RFK Jr. Throws In the Towel, Unmasks the “Anti-Establishment” Fraud

Kennedy captured America's populist desire for his personal gain. And he's not the only one doing it.

RFK Jr. at an Arizona Trump rally shortly after endorsing the former President.

For over a year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran a longshot presidential campaign as the anti-establishment candidate. This was clever positioning by RFK Jr., as Americans aren’t fond of the country’s aristocracy these days. Economic frustration is palpable on both the left and right, 70% of Americans say the rich have too much power,¹ and both of RFK’s original opponents were icons of the duopoly establishment. One was a billionaire former President, and the other was a Democrat stalwart who had been in politics for half a century.

This left a unique opportunity for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. With the public disdaining both major parties and the economic class they represent, he could have been the most successful third-party candidate since Eugene Debs won a million votes in 1920. But to do so, RFK would have had to actually hold the populist beliefs he claims. As all evidence shows, he does not. Rather, just like Trump and the network of quote-on-quote “anti-establishment” media figures, podcasters, and ex-politicians, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is yet another status-quo capitalist politician donning himself in populist clothing.

Kennedy speaks against the Keystone XL Pipeline at a protest in 2013.

Sounds Good on Paper

While he was most known for being the anti-vaccine candidate, RFK Jr. made broader — and better — points about the pharmaceutical industry and other forms of powerful capital. During a recent interview, he said, “There’s nothing more profitable in (American) society than a sick child.”² This concise and powerful statement calling out the cardinal flaw of the for-profit healthcare system would fit well in any leftist literature, including this Substack. Kennedy’s campaign also criticized the military-industrial complex and its “Forever Wars,” the state of perpetual overseas conflict that has been the only foreign policy my generation has ever known. (And today is my 30th, so that’s a long time.) His website reads:

“America can not be an empire abroad and a democracy at home.” — Kennedy 2024³

Correctly labeling America an empire is a welcomed development that would never appear on a Republican or Democrat website, but this remark is more profound than its verbiage. The anti-imperialist intellectual Aimé Césaire once called fascism “colonialism turned inward.” Americans have witnessed this dynamic repeatedly over the past few years as violent police have attacked everyone from peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors to university professors bypassing student encampments. Kennedy’s quote isn’t just poetic — It’s true.

Kennedy also proposed several progressive platforms during his campaign, such as:

• Supporting the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act,

• Raising the federal minimum wage to $15,

• Subsidized daycare,

• Ending civil asset forfeiture, and

• Honoring treaties with Native tribes and instituting federal funds to improve impoverished reservation communities.

I would welcome all of these policies with open arms. If Kennedy’s belief in these programs had been genuine, I might have overlooked our disagreements on vaccines and spent the last year knocking doors with a “Kennedy 2024” clipboard. But — and it’s a big ‘but’ — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not genuine. He is not a product of Americans’ desire for systemic change and economic progress but a charlatan who captured it for his own personal advancement.

So Close to Getting It

As you’re probably aware, RFK Jr. ceased (but didn’t terminate) his campaign last weekend. He immediately endorsed Donald Trump, reversing an early promise to do so UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES (his emphasis). This public flip-flop provides good insight into the true motivations and drive of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

While RFK Jr. attributed his decision to support Trump to three issues — free speech, ending the Russia-Ukraine War, and “the war on children” — Donald Trump offers no solutions on any of these issues.

On free speech, Trump recently called for flag burners to be sentenced to a year in prison.

On the war in Ukraine, it was Donald Trump who first sent $47 million worth of American Javelin missiles to the Ukrainian army.⁴

On “the war on children,” well, I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m going to assume it’s something about COVID vaccines. Which were funded and introduced in 2020 by the Trump administration.

