In The End, RFK, Jr. Will Have A Handful Of Votes From Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theorists... That's It

A year ago, far right sociopaths like Steve Bannon and Alex Jones were boosting RFK, Jr’s campaign in no uncertain terms. And conservative billionaires were financing his Democratic primary run against Biden. Alex Seitz-Wald wrote last April that “Kennedy inhabits an ambiguous ideological space. He's proudly running as a Democrat who supports abortion rights and gun control, but his views on vaccines and other issues— and frequent appearances on outlets from Fox News to Alex Jones’ Infowars— have made him popular among far-right conspiracy theorists. That groundwork is paying off in the form of widespread praise from conservative media influencers who have urged their audiences to keep an open mind about Kennedy, perhaps eager to use him as a foil against President Joe Biden. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said he received a ‘standing ovation’ from a ‘hardcore MAGA’ crowd at a recent speaking engagement for floating the idea of a bipartisan Trump-Kennedy ticket… Roger Stone, the former Richard Nixon aide who was one of Trump’s early political advisers, called Trump-Kennedy a ‘dream ticket’ on the news program Real America… Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, on Friday tweeted, ‘I am really starting to like this presidential candidate’s attitude.’ Turning Point USA head Charlie Kirk on April 6 called Kennedy ‘one of the most articulate and thoughtful political activists going after the administrative state.’”

And his campaign contributors, especially the high dollar donors, were more likely to have given to Trump than to Democrats in the past. Neo-Nazi robber baron spawn Timothy Mellon is Trump’s top donor. He is also RFK’s top donor— $20 million. Gavin De Becker has given RFK something like $14 million. The only other multimillion dollar contributor was the loony gal who bought the running mate slot, Nicole Shanahan, about $4.5 million. Kennedy’s shady American Values 2024 SuperPAC, which is financing the signature gathering to get him on the ballot, is almost entirely funded by Republicans (including Mellon and anti-woke psychopath Omeed Malik, also a multi-million dollar Trump donor). Overtly racist Republican John Schnatter of Papa John’s Pizza is another Trump supporter helping to finance RFK.

Now that Kennedy is no longer running as a Democrat, support for him from elite right-wingers has waned considerably. Former pretend-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard turned down his offer to run on his ticket before he settled for Shanahan. She’s holding out for a position in the Trump II regime. The fear, of course, is that Kennedy could draw voters away from Trump, especially since some of his devotion to conspiracy theories is even stronger than Trump’s. Anti-vax nuts tend to prefer him to Trump, who has been mixed up and all over the map on vaccines.

Kennedy (and Bannon) had hoped to see a Trump/RFK ticket but the GOP establishment nixed it and now Kennedy has nothing to look forward to except maybe a position in a Trump regime. A few days ago he told CNN’s audience that he could make the case that Biden was a bigger threat to democracy than Trump is: “I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history— the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent,” claiming that Biden has gotten him kicked off social media platforms. His Instagram account was suspended in 2021 for repeatedly lying about COVID. (Mine was suspended for 2 weeks but they refused to tell me why, but it never crossed my mind Biden might have been behind it.)

Trump seems worried

Yesterday, Axios dove into the dissipation of the support RFK has had on right-wing media in recent months, something not even a freak like him could blame on Biden. Since he switched from Democrat to independent, he’s no longer a hero of right-wing elites. Mentions by Fox News fell sharply in October when he announced he was running as an independent rather than as a Dem. His on-air mentioned have halved from October through the end of February. “When Kennedy was running against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary last year,” wrote Alex Thompson and Sara Fischer, “mentions of Kennedy on Fox News were more than four times higher than on CNN and MSNBC. Now, Fox News covers Kennedy approximately as much as CNN does.

Same was true of the far right MAGA newspaper, the NY Post. And right wing influencers— like Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon  have largely stopped pushing him to their audiences. So far Utah is the only state where Kennedy is on the ballot, although he claims, implausibly that he’ll be on the ballot in every state. His illegally coordinated SuperPAC claims he has enough signatures to get on the ballots in Hawaii, South Carolina and 6 swing states: Arizona, Nevada (already invalidated), Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and New Hampshire.

The most current reliable poll— Morning Consult, yesterday— shows Biden slightly in the lead nationally:

• Biden- 44%

• Trump- 42%

• All others- 8%

And Biden continues narrowing the gap in Arizona, Michigan (tied), Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania (tied), and pulling ahead in Wisconsin. RFK isn’t swinging the race in either candidate’s direction enough to make any discernible difference.