The US presidential election campaign was such a relentless cycle of vicious narratives, loopy historical twists and actual violence that the presence of Robert Kennedy Jr as a proposed third way formed a light distraction.
There was “Bobby”, the ultimate sunny, adolescent American name riding eye-catchingly high in the polls, revered by younger voters disillusioned with the party and turned off by the prospect of Joe and Donnie donning the leotards and going mano-a-mano again.
Bobby was, in comparison, a sun-kissed 70 and boasting pecs worthy of the Hof in his Baywatch Days. He said wacky things, was denounced by several close relatives of his famous views and fought to have his name added to ballots across many states. He even used his uncle John’s famous election jingle for a Super Bowl advert, an act of appropriation for which he apologised.
It couldn’t last. I saw Kennedy give a strong, if eccentric, speech at the Libertarian convention in Washington that spring, when it felt as if he knew, deep down, that the entire thing was an illusion. My final sighting of the Kennedy campaign took place in Chicago on the week of the Democratic convention. I was standing at those infernal zebra crossings which all Americans, without fail, obey when an (or maybe the) official tour bus passed: it was a tricked-out Winnebago, classic 1970s, missing only the wide eyes of Shaggy and Scooby Doo peering out the back window.
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It was decorated in the Stars n’ Stripes and bearing the slogan “Kennedy is the Remedy”. The driver wore a vest and a big beard and was boogeying behind the wheel as he crawled down the street while blaring, at full volume, The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. A full-on party seemed to be taking place behind the tinted windows of the mobile. The Democrats theme for that week was “Joy”. But Kennedy’s crowd were having a hooley. That was a Friday: a day later, Kennedy had suspended his campaign and appeared on stage with Donald Trump.
As it turned out, the Republicans decided Kennedy was the remedy, appointing him the secretary for health, which generated a blizzard of alarmed commentaries given Kennedy’s strong anti-vaccine stance and a series of crazy theories, including the proposition that Covid-19 was ethnically targeted and that vaccines are a possible cause of autism.
But somehow Kennedy has managed to make his department one of the least incendiary of this administration. Months can pass when he is simply in the background. He has managed the rare trick of attending Trump’s cabinet meetings without feeling the need to gush and grovel with the rest, protected from all that by his Kennedy-ness.
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The department reflects Kennedy’s suspicion of vaccines, which may yet prove catastrophic. Just this week, a new coalition of interested parties has begun its quest to reverse laws that mandate childhood vaccines for previously deadly diseases like measles and polio. Among the coalition is the Children’s Health Defense, cofounded by Kennedy. The health secretary said at an event in Tennessee that while he is not involved in the campaign, he believes in freedom of choice. Leslie Manookian, who led a push to reverse a law on medical mandates in Idaho, described this as the year of “bursting the dam open in the states where we think it can happen first.” Infectious disease experts are up in arms.
Kennedy, meanwhile, is pushing his Make America Healthy Again, implementing a series of reforms which have drawn both praise and reservation. Some of his ideas – such as preventing “Snap” food card holders from being able to purchase soda drinks or confectionery with the federal assistance – are innovative. Eating red meat and saturated fats and ferments are his big idea. In other words, Americans should eat like him. He said he’d be treating himself to a yoghurt at half time of last week’s Super Bowl.
His department has replaced the Obama-era “My Plate”, a simple coded guide for healthy eating, with “My Triangle”, which pushes red meat, healthy fats and dairy. The rest can go.
One nutritionist has described it as “vibes-based policymaking”, arguing that they got rid of the Obama guide because it was Obama’s guide.
“My colleagues and I spent years teaching My Plate to children and adults in Snap-Ed programs. People understood it intuitively,” the nutritionist wrote in an opinion piece.
“A plate is something everyone uses every day. They could visualise their actual dinner and adjust portions accordingly.”
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And every so often, Kennedy will do something to cause an amazing blaze of salacious headlines. Last year, it was his alleged “virtual affair” with a political journalist which he denied. It is too madcap and complex to detail here. This week, it was his cheery reminiscence of his insistence on in-person recovery meetings during Covid.
“I mean for me, I said this when I came in, ‘I don’t care what happens, I’m going to a meeting everyday,’” Kennedy told Theo Von on his podcast. “I’m not scared of a germ, you know. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats. I know this disease will kill me. If I don’t treat it, which means going to meetings everyday, it’s just bad for my life. For me, it was survival.”
Somehow, Kennedy has sailed through all of this without much blowback. It’s clear Trump is still a little bit star-struck.
“I read an article today where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican Party in the midterms,” Trump told the others during a cabinet meeting last month. “So, I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us.”
Kennedy just smiled and stared from behind pale eyes. Maybe he was wondering if the Winnebago will be good for another campaign.
