RFK Jr. means what he says, even when he says that he doesn’t

Prank presidential candidate and big viral load Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is putting his silver foot in his mouth again. Perhaps jealous of the media attention measles has been getting lately, RFK the Lesser has decided to take a temporary break from making pestilence prominent again and have a go at undermining democracy. Only now he’s backpedaling faster than Donald Trump from an age-appropriate date with a tray of crudités. So which outrage would y’all like to hear about first? Because they’re both pretty good. How about the one where he said President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than notorious attempted democracy-murderer Trump? Yeah, he really said that. Because vomiting gormless hot takes is what passes for campaigning these days. RELATED STORY: IVF is GOP kryptonite. RFK Jr.'s running mate wants a piece of it The New York Times: Mr. Kennedy’s stance drew fresh scrutiny this week after he said in an interview on CNN, “Listen, I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, to censor his opponent.” He repeated himself on Fox News on Tuesday, saying that a president like Mr. Biden was “a genuine threat to our democracy.” Here’s your friendly reminder that Trump, while cosplaying as president, once told his staff to call Disney to see if they’d order Jimmy Kimmel stop making fun of him. But apparently Biden is the real villain because he’d like social media companies to flag posts that suggest it’s healthier to beer-bong horse dewormer than take an FDA-approved vaccine. And despite its keen appetite for false balancing nearly everything, The Times found this shoddy comparison too rich for its heretofore measles-free blood. But several scholars who have studied democratic governments and the ways they can backslide told The New York Times that it was nonsensical to suggest that social media moderation — which the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold as a legitimate goal of government — posed a greater threat than what Mr. Trump has done. [...] The two most fundamental tenets of democracy are that politicians “must always unambiguously accept the results of elections and must always unambiguously reject political violence,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who co-wrote the book “How Democracies Die.” “I don’t think you’ll find a democracy expert in the world who will claim that the mild efforts to regulate social media in the United States are somehow equivalent or worse than an effort to overturn an election or the encouragement of political violence.” Naturally, there was a fair amount of backlash to Kennedy’s attempt to compare Biden’s good faith efforts to keep Americans from injecting Clorox into their eyeballs with Trump’s refusal to accept the results of a free and fair election. “With a straight face, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump because he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories online,” Mary Beth Cahill, a senior adviser for the Democratic National Committee, told The Times. “There is no comparison to summoning a mob to the Capitol and promising to be a dictator on Day 1.” Later, when NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo challenged Kennedy over the comparison, Kennedy walked it back in one of the most chickenshit displays of political flip-floppery you’ll ever see. “What I said was that I could make this argument,” he said. “I didn’t say definitively whether I believed one or the other was more dangerous to democracy. I did say that I don’t believe either of them are going to destroy democracy.” Well, most people don’t think Trump will destroy democracy because most of us remain convinced his shambolic presidential bid will end in MAGA tears—unless some fool of a former Democrat siphons votes away from the one major-party candidate who’d prefer not to rule as a dictator. Of course, Kennedy is trying to draw support from both Trump and Biden—so he appears to be simultaneously wooing lifelong Democrats who get their news from 1962 issues of Life Magazine and people who are disillusioned with Trump for letting his government release a vaccine with a computer chip that doesn’t even play Donkey Kong. So it’s odd that Kennedy treats Trump—who, again, single-handedly attempted to end our country’s centuries-old commitment to liberal democracy—with kid gloves when it comes to Trump’s ongoing campaign to kill America. You’d think a guy who’s running for president would actually use one of his chief opponent’s most glaring vulnerabilities against him. Instead, he’s decided to amplify Trump’s rhetoric by referring to Jan. 6 rioters as “activists” rather than dangerous, cult-besotted losers. The Washington Post: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign told su

Apr 6, 2024 - 02:30

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RFK Jr. means what he says, even when he says that he doesn’t

Prank presidential candidate and big viral load Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is putting his silver foot in his mouth again. Perhaps jealous of the media attention measles has been getting lately, RFK the Lesser has decided to take a temporary break from making pestilence prominent again and have a go at undermining democracy. Only now he’s backpedaling faster than Donald Trump from an age-appropriate date with a tray of crudités.

So which outrage would y’all like to hear about first? Because they’re both pretty good. How about the one where he said President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than notorious attempted democracy-murderer Trump?

Yeah, he really said that. Because vomiting gormless hot takes is what passes for campaigning these days.

The New York Times:

Mr. Kennedy’s stance drew fresh scrutiny this week after he said in an interview on CNN, “Listen, I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, to censor his opponent.” He repeated himself on Fox News on Tuesday, saying that a president like Mr. Biden was “a genuine threat to our democracy.”

Here’s your friendly reminder that Trump, while cosplaying as president, once told his staff to call Disney to see if they’d order Jimmy Kimmel stop making fun of him. But apparently Biden is the real villain because he’d like social media companies to flag posts that suggest it’s healthier to beer-bong horse dewormer than take an FDA-approved vaccine.

