Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is raising concerns about the rise in chronic illness among kids, the poisoning of the nation’s food supply and the struggle of younger generations buying their first home.
These are central planks of the message that Mr. Kennedy — the scion of the nation’s most famous political dynasty — is relying on to shake up the presidential race, reframe the national debate and dispel the notion he is a “crazy person.”
On the stump, the 70-year-old has been an equal opportunity critic, sounding off on how President Biden and former President Donald Trump have pursued policies that have eroded voters’ faith in the nation.
Both of them, Mr. Kennedy says, enriched big PHARMA and big corporations such as Amazon with COVID policies that crushed businesses across the country.
Both turned a blind eye to the corporate takeover of federal watchdog agencies, sunk the nation deeper into a sea of red ink, and exacerbated the political polarization that has prevented elected leaders from finding common ground on everything from health care and immigration to education and military veterans.
“It is like jangling keys over here while they are robbing the bank over here, and you know when the king and queen look out … over the parapet of their castle and they see all their subjects fighting each other, they go back to the banquet hall and they pop champaign corks because they know nobody is coming over the wall for them,” Mr. Kennedy said at a recent campaign stop in Arizona. “I’m going to end the rancor. I am going to stop feeding into the vilification, the demonization of other Americans.”
For the better part of the last decade, Mr. Trump has been the most powerful unconventional force in American politics and has built a political movement off of the boiling frustration with the status quo.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, was elected to bring a steady, experienced, hand after four turbulent years of Mr. Trump that ended with the Jan. 6, 2021 melee at the U.S. Capitol fueled by his stolen-election claims.
But now many voters are sick and tired of both men, according to polls that show they are less than thrilled with the idea of living through a Biden-Trump rematch this fall.
That has created some fertile ground for Mr Kennedy.
He left the Democratic Party earlier this year to run as an independent after deciding the party that helped give rise to his famous uncle and father — President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — had lost its way.
An environmental lawyer who has been labeled a conspiracy theorist, Mr. Kennedy is getting a look from voters who are hankering for something different, and is stirring spoiler concerns from both parties.
There have been signs that his message is catching on, and that he could play a larger role than previously expected in the November election.
Mr. Kennedy has qualified for the ballot in Utah and says he also has enough signatures to qualify for the New Hampshire ballot. Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, urged the secretaries of state in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan on Friday not to accept any signatures gathered by a pro-Kennedy super PAC helping him to get on the ballot in battleground states.
The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Mr. Kennedy’s campaign illegally coordinated with the super PAC, American Values 2024. A DNC official said Mr. Trump and his supporters have turned Mr.
Kennedy into a “stalking horse” who will hurt Mr. Biden’s reelection bid.
The Kennedy campaign has denied coordinating with the group.
Polls that have shown roughly a third of all registered voters are open to supporting Mr. Kennedy in a three-person race, and that he outperforms Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump with voters under the age of 45 in key battleground states.
“You ask yourself why is that?” Mr. Kennedy said. “Because they understand I am the only candidate that is addressing the issues that are critical to them: the chronic health crisis and the housing crisis.”
Mr. Kennedy is pushing to establish 3% mortgage rates for younger buyers, and warning about a “stranglehold that the big pharmaceutical companies have on American democracy and what it is doing to the chronic disease epidemic in this country.”
Mr. Kennedy sees a connection between the power of Big PHARMA and both the rise of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, ADHD and Alzheimer’s and the dramatic spike in national spending on health care.
“We have a whole generation now that is damaged,” he said. “They are damaged because we are poisoning them with their food, with their medicines, and in some cases with their water and their air.”
“Don’t you think we ought to have a president who is thinking of that issue?” Mr. Kennedy said.
Mr. Kennedy derides the “military-industrial complex” for getting the nation involved in unnecessary foreign conflicts — including in Ukraine — hurting the nation’s image on the global stage and lining the pockets of big corporations with taxpayer money.
“They have the contracts to destroy Ukraine and they got the contract to rebuild it, which will be half a trillion dollars and they are the biggest donors to the Democratic and Republican Party, which are both the parties of war,” he said, arguing that money would be better spent rebuilding the nation’s industrial base and lifting the working class.
Mr. Kennedy envisions a path to victory that starts with cementing the support of independents and disillusioned young voters, and leaning on them to help win over members of his generation.
“The one group that I don’t do well in is with Baby Boomers, and I think it is because they get all their news from MSNBC, CNN and ABC,” he said. “So you know if you are a kid what you need to do is tie your parents down and listen to a Joe Rogen interview.”
“Teach them, teach them something new,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.