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RFK Jr. Gaslights America [1]

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Date: 2024-08-23  

At six years old my morning cartoons were interrupted by Walter Cronkite telling America that President Kennedy had first been shot, and then died. I vividly recall watching in black and white as a riderless horse walked down the street, boots backward, and two small children watch the coffin of their father pass. Five years later I doorbelled (with adult supervision) for Bobby Kennedy. I had an afternoon paper route delivering the Seattle Times. Early on the morning of June 6, 1968, I received a call from someone informing me that Bobby Kennedy had died and there was a special printing of a Seattle Times morning edition that we needed to deliver. For over an hour I cried continuously as I dutifully delivered my papers. Since then, those two brothers have been my political touchstone.

This afternoon I watched in abject horror as one of Bobby’s children lied, projected, and tried to gaslight America. With no apparent sense of either irony or dignity, RFK Jr. said he was abandoning the Democratic Party, a party that he described as once being “the party that was the champion of the Constitution, of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, and unjust wars. We were the party of labor, of the working class. The Democrats were the party of government transparency and the champion of the environment. Our party was the bulwark against big money interests and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy.” He said he had left the Democratic Party because “it had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Big Money.”

The brain worm, eating a dog, and using a dead baby bear cub for his sense of humor should have tipped us off to just how delusional and detached from reality he has become. But, in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, “allow me to retort.” Trump has called for suspending the Constitution and being a dictator on day one. He, congressional members of his party, and his minions attempted to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power and overthrow our lawfully elected government. Since 1948, the Democratic Party has sponsored and passed EVERY piece of civil rights legislation, almost always over the nearly unanimous opposition of republicans. Trump proudly boasts about being the only president who has succeeded in removing the civil right of privacy, which has stood for 60 years and prevented state and local governments from banning interracial marriages, same sex marriages, and a woman’s right to choose. Trump adores authoritarianism, worships those who hold it, and hopes that he can attain it. As for censorship, republicans want to control what books you read, whitewash history, and boycott any product or service that expresses viewpoints counter to their own. And Trump wants to imprison members of the press who he decides are “fake news.” Hearing RFK Jr. describe what he considers an “unjust war” (Ukraine), would indicate that he would have stood with the “America First” folks in the late 30’s and early 40’s who opposed our entry into WWII. Trump has told Putin to “do whatever you want” and implied he would never come to the aid of Tiawan should China invade. And for a rich, white Kennedy to support rich, white, Trump and Vance and claim that Democrats are no longer the party of labor and the working class is too sad to be funny. Name a SINGLE piece of labor-friendly legislation that the Republican Party has passed or even proposed in the last 20 years (and no, a tax break for the wealthy based on trickle-down economic theory does not count). As for big money interests and corporate power, it wasn’t justices nominated by democrats that gave us Citizens United and it isn’t democrats who oppose any restrictions on political donations.

His saddest claim of all is that Democrats are no longer the party of the environment. RFK Jr.’s reputation has been built almost entirely on his environmental activism. He has strenuously opposed dozens of efforts by republican administrations to weaken and dismantle environmental regulations and protections. He has supported dozens of pieces of environmental legislation sponsored by democrats and advocated for stricter environmental regulations. And now he endorses a man who thinks climate change is a hoax and who withdrew America from the Paris Climate accords.

The legacy of his father and uncle will remain undiminished. But Dante’s ninth circle of hell awaits RFK Jr.

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