Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is uniquely unqualified to be president

Alright, let’s talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — as someone myself who is on the Left, but don’t have any particular allegiance to the Democratic Party — I’ve never been a registered Democrat. 

Many have written to me and said, “David, isn’t Bobby Kennedy Jr. a good alternative to Joe Biden?” 

And I do think that it is an interesting alternative, but it is not one that I can support. Now, some have come to me because they know that I, sort of, have a lot of common, friends in common, with Bobby Kennedy Jr. and once went to dinner with him and that this may in some way, be clouding my judgment of him.

If it’s clouding my judgment of him, it’s clouding it in a strange way, because I think he is uniquely not qualified to be president on the basis of some of his beliefs about foreign policy and medical stuff, and COVID and vaccines, etc, which I will get to. 

Let’s take a step back. First of all, Joe Biden is the President of the United States. He is running for reelection. As a result, the Democratic Party is not going to be holding a real primary in the sense that anybody who wants to can declare their candidacy, challenging Joe Biden, but the DNC isn’t going to organize debates, and they are not going to run a primary in any real way. Do I think that that’s good? No, I would like to see debate, I would like to see, even if you’re an incumbent president, I would love it, if you still had to defend your record and make the case that you are the person that should get another shot. 

You could be the incumbent president. And in theory, the Democratic voters could say we want someone else representing us. I think Joe Biden would easily win a contested primary because of the power of incumbency. But I understand why, if you’re the DNC, and your mission is to get Democrats elected, you’ve got a Democrat in the Oval Office, your best path forward, your least risky path forward, is to try to just get that same Democrat who’s in office another four years. Okay, that’s just the reality. I would love to see debates, we’re not going to see them. 

That all being said, I do think that there are some areas in which Bobby Kennedy Jr. makes some interesting points. When it comes to certain aspects of economics and minimum wage and environmental stuff and different things, he makes some sense. And also, he says strange things about those topics as well. When it comes to environmental stufr, he agrees with me on many of the problems we have, but he wants to completely de-regulate industry. And he believes that’s a path towards dealing with climate change. 

I don’t think so at all, but most concerningly, some of the things that Bobby Kennedy says about medicine are uniquely disqualifying. It’s great that I agree with Bobby Kennedy in some areas. But when he says that there are 100 studies that say vaccines cause autism, and then we look and the 100 studies are debunked studies, flawed studies, studies not actually about vaccines and autism that are included on a list of supposed proof that vaccines cause autism, etc. And you go, this talking point? Bobby Kennedy Jr. has fallen for this talking point? That’s really scary. And to me, it’s uniquely disqualifying. Bobby Kennedy Jr. recently had a health policy summit with such vectors of disinformation as Joseph Mercola and Sherry Tenpenny. Look them up. I’ve talked about them on my program before. These are dangerous spreaders of disinformation. And he had a health policy roundtable with them. And by the way, during that health policy roundtable, Bobby Kennedy Jr. said that vaccine research is responsible for HIV, RSV, Lyme disease and the Spanish flu. None of those things are true. 

That’s crazy. And so even if I agree we need a higher minimum wage, it’s very difficult to see myself voting for someone who holds those beliefs. 

Lastly, he said some very strange conspiratorial stuff as well. He recently appeared on Newsmax and said that China’s developing an ethnicity-based bio weapon that will target people based on their race. Now, is it possible to develop such a weapon? Maybe. There’s significant debate as to whether that really is possible. Is there evidence that such a weapon is being developed? None that he was able to cite. And so the totality of this is, do I support challengers to incumbent presidents? Yes. Would I like to see an actual Democratic primary with debates? Absolutely. Do I find myself to the left of Joe Biden where I would want someone to Joe Biden’s left to run and win? 100%, absolutely. 

But do I think Bobby Kennedy is the true progressive candidate who must challenge Joe Biden and that I will be supporting? No. And case in point, people talk about how Bobby Kennedy is appealing to both sides of the aisle. In a sense, that’s true, but it’s not good. He’s appearing appealing to kooky anti-vax people on the Left and MAGA people who just think there might be a better vehicle than Trump for some of their beliefs. That’s not exactly a bipartisan constituency that I would be up in arms cheering for.