As you can probably imagine, leftist media is not too happy about independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsing former President Donald Trump after dropping out of the race.
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It seemed to be only minutes after Kennedy appeared on stage with the former president to express his support that various media outlets published reports and op-eds smearing him for backing the Orange Man What Is Bad™.
Columnist Karen Tumulty, in a Friday op-ed for The Washington Post, slammed Kennedy, claiming he betrayed the Kennedy family legacy by throwing in with Trump. She argued that the former candidate’s actions somehow clash with principles previous generations have upheld, including advocacy for civil rights and immigration reform.
“But his announcement on Friday that he would ‘throw my support’ to Donald Trump in battleground states represents a betrayal of a higher order,” Tumulty wrote.
The author suggested that “in casting his lot with a former president who preaches intolerance and division, he has cast aside the principles for which generations of Kennedys have stood.”
MSNBC columnist Zeeshan Aleem explored how Kennedy’s candidacy and decision to support Trump reflects a broader political realignment brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. He looks at how RFK’s opposition to the vaccine gained him significant support among conservatives.
“He became a superspreader of Covid-related misinformation online and his following grew specifically around that issue,” Aleem wrote, also claiming he is using vaccine opposition “to funnel people to the right.”
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In another op-ed for The Washington Post, columnist Alexandra Petri made a bizarre attempt at using satire to attack Kennedy. Writing as the worm that supposedly inhabited Kennedy’s brain, she critiqued the candidate’s decision to join with Trump.
“I am a parasite and I do not have the country’s best interests at heart. So it is clear to me now that I have no choice but to drop out of the race and support Donald Trump,” she wrote as the Kennedy worm.
She continued: “As a creature who seeks only to gorge myself willy-nilly on whatever life offers without concern for what devastation I leave in my wake, I have long admired Donald Trump’s way of doing things.”
The author mocked Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines, telling readers to “Get excited for preventable childhood diseases to be back in an even bigger way, but for those ailing children to have luminous complexions!”
Last but certainly not least, Politico put out a list of the seven “weirdest” moments from Kennedy’s campaign, which appears to be part of a broader effort on the part of Democrats to label their opponents as “weird.”
The authors noted that RFK “ran a conspiracy-filled, long-shot campaign but still managed to frequently make headlines.”
The report rehashes the brain worm comment and highlights how Kennedy “admitted to dumping a dead bear in Central Park…and staged it to look like a bike accident.”
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I get it. Kennedy decided to support Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats are mad about it. While it is unclear how much RFK’s endorsement will actually help the former president, it certainly does not help Harris.
Yet, Kennedy has been a Democrat for decades like the rest of his family. Now, he is rejecting the party – and for good reason. His policies still largely line up with the left, which one can see by taking a glance at his platform. It is not as if he has become a conservative Republican, right?
Perhaps the left-wing hacks in the press should be more upset with Democrats for driving Kennedy away, along with a substantial portion of his supporters, many of whom will likely support Trump. The left has shown just how out of touch it is with everyday folks, which has caused many to become disillusioned with the party.