Robert Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax 2024 presidential campaign

At the event, I was told — starchily lectured, even — that it’s rude to ask someone if they are an anti-vaxxer. That “imposes a narrative,” reinforcing the notion that these folks were there supporting Kennedy because he is anti-vaccine, which overlooks the fact that he is, at least in the judgment of the assembled, also a renowned leader and a brilliant intellectual. (Guys, you might need to get out a little more).

That lecture came several times — even though virtually everyone I talked to quickly made it clear that the big reason they back this Kennedy epigone is his opposition to vaccines. Except for one fellow who was sure the CIA was behind the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and thought that as president, RFK Jr. would get to the bottom of that, as well as the real reason the World Trade Center collapsed.

Even so, one mustn’t say anti-vaxxer. It’s more respectful to say Citizens Who Are Not Just Deeply Skeptical About Having Foreign Substances Injected Into Their Bodies But Also Certain Those Shots Will Cause Endless Damage To Humanity Once The Real Truth Comes Out, Which It Surely Will, Because These Anti-vaccine Iconoclasts Know Far More Than The Supposed Experts Who Say The COVID Inoculations And Other Vaccines Are Safe. (Hereafter, CWANJDSAHFSIITBBACTSWCEDTHOTRTCO, WISW, BTAIKFMTTSEWSTCIAOVAS.)

But I digress. As I left the event, several oppo-operatives were handing out fliers claiming to expose the truth about RFK Jr., apparently on behalf of Shiva Ayyadurai, yet another political gadfly — excuse me, divertingly eccentric political hopeful — who is apparently in a feud with Kennedy. One showed me a video of what certainly looked like RFK Jr. declaring that he was “emphatically pro vaccine.”

Kennedy’s comment: “I want to start out by saying this and I want to say it emphatically. I am pro-vaccine. I have always been fiercely pro-vaccine. I had all six of my children vaccinated. And I believe that we ought to have policies that encourage full vaccination for all Americans.”

Now, as the clip ends, it does seem as though Kennedy is about to launch into an all-important “but” that could signal a sharp right turn into an anti-vax tirade. But I haven’t been able to find an unedited version.

All of which left me with mixed emotions.

If the standard normal bell curve that charts rationality were a ski trail, RFK Jr. long ago whizzed down the sharp slope and is now so far out on the trail’s flat tail that he’s skied past the chairlift and the lodge and out into the parking lot.

But if real, that video suggests Kennedy might not be as far out there as his last decade or two would suggest.

And it is true that Kennedy, in his strange, rambling, convoluted, conspiracist, nearly two-hour (!) announcement, did seem to downplay his anti-vaxxism. Even as he hinted at vast conspiracies to keep America at war for the betterment of military-industrial-complex profits and spoke of government agencies captured by industry and manipulated to promote their economic agenda, even as he denounced the COVID-19 shutdown as part of a war on the poor, he usually referred to vaccines somewhat antiseptically as “pharmaceuticals.”

But … but … but … what about the hundreds of CWANJDSAHFSIITBBACTSWCEDTHOTRTCO, WISW, BTAIKFMTTSEWSTCIAOVAS at the Park Plaza, some of whom had flown all the way from California, because they believe he is their unwavering champion?

Thus it was I found myself hoping that this video was just one of those deceptive deepfake doppelgangers the tech experts warn will soon mosey metaphorically and misleadingly among us. But: Would artificial intelligence even be the appropriate term for the technology that produces a counterfeit RFK Jr.?

I e-mailed the Kennedy press team about the video, seeking confirmation that he really was a genuine, science-rejecting Dunning-Kruger candidate. They said they’d review the video and get back to me.

But I’ve since read more about RFK Jr.’s various data-distorting, obscurantist anti-vaccine claims and the way they have been roundly refuted by experts, as well as the other conspiracy theories that have taken root in his tinfoil-hat-covered cranium.

I’ve also perused what his brother and sisters and cousins and nieces have said in distancing themselves from his anti-vaccination vociferations. That’s why almost all of the clan stayed away. (Cheryl Hines, RFK Jr.’s wife, was there; Cheryl, if you need rescuing, blink out an SOS.)

Don’t worry, Kennedy supporters. No matter what the oppo-research types try to tell you, I think you can trust that RFK Jr. is the real deal.

That is, a genuine anti-vax wackadoodle.

Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.