The Right To Be Wrong

Many medical experts and journalists believe that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is wrong about vaccines. They say that Kennedy, a candidate for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president, wrongly says that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective and incorrectly validates assertions that childhood vaccinations can cause autism.

Many people, all of whom are pro-Biden Democrats, say that RFK Jr.’s opinions are so dangerous as to automatically preempt anything else he has to say about any other issue. They say that society would benefit if he were to shut up. They say that he should not be given a public platform, that he should be silenced, that we should not hear him because we might believe him and that could cause terrible harm.

Even his family is telling him to STFU.

As a long-time non-epidemiologist with no medical education, I don’t know who is right. However, I do know this: anyone who thinks they have the right to decide what information I get to hear or who I get to hear it from can go to hell.

Let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that these journalists and doctors, none of whom I have met or know anything about, have no bias and no axe to grind, that they care about the well-being of all humans, especially me. Let us further stipulate that they are 100% right and that RFK Jr. is 100% wrong. Let’s even pretend that these folks have never “debunked” “conspiracies” that turned out to be true or promoted conspiracies as though they weren’t lies.

Even so: I demand the right to hear from him if I so choose. RFK Jr. has the right to be terribly, dangerously wrong, l have the right to listen to his stupid incorrect rants in which he gets absolutely nothing right, and I have the right to be deceived into believing things that are stupid, false and even dangerous if I so choose.

My brain, my choice.

Not according to the elites, however. They think they’re smarter than you and me. That we should listen to them. That those who disagree with them should be shut down.

The Biden Administration came under fire in 2022 when its Department of Homeland Security, a government entity with a fascist name, rolled out its Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board whose stated goal was to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.”

The DGB was killed, but censorship efforts with a Father Knows Best spin have proliferated in recent years, mostly from Democratic-leaning institutions. Newspapers and other media outlets rolled out fact-checking websites and chronicled lists of the president’s purported lies, the latter beginning and ending when the president was named Trump. The FBI and other three-letter agencies told social media companies which posts to throttle or kill and handed them lists of accounts that should be shut down. At least one company, with deep ties to covert intelligence agencies, purports to tell you which news outlets you can trust. The war between Russia and Ukraine prompted the Apple and Google app stores to deplatform Russian state media outlets.

The push to characterize news and opinions that deviate from a “mainstream,” i.e. corporatist, narrative hit full steam during the pandemic. Government and media partnered against what they called misinformation and disinformation (others’, never their own). Their obsessive efforts to marginalize and hobble RFK Jr.’s candidacy and access to the information space is a continuation of the COVID information war.

Mis- and disinformation are real and they have real-world impacts that ought not to be minimized. The bizarre QAnon conspiracy game/cult has contributed to or caused, among other events, the hammer attack against Paul Pelosi, a coup attempt against the German government, death threats and mass shootings, not to mention January 6th. Lies can be dangerous, whether they originate from the podium at the United Nations or an wacky underground cell.
            Censorship is an understandable impulse. As a cure, however, it’s worse than the disease. Citizens forced to navigate a world where they know that many things are not as they seem on their face learn to hone the critical thinking skills that tell them not to click on the link in a phishing email and to question whether an especially ridiculous political attack may be a deep fake. No matter how benevolent and adept a government can be—and ours is neither—the collective BS detector of 330 million Americans is likelier to identify and debunk the cleverest act of disinformation than an agency of bureaucrats. If the government and its media allies get their way, we’ll trust them to suss out what’s true and what’s false and, of course, set the stage for them abusing our gullibility. And they’ll do it on a far grander scale than QAnon.

Besides, taboo and forbidden material is inherently more attractive than stuff that’s freely available. From pornography to Cuban cigars to the dark web, nothing is more enticing than something that’s hard to access. If the powers that be don’t want us to hear from RFK Jr., many voters are thinking, then I really want to find out what he’s about. The DNC and the New York Times have no business telling me I’m too dumb to assess his statements about COVID, Israel or anything else.

My brain, right or wrong!

(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.)

 

Democrats Are Beating Up RFK Jr. Over Vaccines. Why THIS Issue?

           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.)

 

You Can’t Become Popular Because You’re Not Popular Yet

In presidential politics, candidates with low poll numbers don’t receive media coverage or an invitation to debates because of their supposedly low odds. But it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: you can’t possibly break out and get discovered by the voters because no one knows you exist. Just another reason you keep seeing the same old faces year after year.

A Look Back at the Looks Back

It began with the March on Washington, or more precisely the 50th anniversary thereof: the 50th anniversary of the 1960s. Because Baby Boomers control the media, get ready for a decade of 50th anniversaries.

If Not Now, When?

Obama wrote this one for me by channeling RFK’s “If not now, when?” The answer seems obvious: when you had 60 votes in the Senate?

css.php