![]() Kennedy embraced every element of COVID paranoia, including its politics, and more than any other scientist or politician, Anthony Fauci became RFK Jr.’s Big Bad. But his most absurd pronouncements have dealt with the people and institutions behind the war against COVID. He claimed, baselessly, that the baseball player Hank Aaron and others died because of the vaccine. He erroneously claimed that the death toll from the mental health damages of quarantine outnumbered the death toll of COVID itself. His organization falsely claimed that hundreds had died from the vaccine. He grouched about the dystopian totalitarianism of “vaccine passports”-vaccine records that during the height of the pandemic were required for entry into certain countries. He claimed the country had spent an absurd $16 trillion on COVID lockdowns. He echoed gain-of-function conspiracy theories. Kennedy touted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID-fighting medications and suggested that social media companies are working with public health leaders to suppress effective treatments. He hit another level of influence with his misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines, though none of his theories were particularly original. After Kennedy’s campaign complained it would be “undemocratic” to have a presidential campaign account blocked, Instagram restored his account in early June.) (The account was removed for spreading misinformation about COVID in February 2021. He uses his name, wealth, and connections to amplify his beliefs his Instagram page alone has 860,000 followers. He has lobbied against a pro-vaccine bill in California. Kennedy has rallied against COVID restrictions in Berlin. But Kennedy’s rhetoric targets the most vulnerable: According to an Associated Press report from 2021, his organization targets its medical misinformation at mothers and Black Americans, emphasizing past prejudices and sins by the medical research world. On his radio program, in his books The Real Anthony Fauci and A Letter to Liberals, and through his organization Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy has peddled a number of interlinking conspiracy theories that involve a cabal of billionaires and dangerous institutions seeking to take control of the population and enrich themselves, all at the expense of public health, with no concern for how many people die. He has capitalized on the attention, appearing in conversations with Elon Musk and Glenn Greenwald and on Fox News to boost his pet-and wildly untrue-theories about the evil forces at play in the country. At a time when many Democratic voters are looking for basically anyone younger than Joe Biden to represent them in the 2024 election, Kennedy has been able to charge into the race and create a surprising amount of commotion. And it’s not just the Kennedy name that makes this shift dangerous some early polls have shown him carrying around 20 percent of the Democratic presidential vote. ![]() Other Kennedys, including his sister, have openly called him dangerous. But today, Kennedy’s most enduring legacy is not his legal work advocating for renewable energy or protecting Indigenous rights or cleaning up the Hudson River, but his anti-vaccine campaign-a huge disappointment for many in his family, who watched him abandon his career in mainstream progressive causes to become the country’s leading anti-vax propagandist. Kennedy, the son of one of the most famous Democratic politicians in American history, was for years an enthusiastic and powerful environmentalist and rising star in the party. loves conspiracy theories and dabbles in a lot of them.
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