Is RFK Jr., as the corporate state media insists, not a viable candidate for the presidency? Is his run a “vanity” project, as they would have their viewers and readers believe?
The totality of evidence indicates otherwise — that, in fact, RFK Jr.’s common-sense, honestly-held positions appeal not just to a hefty, disillusioned slice of the Democrat Party electorate, but to many on the right as well, whose praise we will survey here.
Bear in mind that these samples are by no means an exhaustive chronicling of positive analyses offered by populist right pundits, but they are largely representative of the conservative ecosystem.
RFK Jr. is special.
Listen. pic.twitter.com/vtYKt23Zxd
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 29, 2023
Tucker Carlson, April 19, 2023 (days before his removal from the airwaves):
So, at this point, the question isn’t who in public life is corrupt? Too many to count. The question is who is telling the truth? There are not many of those. One of them is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed. Science has since proven Robert f. Kennedy Jr. right. Unequivocally right.
“He’s a common-sense guy and so am I… Whether you’re conservative or liberal, common sense is common sense,” Donald Trump himself said of Kennedy — his potential rival in the general election if Kennedy somehow runs the table in the (likely to be rigged) DNC primaries — during a recent radio interview.
With all the kind words coming from right-wing pundits in the highly partisan U.S. political climate, one could be forgiven for assuming RFK Jr. is running as a Republican.
The electorate appears to be as RFK Jr.-curious as the pundit class. The candidate currently has the highest favorability rating of any of the announced 2024 presidential candidates of either party.
I cannot recall any candidate in recent political memory with as much cross-party appeal — again, an impressive feat given how divided the country is politically. In fact, reuniting the electorate along what Kennedy calls “common sense” positions is explicitly part of his campaigning strategy.
Consider, for instance, his tactful answer when the town hall moderator passes him the Trump hot potato.
He couldn’t have answered this question in a more beautiful way pic.twitter.com/7nWU7jCiHy
— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) June 29, 2023
Any other Democrat (nominal though RFK Jr.’s party affiliation is) would have taken the opportunity to go on a standard, tired Trump-bashing rhetorical flurry — the prerequisite for any Democrat Party candidate to placate his own base.
RFK Jr. did not do that, instead saying forthrightly that he is “proud” to receive praise from the likes of Donald Trump because, to paraphrase him, Trump’s supporters are just as American as anyone else, and don’t deserve to be marginalized and ostracized from the electoral process.
The corporate state media, predictably, does not take kindly to RFK Jr.’s seemingly universal appeal, irrespective of partisan tribalism, likening him to the worst of all things to be — the Orange Menace, bane of their existence.
Via New York Times:
Speaking at a festival hosted by a libertarian group in New Hampshire, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. railed against the “mainstream media” for serving as “propagandists for the powerful.” Each time he mentioned the perfidy of the press — for silencing dissent, for toeing the government line, for labeling him a conspiracy theorist — he drew a supportive hail of jeers.
It was a page out of the playbook of Donald J. Trump.
The hit pieces just keep on coming, although they appear to be backfiring badly on the Democrat Party and legacy media.