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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Challenge Biden on The Democratic Ticket

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Robert . Kennedy Jr., a well-known environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic, is taking on President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024. Kennedy, 69, comes from a prominent political family in the United States, with his father having been both a senator and U.S. attorney general and his uncle being none other than President Kennedy. Announcing his candidacy on Wednesday, Kennedy seeks to put an end to the ‘corrupt merger of state and corporate power’ that he says is pushing the country towards ‘a new kind of corporate feudalism’.

His campaign focuses on civil liberties, government transparency, economic revitalization, and uniting Americans on common ground. Kennedy’s goal is to have as many Americans as possible ‘forget that they are Republicans or Democrats and remember that they are Americans’, proclaiming the need to turn our attention to shared values instead of divisive issues.

 

In recent years, Kennedy has become a controversial figure even among Democrats, due to his criticism of vaccines and COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2021, he was banned from Instagram after being accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, causing some members of his family to label his posts ‘dangerous misinformation’. In light of this, Kennedy’s campaign website emphasizes the vital importance of freedom of speech as ‘the capstone of all other right and freedoms’, vowing to take down the ‘censorship-industrial complex’ in which Big Tech suppresses opinions and individuals at the request of the government.

Kennedy points to former President Trump as the one responsible for starting a countrywide lockdown in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic continued its destructive march across the globe. Stating that this was the ‘worst thing’ Trump did, Kennedy is adamant that his administration would safeguard Americans’ rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. He plans to do this by putting an end to mass surveillance and the abuse of civil asset forfeiture, and ensuring that the COVID-era restrictions on assembly, trial by jury, and freedom of worship are never repeated.

 

One of the key themes in Kennedy’s campaign announcement is the nefarious relationship between big government and big corporations, which he believes has led to ‘corporate feudalism’ that exploits children and harms middle-class Americans via ‘chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs’. His issue page delves deeper into the notion that various regulators in the U.S. have become the puppets of the industries they are supposed to keep in check.

According to Kennedy’s website, agencies such as the SEC are controlled by Wall Street, the EPA and BLM by polluting and extractive industries, the CDC and NIH by pharmaceutical companies, while Big Tech has taken over the TC. It is no surprise, then, that trust in the government is at an all-time low. To rectify this, Kennedy plans to use his administration to make government more transparent by enforcing stronger protection for whistleblowers, prosecuting corrupt officials, and reducing the influence of lobbyists.

Before becoming an anti-vaccine activist, Kennedy was a highly respected environmental lawyer, successfully winning a lawsuit for $290 million against Mosanto, a company that produced a weed killer linked to causing cancer. In 2008, Kennedy was even considered a potential candidate for the Environmental Protection Agency based on his involvement in cleaning up the Hudson River. In Boston, he spoke about his ambition to work with ‘rural and working-class Americans, and especially hunters and fishermen’, suggesting that these people have been alienated from the mainstream environmental community.

Kennedy emphasizes that good environmental policy goes hand in hand with good economic policy. Interestingly, neither his speech nor his website specifically mention climate change, choosing instead to focus on supporting sustainable agriculture, encouraging a transition to clean energy sources, and protecting wild lands from the detrimental effects of mining, logging, oil drilling, and urban sprawl.

 

In his announcement speech, Kennedy condemned the national debt and inflation, criticizing the government’s decision to borrow money from countries like China and Japan for wars, bailouts, and lockdowns. He compares the monetary policies of the past century to those of the present, pointing out that between 1900 and 2008, $1 trillion was printed, while the number has skyrocketed to $10 trillion in recent years. By linking government expenditure to inflation, Kennedy argues that inflation is essentially a tax on the poor.

Kennedy’s view is that off-shoring and ‘misguided free trade’ schemes are damaging to the American economy. He proposes breaking up ‘too big to fail’ banks and monopolies, and asserts that when crises arise, the government should prioritize bailing out homeowners, debtors, and small business owners. During his speech, Kennedy also promised that if elected, he would ‘end the chronic disease epidemic’, which he considers a driving force behind poverty.

Alluding to ailments such as autoimmune diseases, allergies, diabetes, obesity, addiction, anxiety, and depression affecting a large proportion of the population, Kennedy’s administration promises to go beyond just making existing treatments available and also include affordable alternative and holistic therapies often marginalized by a pharma-dominated system.

With regards to the Ukrainian conflict, Kennedy, a longtime critic of foreign intervention, believes Americans should engage in a ‘national conversation’ about it. He calls for a ‘mature conversation’, avoiding labeling one side as Nazis and the other as Putin lovers, and urging Americans to consider whether supporting Ukraine is truly in the best interest of the nation.

Though he questions the advisability of pushing Russia closer to China by endorsing Ukraine, Kennedy acknowledges that the U.S.’s involvement in Ukraine is based on compassion for the brutalized and illegally invaded populace and their courageous defense of their country. Kennedy even revealed that his own son, Connor, has joined a foreign legion and served in Ukraine as a machine gunner during the Kharkiv offensive.

Kennedy chastises President Biden for advocating regime change in Russia as the intended goal for U.S. involvement in the conflict. Comparing this strategy to the one employed unsuccessfully in Iraq, Kennedy’s website states that diplomacy with Russia is key to ending the war. This includes offering to withdraw American troops and nuclear-capable missiles from Russia’s borders in exchange for Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine. As president, Kennedy would begin the process of ‘unwinding empire’, pulling back U.S. troops from foreign lands and refocusing the military on its primary purpose: defending the homeland.

Kennedy is the second well-known Democrat to undertake a long-shot primary challenge against President Biden – after Marianne Williamson, best-selling author and spiritual adviser. While Biden’s approval ratings among all Americans continue to be low, he has indicated his intention to seek a second term in the White House, though an official announcement is yet to be made. A recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll suggested that 14% of voters who supported Biden in 2020 would switch their allegiance to Kennedy in 2024.