R(u)FK’ing kidding me?

The crackpot Kennedy candidacy comes a-cropper

©2017 Maxlovestoswim, used under a Creative Commons license.

Weren’t we just laughing at this guy?

I get real, if limited, pleasure whenever some popular lunatic disgraces himself with overt racist or anti-Semitic statements. Racist self-immolations are more rare these days than once they were, alas, since Republicans especially don’t care about/pretty much endorse racism anymore. (While in years past even Republican heroes like sagebrush insurrectionist Cliven Bundy got quickly abandoned by their erstwhile buddies when they stepped in racist shit, the loon who was yelling about “colored people” in the House of Representatives last week clearly won’t suffer any meaningful blowback. Times have changed!)

But anti-Semitism’s still a live wire even for most of the shameless Right. In fact they try to pin it on Democrats sometimes, as with Rep. Ilhan Omar, ostensibly because of her (completely reasonable) position on U.S. Palestinian policy, but usually just because she’s Muslim and looks it.

But when one of their own actually goes Springtime for Hitler — and since we’re all grownups here, I think we can agree that RFK Jr.’s whole pitch is COVID denialism, and that the anti-vaxxers to whom this is designed to appeal are now a major conservative constituency — some dim memory of what normal people think about anti-Semitism kicks in and conservatives dutifully join everyone else in denunciation of it, or at least keep their mouths shut.

RFK Jr. getting caught on tape ornamenting his usual nutty COVID/anti-vaxxer beliefs with a wild spiel about how the virus is actually a bioweapon designed to attack “Caucasians and black people” but harmless against “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” should be the end of his ridiculous, media-generated groundswell — not because anyone involved has any sense or shame, but because it’s just going to be too hard a sell anymore. Maybe RFK Jr.’s former boosters will learn a strange new respect for Marianne Williamson.

The prestige press has been assuring us that RFK Jr. is a real danger to Biden because, they tell us, a lot of Democrats would vote for him instead of the sitting president from their own party. (“Why Robert Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Bid Is a Headache for Biden” is just my favorite from a number of similar New York Times headlines — though “Kennedy, Condemning ‘Censorship,’ Hits Democrats and Courts the Disaffected” [dek: “His family name, libertarian bent and support from the tech world, along with his views on censorship and vaccines, have given Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a foothold in the 2024 contest”] is right up there.)

But it only takes a few seconds’ consideration to see how ridiculous that is. First, there was never any evidence that Kennedy was a threat. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump does a good job on his own terms with a poll that allegedly shows RFK Jr. cutting into Biden’s presidential preference numbers (“Biden leads [Kennedy] by 63 points with members of the Democratic Party but by only 42 points with independents. Unfortunately for Kennedy, most Democratic primary voters are Democrats”).

But that’s already spotting the Kennedy-fluffers too many points. The poll Bump’s talking about is a YouGov online survey — pretty much on a par with your average “Who’s Your Favorite Avenger” Twitter poll. Also, it’s a preference/ favorability poll — not about for whom the subject plans to vote. (The percentage of Party members who vote in primaries is very small — much smaller than the percentage who do online polls.) A Forbes headline like “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tops Biden And Trump In New Favorability Poll” may seem impressive until you realize how many other famous names — Rihanna, Ricky Gervais, Chris Stapleton — would probably do at least as well, and what that means for their possibility of ever being elected President (i.e. nothing).

But as fun as it is to see this humiliation fall on the Times, it’s a real joy to see it hit the rightwing outfits that have been RFK Jr.’s biggest boosters.

Take all the National Review thumbsuckers about this up-and-coming phenom who was about to put paid to Sleepy Joe — stories like “Why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Should Run as an Independent,” “The RFK Jr. Wild Card in New Hampshire,” “Must RFK Jr. Be Censored?” (“the efficacy and safety of vaccines shouldn’t be beyond debate. I’m not a fan of Robert Kennedy Jr…” — man, is there anyone more gutless than Rich Lowry?) “Biden Is Not Immune to RFK Jr.,” etc. — stories designed to look like sober-sided analyses of the absolutely real RFK Jr. juggernaut rather than just the long-form ratfucking they are.

Get a load of NR’s Matthew Scully and “The Real Robert Kennedy Jr./Tough and talented, the long-shot candidate has earned respect,” from just a couple of months ago:

While Republican affairs can certainly get rough and unseemly at times, it’s usually the Democratic Party we can turn to for lessons in cold, unsentimental power politics. Consider, for instance, the reception accorded by the party establishment and like-minded reporters to an unexpected entrant into the 2024 presidential race, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who rates, one might have supposed, the respect due a worthy contender and honest dissenter.

It's plucky little RFK Jr. vs. the Democratic insiders! The Dem bosses treat him disrespectfully, not like the way Republicans treated Jeb Bush in 2016! You libs should be kissing his ass — he’s a Kennedy, after all — but instead you call him mean names like “anti-vaxxer” and “nuts”:

As surely as any Kennedy could once expect to be fawned over by [Washington] Post reporters, this Kennedy — especially if he starts drawing crowds and votes — is never to be spared condescension and rebuke. The “why,” in case you haven’t heard, is that RFK Jr. has in recent years been airing “controversial,” “dangerous” views, and this makes him, says the Post, a “fringe figure” you needn’t take seriously.

Can you imagine? Listen, buddy, it just so happens Joe Rogan, Rob Schneider, this lady who screamed at a Target clerk when he told her she had to wear a mask in the store, and this guy who got two million YouTube views telling people to drink their own piss instead of getting vaccinated all agree with RFK Jr. I suppose you’d challenge their bona fides, too!

Scully’s got the Dem establishment’s plan all figured out:

That folks around the DNC know he has a chance, in New Hampshire and beyond, can be surmised from reports of chatter about a backup plan involving California Governor Gavin Newsom — or even, if it comes to that, Vice President Kamala Harris. As the establishment thinking goes, Newsom would be a more plausible and reputable alternative, once Kennedy has rendered Biden too weak to go on. In other words: Let RFK Jr. take all the risks, and do all the work, of removing from the scene a president due for retirement, so that Newsom can step in and triumphantly fill the void. Use Bobby to get rid of Joe, then use Gavin to get rid of Bobby.

Or, maybe — if I may employ Occam’s Razor here — maybe the Democrats just used their mind-rays to get RFK Jr. to say bonkers shit with a camera rolling. Saul Alinsky taught them how!

Look. The RFK Jr. candidacy was a put-up job from the beginning. You never see this shit on the other side. No one’s wondering, in any forum, whether any of the allegedly “anti-Trump” Republicans like Chris Christie will rise with a groundswell or run third party and take votes from Trump and thus hand Biden the victory, because they would be laughed off the face of the earth if they tried. But when it comes to Democrats, the prestige press in their cowardice — Please don’t call us Very Bias! Look, we’re using Steve Bannon’s talking points! — and the conservatives in their mendacity would rather risk what normal people would consider humiliation than simply apply common sense to observable phenomena. Guess there’s no money in it!