On both rhetoric and record, Donald Trump is the direct cause of many of the problems Kennedy claims he wants to solve. Not only does Trump not support the PRO Act, but he’s also aggressively anti-union. During their recent Twitter Space interview, he applauded Elon Musk for firing striking workers (which is illegal).⁵ Not only did Trump not raise wage the minimum wage during his presidency, but he repeated corporate talking points that doing so would end small businesses.⁶ He’s also encouraged police to assault peaceful protestors and oversaw billions of dollars stolen from Americans via civil asset forfeiture.⁷ So, no, Trump will not be aiding Bobby Kennedy in that effort.

But perhaps the most laughable claim is that Trump would help RFK Jr.’s goal of “ending the forever wars.” While the Trump campaign has been claiming President Trump “started no new wars” and “de-escalated” existing ones, in reality, he was (and still is) as neoconservative as they come. He brought us to the brink of World War III by drone striking Iranian general Qasam Soleimani, who was visiting the friendly nation of Iraq on a diplomatic passport to coordinate an anti-ISIS mission. So, perhaps Donald Trump isn’t the level-headed peacenik his advocates claim him to be. Trump has also repeatedly stated he would re-enter Afghanistan, specifically so the U.S. military could strike China. Yet, on imperialism and every other issue, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. conveniently overlooked Trump’s record in exchange for a spot in his administration.

The delta between Donald Trump’s actions and RFK Jr.’s espoused beliefs are not trivial differences that should be papered-over in an imperfect political coalition. They are diametrically opposed contradictions that cannot be reconciled. RFK Jr. can’t “restore free speech,” while Donald Trump prosecutes flag burners. He cannot end the forever wars while Trump is throwing darts at a world map to see which leader he wants to kill next. Another Donald Trump Presidency will end 95% of RFK Jr.’s desired policies outright. However, it will help Kennedy achieve his true goal: attention and notoriety.

While some will say the Trump-Kennedy coalition is the best way for RFK Jr. to achieve his aims through America’s political limitations, his own actions show achievement was never his desire. To be clear, Kennedy correctly identified the problem with profit-focused pharmaceuticals and weapons manufacturing. As capitalist organizations, these industries are incentivized to foster war and skirt the rules of responsible medicine. But there’s a straightforward solution to this problem —nationalize these industries to bring them under democratic control and remove their profit functions. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t say that. Instead, he waxes poetic about the need for “committees” and “reviews,” avoiding the only solution, as that would place him on the political left and alienate the large swaths of his rightist audience who have convinced themselves they’re “anti-establishment.” Any solution that even sniffs of socialism would shatter their collective illusion, sending the “anti-establishment” coherent back to the Republican Party.

RFK Jr. with media superstar, Tucker Carlson.

And there lies the essence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and every other right winger imitating a progressive. They may talk and walk like they to change the system, but when push comes to shove, they’ll fall in line and read the boilerplate Republican talking points handed to them on memos still warm from the Heritage Foundation printer. These people are, in every essence, part of America’s elite political establishment. But they feel more unique (and get a lot more attention and money) if they spend years pretending to be a populist before dramatically announcing Trump is the true savior.

Kennedy wasn’t the first of these grifters and won’t be the last. Instead of continuing to follow snake oil men who have nothing to sell, our efforts would be better spent organizing a class-conscious working class that fights for collectivist solutions to our shared problems.

That’s socialism, and it’s truly anti-establishment. Anything else is just intra squabbling among America’s capitalist aristocracy.

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/01/09/70-of-americans-say-u-s-economic-system-unfairly-favors-the-powerful/

2. https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1828227869207662760

3. https://www.kennedy24.com/peace

4. https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-did-trump-send-ukraine-weapons-that-obama-and-biden-withheld/21510033/

5. https://uaw.org/uaw-files-federal-labor-charges-against-donald-trump-and-elon-musk-for-attempting-to-intimidate-and-threaten-workers/

6. https://www.vox.com/2020/10/22/21529733/donald-trump-minimum-wage-debate

7. https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/us-police-have-stolen-68-billion-in-the-past-20-years-from-american-citizens-without-due-process.html