Within the Democratic Party, however, a quirky single issue has become the focus of opposition to primary challenger Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: his reputation as an anti-vaxxer.
For the purpose of this discussion, let’s set aside the question of whether or not the criticism is accurate. RFK Jr. denies being against vaccinations in general, says he is up-to-date on all vaccinations except for COVID-19, and claims the real problem is big pharma, not vaccines. Let’s also ignore the obvious motivation of Democrats’ attacks: Kennedy had the temerity to challenge Biden in the primaries, and opened strong with nearly 20% of the Democratic vote.
But why is this the anti-RFK Democrats’ single issue? Why are they single-mindedly raging over the fact that he’s (assuming for the sake of argument that it’s true) anti-vax?
The coverage has been brutal and sharply focused. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” an NBC profile of the candidate begins, “is a conspiracy theorist running for president as a Democrat.”
“Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president,” the Associated Press opened its wire-service piece announcing his 2024 bid.
Kennedy is so irredeemably anti-vax, his critics say, that he’s not even worth engaging with. “There is no point in debating RFK Jr. on vaccines,” Time magazine wrote. “He’s wrong and has been proven so many times before.”
The playing field of this particular political battle is, well, weird.
First, the issue is moot. Even assuming that RFK is objectively a wacky anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who was wrong about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine (for the record, I’ve received eight COVID shots and plan to get a ninth), the pandemic is over. The Biden Administration has officially declared the end of the coronavirus emergency. If RFK was wrong, the key word here is “was.” The controversy concerns what has now become, due to the passage of time, a non-issue. Would you vote against someone due to their (incorrect) position on the Franco-Prussian War?
If the underlying issue is that RFK subscribes to conspiracy theories, it’s going to be hard to find other politicians to support. President Biden, for example, believed that “Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction” was an actual real thing, even though the director of the CIA told him there was no evidence whatsoever at the time. Hillary Clinton said “there’s no doubt in my mind” that Russia cheated her out of the 2016 election; Russiagate, we all knew then and we all know now, was a fever dream born of self-delusion. Whatever you think of RFK’s statements about vaccines, the consequences of the Iraq WMD and Russiagate conspiracy theories were over a million people killed and recklessly risking World War III.
Perhaps RFK’s real sin is science denialism. If so, there isn’t a single American politician you can support with the possible exception of Al Gore, if he’s still interested in the job. Climate science is clear; the Earth is heating rapidly and the future of humanity hangs in the balance in the immediate future. Democrats and Republicans alike are talking about jobs, the economy, censoring books, how the history of slavery should be taught, whether children should become transgender, anything but the most pressing important problem facing Americans and their fellow humans around the globe.
It doesn’t get any more denialist than these distractions.
I’m not inherently opposed to the idea of single-issue voting. I would never vote for anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq. I would never vote for anyone who wants to keep Guantánamo open or is willing to tolerate it. I would never vote for anyone who doesn’t support a $20-an-hour minimum wage. My vote only goes to someone who would stop persecuting Julian Assange. These are, to me, basic moral filters that tell me who someone is.
I would also not vote for someone who, like RFK Jr., pledges “unconditional support” to Israel, or any other country. Unconditional support for another nation is stupid. If a U.S. ally decides to pick a fight, I want the right to decide whether or not to get involved.
RFK Jr. has stumbled into lifestyle identitarianism, a retrograde political tendency motivated not by identification with or support for a minority group or other historically marginalized population, but tribal symbolism. For a certain kind of lifestyle liberal in San Francisco or Manhattan, being pro-vax makes a statement: you are, or might be, One of Us. You shop at Target, not Walmart. You follow tennis, not NASCAR. You watch “Barbie”—ironically. RFK Jr. elicits ire because, as a Kennedy and thus heir to the last liberal dynasty, he has committed the ultimate heresy: class treason. Here, class is not (strictly) about money. Cultural signifiers—your electric car, your vacation to Europe, your take on vaccines—determine who’s out with the in crowd.
Extracting himself from this pit won’t be easy.
(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
2 Comments.
I think you hit the nail on the head, about his science denialism and lifestyle identitarianism. I have been watching epidemiologist YouTube shows about their rebuttal to RFK Jr when he was on Rogan show. It’s refreshing to listen to calm scientists rebutting his claims. Again, it shows the divide between scientists and lawyers, to be simplistic in a way, in their differing ways of explaining the world.
The Biden Democrats are jumping on RFK Jr.(have you checked your Dem. Party fundraising emails lately?) since it’s great to have a new enemy to defeat.
“First, the issue is moot. Even assuming that RFK is objectively a wacky anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who was wrong about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine (for the record, I’ve received eight COVID shots and plan to get a ninth), the pandemic is over.”
Ted, the NEXT pandemic is not over. The issue is most emphatically not moot.
Add to the list of politicians who understood the climate crisis … Margaret Thatcher. She trained as a chemist in college, iirc. And even she couldn’t do anything. And speaking of she, China’s Xi is running a political system in which he only remains in power for as long as he keeps their economy going. For China, environmental policies and scientific findings that go against that economic growth are simply irrelevant.
But not only is the issue political suicide, it’s politically pointless as the scientists are only now starting to admit that we are already past the point of no return. If we shut off every single thing on the planet today the momentum will still wipe out the ice sheets. The equatorial regions are still going to overheat. Hundreds of millions of people will die or be displaced. We spent 40 very crucial years recycling plastic bottles for no useful purpose, and now it’s end game. The house is in flames, we can either keep aiming the kitchen sprayer at it or use these last few minutes to grab the laptop, wallet, passport, and the cats so we can have a chance of a soft landing.