If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a campaign theme–beyond the appeal of his family name–it’s his claim that Americans are the victims of massive, intertwining conspiracies that he is uniquely qualified to unravel. His paranoia politics is most pronounced, perhaps, on the matter of vaccines, in which the independent candidate has long stoked skepticism and disinformation. But his conspiracism goes well beyond medicine—and, as he gets deeper into his longshot 2024 bid, he appears to be making some attempt to draw election deniers to his following.
The Kennedy campaign this week blasted out fundraising emails describing the MAGA insurrectionists convicted of storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “J6 activists sitting in a Washington DC jail cell stripped of their Constitutional liberties.” The emails, sent Wednesday and Thursday, also likened the convicted rioters to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower Kennedy has said he would pardon on the first day of his presidency if elected.
The Kennedy campaign disavowed the language of the fundraising email after it received attention, with spokesperson Stefanie Spear telling CNN the characterization was an “error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views.” “Anybody who violated the law on January 6 should be subject to appropriate criminal and/or civil penalties,” Spear added, blaming the email on a “new marketing contractor” who has since been fired.
But the emails wouldn’t be the campaign’s only connection to election denialism: As NBC News’ Alex Seitz-Wald noted Thursday, anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree, who raised unfounded doubts about the integrity of voting machines during a pro-Trump rally on January 6, was hired earlier this year as Kennedy’s communications director. And the Kennedy scion himself dipped a toe into these waters recently: Earlier this week, he told CNN’s Erin Burnett that while he believed the 2021 Capitol attack was “appalling” and a “threat to democracy,” he believes President Joe Biden may pose a “worse threat” than Donald Trump and that “we shouldn’t make pariahs” of those who question the 2020 election. “We shouldn’t demonize them,” Kennedy said. “We shouldn’t vilify them. What we should be doing is saying, Let’s all get together, Republicans and Democrats, and fix the election system.”
Kennedy’s comments, to be clear, don’t come anywhere near those of Trump, who not only maintains that the election was rigged and that he was the true victor but casts convicted insurrectionists as “hostages.” Still, Kennedy does seem to be preying on the doubts about the election system Trump has spent years sowing while leaving himself enough plausible deniability. In November, he told the Washington Post that he had “seen no compelling evidence” to believe Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate but suggested that there was good reason to question it: “Rumors and conspiracy theories feed off a genuine problem,” he said.
That sums up Kennedy’s approach, doesn’t it? Foster suspicion and then use the ensuing questions as evidence that something really is amiss. It’s a tired gambit, but one that may be effective with a sizable enough chunk of the electorate to make him a spoiler candidate—a prospect that has Democrats increasingly anxious. “Everyone thinks this is going to be decided on the head of a pin,” a senior Democrat told NBC News. “So people are freaked out like never before.”
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