In terms of ignorance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid. is the second coming of Donald Trump – Lowell Sun

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It’s a serious sign of something when as many as 20% of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents tell pollsters they support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Maybe it’s a sign that their brains are being boosted by the Wi-Fi radiation coming at them from their cellphones, something Kennedy says happens all the time.

Or maybe it’s a sign that the 5G high-speed transmission towers are taking away from people’s abilities to think clearly, another favorite Kennedy conspiracy theory.

More likely, in my view, it’s a sign that some Democrats are worried about President Joe Biden’s age, and a (relatively) younger man from a beloved Democratic political dynasty seems at first glance to be offers a reasonable alternative.

Don’t be fooled.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is off his rocker.

It’s not entirely obvious at first, so there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance at play. Kennedy, after all, with his Kennedy-esque head of hair, piercing blue eyes and blindingly white smile, looked presidential material. He’s an environmental attorney who’s spent decades crusading for a cleaner environment (though detractors say he’s done more harm than good, or taken credit where none was earned). His liberal bona fides seem to be in good order. He spoke of closing the wealth gap, of restoring our “exposed” middle class, of the urgency of dealing with global warming, and more.

Still, when he opens his mouth, as he did for more than three hours on Joe Rogan’s podcast the other day, the inanities that come out are positively Trump-esque.

“Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier, and all these toxins that are in your body can now enter your brain,” he told Rogan.

“How does Wi-Fi open your blood-brain barrier?” Rogan asked, in perhaps his most pointed follow-up question of the entire fawning puffcast.

“Now you’ve surpassed my expertise,” Kennedy replied.

No duh.

Kennedy wants to seal our southern border “permanently.” He believes that antidepressants are responsible for mass shootings. (“Before the introduction of Prozac, we almost didn’t have these events,” he told Elon Musk earlier this month in a conversation on Twitter Spaces.)

He believes that his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, were killed by the CIA, and he tells Rogan that he, RFK Jr., may also be a target of intelligence. agency. (“I’m aware of that risk,” Kennedy said. “I don’t live in fear of it, at all, but I’m not stupid about it, and I’m careful.”)

He questioned the inextricable link between HIV and AIDS. He wrote a famous book demonizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of sabotaging AIDS treatments, and dismissing him as “a powerful technocrat who helped orchestrate and execute the historic coup d’etat in 2020. against Western democracy.” (Fauci called Kennedy “a very troubled individual.” I’m on Team Fauci.)

Most dangerously, of course, Kennedy was a fountainhead of anti-vaccine misinformation. He accepted the prolifically debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. He is the chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a militant anti-vax group that positions itself, according to its website, as “the global revolt against medical tyranny to defend human rights.”

The group is a mega-spreader of vaccine disinformation on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In a Facebook post, Kennedy claimed without evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe for pregnant women. Studies have shown that there is no specific risk to the vaccine in pregnant women.

Kennedy also urged Black Americans, who have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19, not to trust COVID-19 vaccines, comparing them to the horrific Tuskegee syphilis study, where for 40 years, hundreds of Black men have been denied medical treatment for. syphilis without their knowledge, while public health officials studied the disease.

However, in 2021, when he and his third wife, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines, held a holiday party at their Brentwood home, guests were instructed to get tested or vaccinated against COVID-19 .

“I don’t think I’m always the master of my own house,” Kennedy told Politico.

Once you get on the anti-vax bandwagon, I think it’s reasonable to blame almost all physical problems on vaccinations. Kennedy even suggested that the vaccines may have caused a disorder affecting his larynx, spasmodic dysphonia, which causes his voice to quiver or strain. In 2007, however, he did not contradict Oprah Winfrey when, in an interview, she asked him about his “genetic neurological condition” and he replied that it happened when he was in his early 40s. By 2021, however, he told a podcaster that he thought a flu shot had caused it.

It is true that vaccination carries a very small amount of risk, and there are some cases of children experiencing harm from vaccines, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that childhood vaccines save at least 4 million lives worldwide a year, and the vaccination of adults. also saves a lot of people every year.

On the campaign trail, Kennedy often downplayed his aversion to vaccines. Democrats, after all, are more likely than Republicans to embrace vaccination. In a recent NBC News profile of Kennedy, reporter Brandy Zadrozny cited a Facebook group of Kennedy supporters who decided to label their candidate a “Vaccine Safety Advocate” as a way of making his anti -vax sentiments more palatable to Democratic voters.

Well, you can call him whatever you want. His views are dangerous and he doesn’t belong anywhere near the White House, or any position of real political power. He had already done enough damage.

Kennedy dynasty, schmynasty.

2023 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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