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RFK Jr. Wants to Defeat "Threat to Democracy"

We don't particularly want to write about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because he's very annoying, and he also appears to be a few bricks shy of a load. But while he's never going to be president, he could be in a position to serve as spoiler. For example, his campaign said yesterday that he has qualified for the ballot in North Carolina. So, write about him we must.

Yesterday, Junior was on CNN, and he uncorked yet another wild "insight," this one unrelated to vaxxing, or AIDS, or Lizard People. The newest wild pitch from the son of Bobby is his view that while Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, you can "make an argument" that Joe Biden is an even bigger threat. Here's the explanation:

President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy. And the reasons 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.

This is a reference to the Biden administration's request that RFK Jr.'s social media accounts be restricted due to COVID misinformation, in particular a false claim that baseball star Hank Aaron died from complications of the COVID vaccine.

We have several thoughts here, which we will now share:

All of this said, our goal here is not to mock RFK Jr.'s asininery (OED says that's a word, so we're sticking with it). Our goal is to point out that the candidate is using outlandish rhetoric much more in line with Trump than it is with Biden. Consider what kind of voter would have their ears perk up if they hear: "Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Trump is." It isn't Biden voters; it's the MAGA crowd. And so, if this is the tack that Kennedy takes, it increases the likelihood that he spoils things for Trump instead of Biden. And this is before groups friendly to Biden start running ads saying: "Vote for Kennedy because he wants to ban vaccinations nationwide." (Z)



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