Photo Courtesy of CNN
Maligned by the media, disowned by members of his family, laughed at by Biden democrats, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is quite the embattled persona. He’s been labeled a conspiracy theorist, an anti-vaxxer, proof of the Kennedy dynasty’s fall from grace. But in the many articles that have been written about him, from USA Today, The New York Post, even the New York Times, it’s difficult to locate real analysis of his stated views and policy aims. And the Democratic National Committee has announced that it will not hold primary debates, denying him an important platform for appealing to potential voters. So who is RFK Jr., and why is he running for president?
Last week, I had the opportunity to witness Kennedy’s campaign announcement in Boston. My family has followed and supported his work as an activist fighting the outsized influence of big corporations, so I was immediately interested in his bid for the presidency. That morning in Boston I listened to Kennedy make a two-hour speech detailing the key tenets of his campaign. He didn’t use note cards or a teleprompter. In fact, he didn’t look down once. His audience gave him their full attention, alternating between a riveted silence and eruptions of wild cheering. It was the cheering of a coalition of people ready to set aside their disillusionment– ready to rally, not just for a presidential candidate, but for hope.
Kennedy began the speech by talking about his environmental views– appropriately, seeing as he has spent the last forty years of his life organizing against the poisoning of landscapes and communities by agribusiness and pesticide companies. In reviewing his work as an environmental litigator, Kennedy focused on the unlikely alliances he was able to foster. During his time cleaning up the Hudson River, for example, he helped organize right-wing hunters and fishermen as well as liberal environmental activists. RFK Jr. is dedicated to holding the oil and gas industries accountable for their emissions, embracing clean-energy- supportive policies on a national scale, subsidizing sustainable farming practices, stopping deforestation, and collaborating with other nations in the fight to reign in climate change. Crucially, Kennedy encouraged his audience to interrogate the belief that preserving the earth means compromising our economy. “Good environmental policy – 100% of the time – is identical to good economic policy,” he said.
Kennedy has said many times, including in his speech last week, that he is not an anti-vaxxer. He did fight to have Mercury removed from mandatory early childhood vaccines– which it now has been. He is critical of the potential for corruption that invariably ensues when federal regulatory agencies are enmeshed in a web of legal bribes spun by big pharmaceutical companies. And who among us is not? Who among us, after the Opioid crisis, would actually presume to trust Big Pharma? If Kennedy believes that the system for regulation of pharmaceutical products could be made more independent of the interests of multi-billion dollar corporations, why stop him from doing his best to improve it? And crucially, it’s not just public health agencies that Kennedy believes could do their job better if they really had human interests at heart. His campaign website states: “Wall Street controls the SEC. Polluters and extractive industries dominate the EPA and BLM. Pharma controls the CDC, NIH, and FDA. Big Ag controls the USDA. Big Tech has captured the FTC.” The solution, Kennedy says, is to “rein in the lobbyists and slam shut the revolving door that shunts people from government agencies to lucrative positions in the companies they were supposed to regulate, and back again”. Ultimately, he simply aims to build a government that people can trust.
Like his uncle, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, RFK Jr. is skeptical of the CIA, and by extension, the neoconservative foreign policy approach that allows for the agency’s rogue paramilitary activities. In a recent tweet, he lamented the trillions of dollars this country has spent trying to assert “global hegemony with aggressive projections of military power”. While Kennedy made his support for the Ukrainian people clear in his campaign speech, he also questioned the motivations behind the U.S.’s Ukraine War policies. Specifically, he cited statements made by President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about a new policy objective: in Austin’s words, to “see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine” and in Biden’s own words, to “punish Russian aggression, to lessen the risk of future conflicts.” If these comments really represent our attitude towards Ukraine, Kennedy argued, then our interest lies not in ending the war, but in prolonging it. As President, he promises to refocus policy in Ukraine around aiding the Ukrainian people in their pursuit of peace, rather than weakening Russia to maintain a militant global dominance.
Kennedy’s attitudes towards poverty and wealth infused every facet of his campaign. This, to me, is what distinguishes his economic policy aims from those of other politicians; he knows that poverty is not an accident. Rather, it is manufactured, through the systematic concentration of wealth in the hands of a few– and to the detriment of the mass of Americans. His anti-war stance, for instance, is influenced significantly by the impact of America’s massive military budget on our middle class and the poor. In his speech, RFK Jr. cited a study showing that more than half of Americans don’t have $1,000 in their bank account to spare for an unanticipated expense. On a show last week, he criticized the government for effectively employing “socialism for the rich” and “merciless capitalism ” for the poor. Instead of bailing out big banks (like First Republic), Kennedy pledges to “bail out the homeowners, debtors, and small business owners” and “support labor in reclaiming its fair share of American prosperity.” RFK Jr. also clearly understands the impact of mass incarceration and a predatory criminal justice system on poor– and especially Black– communities. His campaign website states his intention to release nonviolent drug offenders from prison, which would affect a sizable slice of the country’s incarcerated population. Furthermore, he vows to “partner [the police] with neighborhood organizations” so that our justice system can finally prioritize the prevention of violence over the perpetration of violence.
At Kennedy’s announcement event, many guests waved red and blue signs that read “Heal the Divide”, a slogan that I fear will be misunderstood by many voters as an indication that Kennedy is not dedicated to the Democratic party and its values. On the contrary, RFK Jr. is as committed to his beliefs as he is to dialogue and debate as cornerstones of democracy. He understands that in order to come together to advance our common interests, people need to talk to each other. Listening to him speak, I was reminded not only of his uncle and father, but also of another American hero who found himself at odds with the interests of a corrupt government, another who was murdered at the apex of his struggle for unity and justice. The FBI killed Fred Hampton, a leader of the Black Panther Party, because he was talking to people– not only those in the Black community but also poor white Southern farmers, members of the Puerto Rican nationalist group the Young Lords, Native American activists, socialist organizers, college students of every demographic, and whoever else was willing to share his vision of a society actually structured to serve its people. They killed Hampton because his unifying strategy threatened the white power structure– because coalition-building across divides is dangerous.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has often been called dangerous, with the implication that he should be censored to protect the American people. But really, he is only dangerous in the way Fred Hampton was – dangerous to the forces with a chokehold on power. His campaign explicitly threatens the crony capitalist power structure. Could that be why the Democratic National Committee refuses to allow him to debate Biden? Could it be why Kennedy has been so thoroughly ostracized by the mainstream media? RFK Jr. himself is certainly aware of his status as a political outsider. During the speech that I witnessed, he was briefly interrupted by a P.A. announcement instructing everybody to evacuate the building. After consulting with his security team, Kennedy reassured the crowd that everything was fine, and evacuation would not be necessary. When silence returned, he looked up at the speakers, deadpan, and said: “Nice try.”
In a recent interview with David Samuels of Tablet Magazine, Kennedy spoke about a book given to him by his father before his assassination: Albert Camus’ “The Plague”. In the book, Camus speaks about an epic battle that must be waged against the societal ills that threaten every nation, “by all who, while unable to be saints, but refusing to bow down to pestilence, strive their utmost to be healers”. RFK Jr. is not a saint, but I believe that he will strive his utmost to be a healer.
