ANDREW NEIL: Is RFK Jr the most dangerous man in America?
ANDREW NEIL: Trump could soon be a convict. Biden is a walking disaster. So, tempted by RFK Jr in 2024? Don’t be – he’s a total conspiracy theory NUTJOB… and may just be the most dangerous man in America
It is a measure of how miserable Americans regard the likely choice for President in 2024 – yet another run off between Joe Biden and Donald Trump – than Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. is regarded as an attractive alternative. You can understand the superficial appeal.
Trump, 77, faces 91 felony charges in four separate court cases. Next year he’s likely to spend more time in the dock than on the campaign trail.
The indictments bolster his base, who see it all as a ‘deep state’ conspiracy to jail him. But they hardly endear him to the moderate and swing voters he needs to retake the White House but who don’t relish voting for somebody who might be a convicted criminal by the time he’s back in the Oval Office.
Biden, already 80 (and an ‘old’ 80 at that), is visibly deteriorating before our very eyes. His aides hold their heads in their hands as he struggles to make it to the end of the teleprompter without yet another embarrassing gaffe. Allowing him out in public unscripted is now a living hell for them.
The presidency ages its incumbents in dog years. Biden’s bumbling can only get worse, perhaps markedly so. It’s not even certain he can make it to election day with his capacities intact.
But there is no ‘Plan B’ in that event. It was meant to be Kamala Harris. But she is widely regarded as a disaster even among Democrats and now has the lowest approval rating of any vice-president since modern polling began. In the upcoming presidential contest, Harris would be an even bigger risk than Biden.
It is a measure of how miserable Americans regard the likely choice for President in 2024 – yet another run off between Joe Biden and Donald Trump – than Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (pictured) is regarded as an attractive alternative. You can understand the superficial appeal.
Trump, 77, faces 91 felony charges in four separate court cases. Next year he’s likely to spend more time in the dock than on the campaign trail. The indictments bolster his base. But they hardly endear him to the moderate and swing voters.
Then there’s the stench emanating from the president’s son, Hunter.
The mainstream media, overwhelmingly biased in favour of the Democrats, has done its best to underplay his seedy global influence-peddling, using his father’s name and, increasingly it seems, with his father complicit in his dodgy money-making.
The full extent of the corruption has yet to be nailed. But more revelations will come out in the weeks and months ahead. None of it will be helpful to the President.
Faced with the book being thrown at Trump while Hunter Biden is treated, so far, with kid gloves many voters might simply wish a plague on both the Biden and Trump houses – and not bother to vote.
Contrast this litany of Biden-Trump woes with RFK Jr., scion of America’s pre-eminent political dynasty.
The name alone is magical.
‘I’m a Kennedy Democrat’ is RFK’s campaign slogan designed to win his party’s presidential nomination from Biden. He knows its power to appeal to a bygone age when politicians were sometimes seen as heroes rather than crooks.
Winning is a long shot but we live in unpredictable times when long shots sometimes come first.
True, at 69, he’s no spring chicken. But he’s fit and healthy even if his croaky voice (the product of a recent neurological disorder) makes him sound like an ageing Marge Simpson.
But he has a distinguished career behind him as an environmental lawyer who held Big Polluters to account and he often has original things to say which cross party lines and seem refreshingly non-partisan.
So is he the saviour so many Americans are looking for?
Alas, not, and for one very simple reason: he’s a total conspiracy theory nutjob.
Biden, already 80, is visibly deteriorating before our very eyes. Then there’s the stench emanating from his son Hunter (pictured with Joe). The full extent of Hunter’s corruption has yet to be nailed. But more revelations will come out. None of it will be helpful to the President.
Often more barking than Trump, sometimes less coherent than even Biden, it seems there is no outlandish nonsense he’s not embraced in recent years.
Certain vaccinations cause autism in children? Check.
The CIA murdered his uncle, JFK (and probably his father, Bobby, too). Check.
America has been developing bioweapons in Ukrainian laboratories? Check.
Contaminants in the water are causing more people to self-ID as transgender? Check.
Prescription drugs are behind the rise in school shootings? Check.
Exposure to WiFi can cause cancer? Check.
The Covid virus was ‘targeted’ not to infect Ashkenazi Jews? Check.
Like other accomplished conspiracy theorists, Kennedy reels off ‘facts’ to support each bizarre proposition, as if he knows what he’s talking about when the truth is he doesn’t.
