With environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr. declaring his Independence from the Democratic Party, Americans should beware of perhaps the greatest smear campaign against a candidate in modern U.S. history. While the mainstream media has undoubtedly smeared candidates before, this instance is unique to the media’s treatment of others’ race to the White House. At a time when a candidate poses a very real threat to both the left and the right, both sides of the political aisle will be unleashing slander after slander. Cutting through the mainstream media’s twisted narratives will be one of Mr. Kennedy’s most significant challenges.
While right-wing media previously was broadly supportive of Kennedy’s bid to challenge President Biden, they have suddenly turned on a dime as Kennedy now also threatens former President Trump. So how exactly has the media changed their tunes, and what kind of slanders have the media attributed to Kennedy so far? Not only that, but how will he garner enough support to win during this tremendous smear campaign from both sides?
Immediately after Mr. Kennedy announced he was running as an Independent, Fox News put out an article mocking him. “I’m a Kennedy from a Democrat family. But I’m running for president as an Independent,” the title read. Fox News didn’t stop there, however, as the clearest example of the 180 made by right-wing outlets came from Fox News host Sean Hannity.
On September 14, Sean Hannity did an interview with Kennedy where he seemed very favorable of the presidential hopeful pursuing a third-party path. He asked Kennedy, “My question to you is why stay with the Democratic Party? Would you consider a third party?” However, on October 11, just days after Kennedy announced he was leaving the Democratic Party, Hannity suddenly seemed to have a change of tone. “I hope you don’t mind, but I did a little research on you; you’re pretty liberal.” He then goes on the offensive, citing various claims, and then concludes by asking, “So why didn’t [the Democratic party] even want to allow you to compete? Cause that’s a pretty liberal of a record as anybody.” Kennedy then responded, “Do you want to talk about my positions, Sean, or do you want to read talking points from the Trump campaign?” Despite Hannity claiming they were not talking points, saying, “I do my own research,” that doesn’t appear to be the case in this instance. Every claim Hannity accused Kennedy of can be found almost word for word on the GOP’s official website, which was also posted from the X account “RNCResearch.”
Highlighted are the claims Hannity read off during the program. It is important to note that the majority of the claims from the GOP regarding Mr. Kennedy are either outdated, misleading, or false beliefs attributed to him.
Kennedy himself has talked about how he has developed more of an open mind over the past several years on numerous occasions.
“In a two-sided conflict, both parties have a kind of mutual dependency. Each side depends on the other to define themselves as good guys in contrast to the other side, who of course, are the bad guys… As I’ve surrendered my attachment to taking sides, I’ve been able to listen with new ears to people with whom I disagree, and see solutions that would otherwise have been invisible.” – Robert Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy used the border crisis as an example of how his views have changed during his Independence speech. He explained that while he used to think those who were against open borders were perhaps xenophobes and racists, he has realized he was wrong. “My views changed as I spoke to border patrol officers, to local officials, to local sheriffs, aid workers and to the migrants themselves,” Kennedy said. “I saw that no one party has a monopoly on wisdom, and none of the simplistic narratives actually contain the whole truth.” Since he has gone down and actually visited the border, he has been a strong proponent of tightening border security, though wants the process of becoming a citizen to become much easier.
Mr. Kennedy also made a much more elaborate statement on X about the fact his views have changed over the years.
The X post not only talks about how someone’s views should be allowed to change over several decades, but also is a reminder that former President Trump was a staunch liberal by most metrics a couple of decades ago. From 2001-2007, Trump donated thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton. He was also “very pro-choice” according to his own description in an interview with Meet the Press in 1999. Mr. Kennedy also called out the former President for not owning up to his changed record by posting on X on November 3, “We both loved Hillary Clinton. The only difference is I’m not pretending I never did.” It would likely be an enormous double standard for those who supported Trump during the 2016 election cycle to now turn around and say that Kennedy couldn’t have had any of his views change over several decades either.
Another example of a falsehood attributed to Mr. Kennedy was when the New York Post came out with an article titled, “RFK Jr. comes out in favor of reparations, carving out lane to Biden’s left.” The idea that Kennedy supports reparations, the direct cash payment given to a community for mistreatment, is simply false. Kennedy decided to address this claim on X immediately, saying, “The program will make capital and resources available to the poorest and most desperate communities in America… Yes, because Black people are disproportionately poor, this program will benefit them disproportionately. But the criteria will be indicators like poverty, addiction rates, violence, etc. Not skin color.”
Typically when people are talking about reparations, they are referring to the idea of repaying a community in the form of cash handouts. If one is to describe this policy of Kennedy’s as reparations, then it would only be consistent to say that former President Trump also supports reparations. The former president proposed Opportunity Zones, economic help for low-income communities, hundreds of millions in funding for historically black colleges, and much more. This is something that he was promising to expand in his second term as well. If this is the thought process taken on, then that only leads to a conclusion that suggests President Biden is the only 2024 presidential candidate who is against reparations.
