Nicely, after two dead animal scandals, some sexual assault allegations, a brain worm, and plummeting polling numbers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political marketing campaign is successfully over. Kennedy stated Friday that he’s “suspending” his marketing campaign however that stans will nonetheless be capable of vote for him in non-swing states. And, in what needs to be one of the crucial express shows of an individual brazenly betraying their very own purported values to suck as much as political energy, Kennedy has determined to endorse Donald Trump within the presidential race.
Throughout a concession speech of types, Kennedy claimed that he felt known as to endorse Trump as a result of they shared frequent pursuits. These pursuits, so far as may be discerned, are “free speech, the struggle in Ukraine, and the struggle on our kids,” because the candidate put it. “These are the principled causes that persuaded me to go away the Democratic Occasion and run as an impartial, and now to throw my assist to President Trump,” Kennedy stated.
It’s true that each RFK and Trump have spent quite a lot of time yammering about these points and that, objectively, there’s a file of them expressing concern about them. However one may additionally make the case that the candidates’ curiosity in stated matters are, all issues thought of, considerably new and, subsequently, not essentially proof of longstanding curiosity or values. They could possibly be—as is so usually the case in politics—politically handy postures that play favorably to mandatory voter blocs.
But throughout his speech Friday, Kennedy additionally ruminated on points which have inarguably been longstanding elements of his model, points he claimed he nonetheless cares deeply about: healthcare, defending the surroundings, abating America’s company regulatory seize, and offering Individuals with wholesome meals. In his remarks, Kennedy wildly appeared to indicate that Trump would do one thing to advance these targets.
Onlookers are arguably left with solely two methods to interpret Kennedy’s Trump endorsement. The primary is to presume that Kennedy may be very, very silly. Solely somebody with the psychological colleges of a tadpole would imagine that Donald Trump goes to perform the issues that Kennedy apparently hopes Trump will accomplish. The opposite interpretive technique is to imagine that Kennedy is completely filled with it. In different phrases, Kennedy isn’t actually invested within the values (the surroundings, Individuals’ well being, and so forth) that he says he’s—or, on the very least, is keen to utterly and completely betray these values to assist Trump.
To bolster each of those arguments, listed below are among the points that Kennedy claims he cares about, alongside Trump’s file relative to these points. Astute observers will observe that the contrasts are stark.
Kennedy is stuffed with shit (or an fool) on defending the surroundings
The kindest factor you possibly can say about Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump is that it’s a betrayal of every part he labored for throughout his career as an environmental lawyer. Even when lots of Kennedy’s complaints in regards to the Democratic Occasion are true, one factor that’s inarguable is that the Democrats are light-years forward of the GOP with regards to defending the surroundings. As such, endorsing Trump is unforgivable from the angle of somebody who authentically cares in regards to the pure world. Trump notably rolled again more than 100 environmental rules and laws and nominated a guy with dense ties to the Koch brothers and the oil foyer to move the EPA. Mission 2025, the coverage blueprint authored by the Heritage Basis and a small military of former Trump officers, has plans to gut the EPA, defund a number of climate businesses, ban official use of the time period “local weather change,” and do a complete assortment of different horrible issues with regards to environmental safety. Trump has even proposed privatizing protected federal lands in order that they can be used to build “futuristic cities.”
Kennedy is stuffed with shit (or an fool) on healthcare
Kennedy additionally mentions healthcare lots and says he feels that America’s healthcare system must be mounted. Not solely did Trump try to kill Obamacare (the one authorities program making healthcare affordable for tens of hundreds of thousands of Individuals) a number of instances, however Mission 2025 would search to roll again client well being advantages that the Biden administration instituted, like negotiated drug costs. That very same venture has been supported by lobbying teams that signify the pharmaceutical trade, Rolling Stone has reported. Mission 2025 would additionally search to bolster Medicare Advantage, the privatized model of Medicare—a transfer that, as American Progress has put it, would signify a “multibillion-dollar giveaway to firms” that might additionally “restrict older Individuals’ well being care selections whereas placing Medicare’s future in danger.”
Kennedy is stuffed with shit (or an fool) on wholesome meals
Throughout his horribly lengthy concession speech Friday, Kennedy spent an on-godly period of time rambling about “continual illness” and weight problems. In a transfer that ought to have made most onlookers upchuck their lunch from laughter, he went on to indicate that Donald Trump—a man who is, himself, reported to be obese—goes to repair each of those issues. If Trump’s previous insurance policies are any indication, Kennedy is fallacious right here. In 2018, it was reported that snack meals and corn syrup lobbyists had been put in control of meals coverage on the U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA). Once more, why Kennedy thinks the man who filled the White House with Big Macs goes to assist low-income Individuals break their dependancy to quick meals is past me.
Kennedy is stuffed with shit (or an fool) on “regulatory seize”
In all probability probably the most mystifying factor that Kennedy stated on Friday is that he helps the top of company “regulatory seize” and that he expects Donald Trump to do one thing about this. On Friday, Kennedy stated that he wished a pacesetter who would “clear company affect out of the federal government,” and that Trump had “adopted” this problem. Once more, the stupidity right here is rank. Throughout Trump’s first administration, he successfully tried to show the federal authorities into a corporate whorehouse, permitting an assortment of industries to successfully write the foundations by which they’re regulated. A 2019 investigation by ProPublica found a “staggering” level of Trump political appointees had been former company lobbyists, some 281 appointees—or one out of each 14. Appropriately, Mission 2025 gives a imaginative and prescient of a future presidency that’s like Trump’s first administration on steroids. Why, precisely, would Kennedy count on Trump to “clear company affect” out of the federal government when his fundamental precedence appears to be maximizing it?
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