Author: Andrew Neil
In a recent interminable interview with Tucker Carlson on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he was allowed to indulge himself in his conspiracy fantasies without interruption or challenge — because, increasingly crazy Carlson agreed with everything he said.
When he launched his campaign in Boston in April he spoke non-stop for two hours, the epitome of the know-it-all bar-room bore, which tested the endurance of even his most faithful acolytes.
This is a man who adores the sound of his own voice, however painful it is for the rest of us to listen to it. And unlike Biden, he doesn’t even use notes, never mind a teleprompter, so confident is he wrapped up in his own world of falsehoods.
You could spend your whole life fact-checking and correcting RFK Jr. and much good it would do you since conspiracy theorists are notoriously immune to facts. But let’s just take the non-existent link between certain vaccinations and children’s autism.
It was first given credence by a British doctor in 1998 who claimed that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism in children. He based this on a sample size of 12 and his study was carried out for a lawyer who was suing the drug companies on behalf of parents whose children were autistic.
It has since been debunked by every single subsequent study into the matter. Lancet, the distinguished British medical journal, was forced to retract the original paper. Yet the man who would be president still pushes the discredited theory.
So is RFK Jr. the saviour so many Americans are looking for? Alas, not, and for one very simple reason: he’s a total conspiracy theory nutjob. Often more barking than Trump, sometimes less coherent than even Biden, it seems there is no outlandish nonsense he’s not embraced.
Then there’s the ‘CIA killed my uncle’ claim.
Kennedy told Carlson, without caveat, that this had been the conclusion of the House Assassinations Committee when in 1979 it re-investigated JFK’s killing.
True, it cast doubt on the original Warren Commission’s reliance on Lee Harvey Oswald being the sole shooter and raised the possibility of a wider conspiracy. But it had no idea who was behind the conspiracy and specifically ruled out the CIA.
Perhaps what makes RFK most unfit to run for president are his views on Ukraine or, indeed, his overarching approach to foreign policy, in which he always depicts America as the bad guy.
If you worry that Trump was too close to the Kremlin then you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Everything Kennedy has to say about Ukraine is straight out of the Putin playbook.
Russia is only reacting to Nato ‘aggression’. The original invasion, in February 2022, was not designed to occupy Ukraine just force it to the bargaining table over the Donbas region, which Russia had earlier occupied because Ukraine had killed 14,000 Russian speakers in the area. The US has contrived to lure Russia into a ‘proxy war’ in Ukraine to depose Putin and undermine Russia’s ability to deploy force elsewhere. We threaten Russia with biowarfare labs in Ukraine and nuclear missiles in Poland. No wonder Putin had to act.
Every one of these claims is demonstrably false. Every one a perfect replica of Russian propaganda points.
Kennedy is one of these ‘patriots’ who seems to love criticizing his own country and is always willing to give its enemies the benefit of the doubt. His uncle must be turning in his grave.
He seems more comfortable in the company of the Republican hard right than with mainstream Democrats, who’ve largely shunned him because of his whacky conspiracy theories.
New Hampshire Democrats have complained that he spends more time mixing with various Right-wing libertarian groups than with his own party members, which is strange for someone after the Democratic nomination. Perhaps he’s running in the wrong party. Some Republican rebel rousers have even suggested a Trump-Kennedy ticket for 2024.
That won’t happen. Nor does Kennedy have any real chance of defeating Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Everything Kennedy (pictured with his second wife Mary, who killed herself during their divorce) has to say about Ukraine is straight out of the Putin playbook. He is one of these ‘patriots’ who seems to love criticizing his own country and is always willing to give its enemies the benefit of the doubt. His uncle must be turning in his grave.
No incumbent president has ever been defeated in a primary race. His other uncle, Edward Kennedy, came closest in 1980 when he challenged President Carter for the Democratic nomination. But, in the end, even Carter was comfortably renominated.
Independents, however, are allowed to vote in the New Hampshire democratic primary. They could do so in enough numbers, along with Democrats disillusioned by Biden, to make Kennedy a decent second, underlining how weak Biden is. But that won’t propel RFK Jr. to the nomination. For that there should be much thanks.
US politics doesn’t need another weirdo — and that’s not too strong a word.
His second wife, who committed suicide during their divorce, discovered a diary he kept which listed his serial philandering and included a sexual scorecard of his conquests. Not exactly a candidate for the post-MeToo era.
It’s bad enough that America is faced with a Trump-Biden choice again. To throw Robert Kennedy Jr. into the mix would suggest US politics really is beyond salvation.
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