In recent columns, Rick Perlstein assesses the political role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Donald Trump has nominated to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services.
Perlstein writes: “Kennedy is a scion of that old-line right-wing purity of essence obsession. But he couches it in the language of the left-winger he used to be. ‘The Republican Party is now the party of labor unions, the party of working people, of the American poor,’ as he put it in the same interview in which he announced his intention to do away with fluoridated water, and also to make vaccine-taking optional and potentially bring back to life some of the most dread diseases in modern history… What [vax-deniers like Kennedy] consider to be ‘healthy’ has nothing to do with the democratic but inherently messy practice of peer-reviewed science. The rhetoric of Kennedy’s cockamamie public-health populism talks about liberty. But ultimately, it is ‘health’ imposed, top-down, by the charismatic leader—or those who manage to cozy up to him as his clients.”
RICK PERLSTEIN; infernaltriangle@prospect.org
Perlstein is a historian and journalist who writes a column for The American Prospect.
Perlstein told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “It’s absolutely true that RFK Jr. is an unusual political figure. But it’s also true that he has deep roots in our politics going all the way back to his uncle, John F. Kennedy. The Kennedys have always been present in our political system because mainstream Democrats have tried to recapture the political magic of this charismatic figure who was able, both in life and in death, to capture the affection of a lot of people in both parties. A similar story played out with RFK Sr., who seemed to advance the progressive promise even more. There’s a lot of Kennedy in American politics.
“The other side of the power of the Kennedy name comes out through the manner that JFK and RFK died in: violent, terrible assassinations that deeply shook and traumatized the nation. Toward the end of JFK’s life, he held the promise of reforming basic flaws in American society: first, Cold War militarism, and second, racism and civil rights. An idea took hold that the Kennedys were killed by a conspiracy of elites who feared for their own power. For a lot of people, Kennedy’s dying was the biggest trauma of their lives; they associate his death with their own loss of innocence about American society.
“When you fast forward 50 years since RFK’s death in 1968, the Trump story is very similar. The same kind of people think there are evil secret forces in American life trying to take out their champion. RFK Jr. tells a similar story about the world: corporate elites are using cell phones for mind control; corporate elites are making us unhealthy; corporate elites are creating problems they claim to be solving––all to make themselves more powerful. It’s a similar seduction. Some of the same people are attracted to Trump and RFK Jr., and especially the two of them as a team, because they tell a story as redeemers of America’s loss of innocence.
“The problem is that the things RFK Jr. wants to do to ‘Make America healthy again’ would destroy the institutions of public health. He wants to fire every nutrition scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, but the things he believes about food, drugs, and nutrition are not scientifically valid. He would be replacing those nutrition scientists with people who would make Americans less healthy. He would allow epidemics to thrive. But this is all very tempting for people who believe that corporate interests are getting in the way of our health––for people who believe something true, which is that corporate elites are making us unhealthy. People are desperate out there. But [these changes] could lead to terrible consequences.”