Vaccine critic RFK Jr has gone from ‘troubled life’ to candidate for the top job. Here’s why his rivals are paying attention.
The life of Robert F. Kennedy Jr took an odd turn in 2005. Possibly because of his own son’s nut allergy or possibly because, as he would later say, other parents had been approaching him with concerns, he became worried that vaccines might be the cause of a spike in childhood neurological disorders.
Dismissed by some as a no-chance crank when he announced his campaign in 2023, RFK Jr has lately been polling strongly enough to be taken seriously, with: not enough to win the presidency, but not nothing. If he sticks around until polling day, he could certainly swing the result in a close race towards Biden or Trump. Which is why they are paying attention.
Bobby Kennedy Jr., who developed a love of falconry, handles an augur hawk in a wildlife television special in 1975.RFK Jr was born into a family at the centre the biggest conspiracy theory in US history – that JFK’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, wasn’t acting alone. That there was a “second shooter” that day in Texas, that JFK was killed by the Mafia, or the CIA, or both.
RFK Jr seems to believe that it is his destiny, as a Kennedy, to sit in the White House. “From my youngest days, I always had the feeling that we were all involved in some great crusade,” he once wrote, “that the world was a battleground for good and evil … It would be my good fortune if I could play an important or heroic role.”
RFK Jr initially intended to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination on Kennedy home turf. “The Kennedys are remarkable for their sense that the whole American experiment hinges on their success,” says Lynch. “That sounds more disparaging than it is, but their sense of self-confidence, that the whole system is engineered around the Kennedy family, that they are required for the Republic to prosper, in part explains their success and their durability.
‘He receives an inordinate amount of coverage and curiosity because, among the Democrats, there’s still the hope the Kennedy dream might live again.’ Either way, his potential impact can’t be ignored: “Some 75,000 votes spread across three states decided the election outcome in 2016,” says Jared Mondschein at the United States Study Centre. “And 40,000 votes across three states decided the election in 2020. So, the frustrating aspect of this campaign is we have the same election as we had in 2020; the margins are so slim that everything matters.
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