This switch-up from right-wing media is important to shed light on as it shows a clear and collected effort to smear the environmental lawyer. While many on the right previously seemed to be in favor of Kennedy’s bid as a Democrat, the moment he became a threat to the Republican party, the tone from those on the conservative aisle in the media changed. This all comes just days after a member of the Trump team said they are going to be “dropping napalm after napalm on [Kennedy’s] head reminding the public of his liberal views.”
While conservative media and insiders have turned on their heels to attack Mr. Kennedy, the Democratic Party has continued to remain largely silent on Kennedy’s bid for the White House. Left-wing media outlets, however, have continued on with their smear efforts as they had been.
Upon reporting on Kennedy’s Independence speech, Politico described Kennedy as an “anti-vaccine advocate.” This attribution to him, however, is false. Many left-wing publications have been describing Kennedy as an anti-vaxxer despite the fact Mr. Kennedy has always made it clear he is not anti-vaccine. Over the years, Kennedy has spent time trying to inform people of the potential harms of some vaccines and has called for better vigorous testing to be done on them. Regardless, outlets describing Mr. Kennedy as anti-vaccine is only an attempt to silence him; policy-wise, nothing would come from such a belief. The only things Mr. Kennedy has said he would do as President in relation to vaccines is push for better testing and ban pharmaceutical companies from advertising on television. It is important to note that all of Mr. Kennedy’s children are vaccinated as well.
Meanwhile, The New York Times when reporting on Kennedy’s announcement stated that he has alienated his family in part by “his embrace of far-right political figures.” This is stated as if it is a bad thing to reach across the aisle for a common purpose or to engage in open dialogue. What many may have forgotten is that Mr. Kennedy’s uncle, Edward Kennedy, may be the best example of engaging in the same acts.
“During weekends at Cape Cod, my uncle (Edward Kennedy) would bring home people who were his political rivals… I looked at those people and I saw Darth Vader. And I would say to Teddy, why are you making these friendships?… And he always said to me, “As much as I love our country, they love our country the same. We all believe in our country. We need to be able to talk to each other.” And that allowed him to become the most productive senator in the United States history. I want to do the same thing with my presidency.” – Robert Kennedy Jr.
The onslaught of left-wing establishment bias does not stop there, however. In NBC’s reporting of Kennedy’s speech, the article largely misrepresents how the Kennedy family feels about his campaign. “The rest of the Kennedy family, most of whom remain committed Democrats, have been generally critical of ‘Bobby’s’ campaign,” the article states. The wording suggests that Kennedy’s family at large strongly opposes his candidacy, which is simply untrue. According to an article by Politico, about 120 Kennedy family members attend the Kennedy’s Thanksgiving. If 120 family members are close enough for all of them to have Thanksgiving together, it is absurd to suggest that they all disagree with him when only 5% have spoken out. It is also highly doubtful that every family member would agree with everything someone believed if one were to run for political office, let alone a family as big as the Kennedys.
While the media would like people to believe that more Kennedy family members denounce him than support him, the opposite is actually true. Several of Kennedy’s family members have shown public support for him, including children, in-laws, cousins, and more.
It is also important to note that Mr. Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox, is now also his campaign manager. Amaryllis is an author and former CIA officer who has worked on several documentaries and spoken out against the CIA since she left. Mrs. Fox wrote on X that she resigned from the CIA after realizing she was too “relegated to siloed and isolated work to manage the impact of my objections and eventually realized that what good I could do in such a sealed stove-pipe was too limited to remain.” She says that before signing on to be Kennedy’s campaign manager she was working on a documentary series showing that the CIA was involved with the assassination of slain President John F. Kennedy, though has since put it on pause to focus on Kennedy’s campaign.
With what seems to be ramping up to be the most extensive smear campaign against the son of the late Attorney General, how can Kennedy break through all the noise?
The answer comes down to two things: Kennedy speaking everywhere he can, and you. Mr. Kennedy is making a wise choice by going on all the outlets he can, even ones that will likely smear him as Fox News did. By doing this, rather than allowing the media to create unchallenged and false narratives for their viewers, Kennedy is able to speak to the viewers directly about his beliefs to better combat such disinformation.
While Kennedy does everything that he can to get his message known, he also needs the American people to spread the message about what he truly stands for. The more that people hear the truth about Kennedy, the more it will not only combat false narratives, but also help people view him as a viable candidate.
Some don’t view Kennedy as a legitimate option due to outsiders from the political parties in presidential elections being unsuccessful in modern history. However, Kennedy’s support as an Independent before he even announced was polled at around 16%, with 25% saying they would at least somewhat likely vote for him. Within less than one month, he grew to polling at 22% nationally, and 24% among swing states. He also now qualifies to be on the debate stage, making it the first time a candidate outside the two parties has qualified since businessman Ross Perot in 1992.
As Kennedy’s support grows, so does his viability in the minds of voters. The fact of the matter is that this is a three-way race, and the sooner that voters understand they wouldn’t be throwing away their vote to some outsider candidate by supporting him, the better. It’s a domino effect; the more people that support him, in turn, will create twice as many more supporters.
While it would be unprecedented in the modern United States for someone outside the two parties to win, it is also an unprecedented period, as the likely choices from the two parties are historically unpopular. So, who knows? After all, Argentina just elected the first-ever Libertarian president in the world, a candidate outside of their two political parties.
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