It wasn’t way back that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s marketing campaign—amid his unsuccessful lawsuit in opposition to Every day Kos to disclose the identification of a group member who dared criticize his interplay with neo-Nazis in Berlin—was taken severely by the political press.
He was polling favorably among the many public, usually with Republicans delighted at his anti-vaccine activism and photographs at President Joe Biden. His unbiased presidential bid was being financed largely by Republican megadonors wanting to see him eat into Biden’s help. As lately as early July, a Pew Analysis Heart ballot had him garnering 15% of the nationwide vote.
Now? He’s all however forgotten, a loser making an attempt—and failing—to commerce his endorsement to each Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris for a Cupboard place.
Kennedy is, as we’ve lengthy established, a nasty man. He thinks America’s gun epidemic is precipitated by video video games and antidepressant drugs. He thinks Wi-Fi and cell telephones trigger mind tumors, like glioblastoma. (My father died of glioblastoma earlier than both Wi-Fi or cell telephones have been frequent.) Kennedy thinks chemical substances in consuming water make folks homosexual or transgender. He mentioned COVID-19 vaccine mandates have been 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 somebody please inform him what occurred to Anne Frank?
He even thinks I’m a CIA agent.
And all that’s earlier than you get to his extraordinarily harmful anti-vaccine work. A March 2021 report by the Heart for Countering Digital Hate, which displays on-line hate speech and disinformation, discovered that simply 12 folks have been liable for a whopping 73% of vaccine misinformation on Fb—and No. 2 on their listing? Kennedy. Extra lately, he “won” Politifact’s 2023 “Lie of the Year” for his physique of conspiracy theories.
It was a stretch that Kennedy would harm the Democratic presidential ticket. Not solely do his views usually line up with the QAnon conspiratorial proper, but additionally the principle media retailers prepared to platform him have been right-wing. Certainly, his presence on conservative media was so pervasive that even Trump’s folks sounded the alarm.
“It is concerning and beyond logic,” Trump marketing campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita advised 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 marketing campaign, advised 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 evaluation of Kennedy’s media appearances the primary 4 months of 2024 discovered that almost half of his 69 media appearances have been on right-wing retailers.
The joke is on them. Kennedy attracts help disproportionately from Trump, in keeping with an April ballot carried out for NBC Information. That alignment in Kennedy, his base, and Trump was made further clear when the 2 met in July, on the Republican Nationwide Conference, in a gathering brokered by former Fox Information host Tucker Carlson, which ought to inform you all the things you could know.
Right here’s The New York Instances:
The unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with former President Donald J. Trump on Monday in Milwaukee, a exceptional encounter within the hours earlier than Mr. Trump formally turned the Republican nominee.
The Kennedy marketing campaign confirmed the assembly after early stories of the encounter stirred hypothesis that Mr. Kennedy was planning to drop out of the race and presumably endorse Mr. Trump.
That story was revealed on July 15, and precisely one week later, The Washington Publish reported that in that assembly and different conversations, Kennedy and Trump mentioned an endorsement from Kennedy and a possible position—presumably a Cupboard place—in a second Trump administration.
On Thursday, The Washington Publish additionally reported that Kennedy had reached out to the Harris marketing campaign for a gathering with the vice chairman “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 (thus far), and the Harris marketing campaign isn’t even entertaining a dialog. Harries and her allies are primarily ignoring him, as they need to. Are you able to think about his delusions in even asking?
Kennedy has no different choices. He’s nowhere to be seen on the path. His marketing campaign is broke. His ballot numbers, which hovered round 10% earlier than Biden ended his reelection bid, have cratered since Harris entered the race, falling to the 5% vary. His pals within the conservative media are abandoning him, and he’s now making headlines solely when it highlights his weirdness: Mind worms! Useless bear cub! Allegedly consuming a canine!
Hell, the bear-cub story isn’t simply bizarre—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 folks. Apparently, the racist comic is the one individual left who will discuss to him.
Kennedy was solely part of the 2024 cycle as a result of right-wing media and donors pushed him on the market and the normal press took the bait.
Now, that fad is over and he’s slinking again into ignominy.