And despite its keen appetite for false balancing nearly everything, The Times found this shoddy comparison too rich for its heretofore measles-free blood.

But several scholars who have studied democratic governments and the ways they can backslide told The New York Times that it was nonsensical to suggest that social media moderation — which the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold as a legitimate goal of government — posed a greater threat than what Mr. Trump has done.
[...]
The two most fundamental tenets of democracy are that politicians “must always unambiguously accept the results of elections and must always unambiguously reject political violence,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who co-wrote the book “How Democracies Die.” “I don’t think you’ll find a democracy expert in the world who will claim that the mild efforts to regulate social media in the United States are somehow equivalent or worse than an effort to overturn an election or the encouragement of political violence.”

Naturally, there was a fair amount of backlash to Kennedy’s attempt to compare Biden’s good faith efforts to keep Americans from injecting Clorox into their eyeballs with Trump’s refusal to accept the results of a free and fair election.

“With a straight face, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump because he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories online,” Mary Beth Cahill, a senior adviser for the Democratic National Committee, told The Times. “There is no comparison to summoning a mob to the Capitol and promising to be a dictator on Day 1.”

Later, when NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo challenged Kennedy over the comparison, Kennedy walked it back in one of the most chickenshit displays of political flip-floppery you’ll ever see.

“What I said was that I could make this argument,” he said. “I didn’t say definitively whether I believed one or the other was more dangerous to democracy. I did say that I don’t believe either of them are going to destroy democracy.”

Well, most people don’t think Trump will destroy democracy because most of us remain convinced his shambolic presidential bid will end in MAGA tears—unless some fool of a former Democrat siphons votes away from the one major-party candidate who’d prefer not to rule as a dictator.

Of course, Kennedy is trying to draw support from both Trump and Biden—so he appears to be simultaneously wooing lifelong Democrats who get their news from 1962 issues of Life Magazine and people who are disillusioned with Trump for letting his government release a vaccine with a computer chip that doesn’t even play Donkey Kong.

So it’s odd that Kennedy treats Trump—who, again, single-handedly attempted to end our country’s centuries-old commitment to liberal democracy—with kid gloves when it comes to Trump’s ongoing campaign to kill America. You’d think a guy who’s running for president would actually use one of his chief opponent’s most glaring vulnerabilities against him. Instead, he’s decided to amplify Trump’s rhetoric by referring to Jan. 6 rioters as “activists” rather than dangerous, cult-besotted losers.

The Washington Post:

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign told supporters Wednesday that those facing charges in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot are “activists sitting in a Washington DC jail cell stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”

Kennedy’s campaign used the language in an email urging his followers to sign a petition calling for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In the email, titled “We Must Free Assange!,” the campaign compared those jailed for their actions on Jan. 6 to Assange and Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked information about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs and is now living in Moscow.

Okay, then! Trump and his toadies refer to detained J6 defendants as “hostages.” Kennedy thinks they’re “activists.” Is Vivek Ramaswamy advising his campaign? Maybe he should think about sharpening his talking points if he wants to put a dent in Trump’s support. Or maybe this is all just about shivving Biden.

Ah, but Kennedy eventually walked this nonsense back. Because he never quite has a handle on what he’s saying, apparently.

The campaign claimed Thursday that Kennedy did not approve of the wording in the email, blaming the “error” on a contractor who the campaign later said has since been terminated. But Kennedy himself has previously downplayed the Jan. 6 attack and said he is open to pardoning convicted rioters.

Good God, that’s weak. Is this what the dude would do as president? Blame a resurgence of easily preventable diseases on unnamed “contractors”? Does he ever actually mean anything he says? Or does he just like to say weird shit for attention?

Of course, shortly after throwing his “contractor” under the bus, Kennedy released an absurdly both-sides statement wherein he claimed he’s listening to diverse viewpoints in an attempt to “make sense of” Jan. 6 and the events that followed.

“I have not examined the evidence in detail, but reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection,” he says.

As CNN notes, Kennedy references the “long-debunked claim” that the Jan. 6 rioters were unarmed and other blatant falsehoods, while still questioning the prosecution of the people people who violently attacked the Capitol.

“Like many reasonable Americans, I am concerned about the possibility that political objectives motivated the vigor of the prosecution of the J6 defendants, their long sentences, and their harsh treatment,” Kennedy’s statement says. “That would fit a disturbing pattern of the weaponization of government agencies — the DoJ, the IRS, the SEC, the FBI, etc. — against political opponents.”

Dude! The rest of us interpreted it correctly the first time. What exactly is it about deadly, POTUS-precipitated coups you don’t understand? If there’s one outrage in all this, it’s that Trump wasn’t prosecuted for his actions far sooner.

Does this guy have any core convictions at all, aside from “me a Kennedy” and “vaccines bad”? Or is he just making up policy as he goes?

Well, you know what they say: If it acts like a Trump and talks like a Trump, it might just be an RFK Jr.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Campaign Action