, according to Kennedy campaign officials.”
Trump has rebuffed Kennedy (so far), and the Harris campaign isn’t even entertaining a conversation. Harries and her allies are essentially ignoring him, as they should. Can you imagine his delusions in even asking?
Kennedy has no other options. He’s nowhere to be seen on the trail. His campaign is broke. His poll numbers, which hovered around 10% before Biden ended his reelection bid, have cratered since Harris entered the race, falling to the 5% range. His friends in the conservative media are abandoning him, and he’s now making headlines only when it highlights his weirdness: Brain worms! Dead bear cub! Allegedly eating a dog!
Hell, the bear-cub story isn’t just weird—he tried to preempt The New Yorker’s article about it by issuing a video of him telling the story to Roseanne Barr, of all people. Apparently, the racist comedian is the only person left who will talk to him.
Kennedy was only a part of the 2024 cycle because right-wing media and donors pushed him out there and the traditional press took the bait.
Now, that fad is over and he’s slinking back into ignominy.
Donate to Kamala Harris’ campaign today.
