RFK Suspends Campaign, Ending His Brainworm's Dream Of A Cabinet Position

Bear with us while we shed a tear.

With a level of fanfare out of all proportion to his political and cultural importance, squinty-eyed measles enthusiast Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his ratfucking scam — excuse us, totally serious presidential campaign — and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday.

Let us all take a moment to process our grief. There, that’s good.

Kennedy went out in a blaze of strained wordage, a 48-minute press conference that we swear we tried to watch, only to be foiled about a minute and a half in when RFK burst into a self-pitying elegy for the Democratic Party of his father and his uncles but now loves corporate greed and authoritarianism and Big Pharma and Big Tech and some other crap, who knows, the dude is screwier than a power drill.

It was always clear that the wingnut billionaires funding the campaign had thought the Kennedy name would automatically cause havoc amongst Democrats who revere it, but that was a long shot even before Kennedy opened his mouth and started talking.

On Friday it became quickly apparent that RFK Jr.’s objections to the Democrats was less about their allegedly lapsed principles and more a case of needing to salve his wounded ego because the party didn’t fall all over itself welcoming his candidacy and his platform of crackpottery.

From New York Magazine (paywalled):

He repeatedly asserted he would have won a fair fight, in both the primaries and the general election. He seemed to equate DNC legal efforts to challenge his ballot petitions with authoritarianism in general and with supposed Democratic “lawfare” against Trump in particular. 

The delusion, it brings mirth. RFK Jr. has been hovering around 5 percent in national polls and should be glad to have that much. Had there been a robust Democratic primary this year, he’d have been lucky to finish ahead of Other. Though we’ll be generous and say he could probably have beaten Marianne Williamson, at least.

Obviously we were, uh, bearish on his chances.

The authoritarianism bit led to this particularly hilarious rant:

“President Biden mocked Vladimir Putin’s 88 percent landslide in the Russian elections, observing that Putin and his party controlled the Russian press and that Putin prevented serious opponents from appearing on the ballot. But here in America the DNC also prevented opponents from appearing on the ballot. And our television networks expose themselves at Democratic party organs.”

Putin prevents his opponents from appearing on the ballot by packing them off to Siberian labor camps or outright shooting them. Also, Putin keeps candidates from other parties off the ballot. We wish the DNC had that kind of power, we’d have lobbied them to pack Trump off to the Marianas Trench years ago. RFK Jr. would have been in ADX Florence since 2023.

Another way you know that there were not exactly principles at play in this decision is that RFK Jr. has been coyly flirting with both Trump’s and Kamala Harris’s campaign. Last week brought reports that he had recently approached the Harris team to talk about dropping out in exchange for a job in her administration, perhaps Secretary of Health and Human Services or mumps czar or something.

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Harris and her people ignored RFK Jr.’s request, with one advisor telling CBS that they had no interest in talking to a “MAGA-funded fringe candidate” who had also shown himself open to trading crazypants ideas about the effect of horse vaccines on babies with Trump.

Poor RFK Jr. He just wants to go to prom with someone. Luckily for him, Donald Trump is extremely needy.

Meanwhile, NBC News reported this past Wednesday that RFK Jr. had been encouraged to drop his bid in recent days by none other than Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr., who have perhaps seen some internal polling indicating that Kennedy is pulling more voters from Trump than Harris. So Kennedy said at his press conference that he is leaving his name on the ballot in most places and only trying to get his name off the ballot in about 10 battleground states where doing so could possibly tip the election to Trump.

We’re pretty sure the father and uncles RFK Jr. invoked on Friday would be appalled by his behavior and the ramifications of helping put Trump back in office. The rest of the Kennedy family has publicly opposed the campaign since it kicked off last year. On Friday RFK Jr.’s siblings sounded pretty pissed off at him:

"We believe in Harris and Walz," the statement continued. "Our brother Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story."

Whew, Christmas is going to be awkward.

Imagine throwing in with Donald Trump at this point and claiming it is for principled reasons because you really think the two of you are closely aligned on policy preferences. How much of his brain did RFK Jr.’s brainworm eat, anyway?

[YouTube / NY Mag / CBS News / NBC News]

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