RFK Jr.’s anti-vax, MAGA-parroting ’60s nostalgia campaign

Moments after President John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was frantically making phone calls trying to find out who did it. He told a colleague that day, “There’s so much bitterness, I thought they would get one of us.”

He immediately suspected powerful domestic enemies in the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI and the mafia. RFK would publicly accept the Warren Commission’s conclusion that his brother was assassinated by a lone gunman, but privately he believed there was a conspiracy until his own death by assassination in 1968.

That’s the story told by David Talbot in Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. Talbot is the founder and former editor of the online magazine Salon. His 2007 book is based on extensive interviews with a large number of Kennedy friends and colleagues and their widows, sons and acquaintances.

Talbot has known Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for two decades. When Talbot told Junior he was writing a book about Senior’s secret search for the truth about JFK’s assassination, Junior discouraged him, saying, “My family always taught us to look forward, not back.” 

Junior would eventually change his mind and begin his own research. He now says he believes the CIA was involved in both his uncle and father’s assassinations. RFK Jr. is now running for president in the Democratic primary, but so far he hasn’t talked about the assassinations in his campaign.

However, in his long announcement speech broadcast on CSPAN, Junior did invoke the idealistic liberalism of the 1960s that is associated with his uncle and father. I agreed with many of his assertions, but the speech was vague. It could have been delivered by a wide variety of Democratic Party politicians. So is this just a ’60s nostalgia trip?

It’s actually a much weirder and more disturbing journey. This spring, a photo was distributed of RFK Jr. with former Trump administration National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, anti-vaccine proponent Charlene Bollinger, and Trump-whisperer/longtime political dirty trickster Roger Stone.

The photo was taken at a Flynn-sponsored “ReAwaken America Tour” rally in California in July 2022. RFK Jr. has appeared at such rallies in the past. Lisa Hagen of NPR reported, “Each stop of the [tour] is part conservative Christian revival, part QAnon expo and part political rally. … There are meet and greets, a buffet and, lately, baptisms and the casting out of demons.” 

On May 8, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported that a “ReAwaken America” event was being hosted at the Miami-based, Trump-owned National Doral. Two of the speakers, Scott McKay and Charlie Ward, are vehement Hitler-praising anti-Semites. Eric Trump, his wife Lara and “a whole bunch of other Trump administration folks” would also speak.

McKay claims Jews torture children and eat their hearts, and that “Hitler was actually fighting the same people that we’re trying to take down today.” He says Jews were responsible for 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing and the assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley and JFK.

At an event on the tour, Ward said the COVID vaccine had killed more people than the Holocaust. He once shared a post claiming “VIRUSES are Man (JEW) made including influenza, Polio, Measles, AIDS so was Covid created as a ‘excuse’ to vaccinate (contaminate)… ”

McKay and Ward were dropped from a few dates on the tour after Maddow’s report, despite Eric Trump threatening to sue Maddow. RFK Jr. decided to no longer participate in the “ReAwaken America” roadshow.

MAGA stars like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Infowars host Alex Jones and Roger Stone are enthusiastic about RFK Jr. Axios reports that several libertarian-leaning tech moguls in Silicon Valley are supportive. On June 5, RFK Jr. participated in a chat on Twitter with Elon Musk, David Sacks (a top donor to Ron DeSantis) and Tulsi Gabbard. Kennedy told them he wanted to close the Mexican border permanently and claimed pharmaceutical drugs were responsible for mass shootings.

RFK Jr. was once a crusading environmental lawyer fighting corporations. He now says “free market capitalism” is the answer to all environmental problems. He is leaving energy policy to the market and says talk about climate change encourages totalitarianism.

He’s a pathological liar. It’s difficult to fact-check him in real-time. Does that sound familiar? Bannon and Stone want RFK Jr. to run as Trump’s vice president.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.