It was engaging and super intelligent, which is rather the last thing one expected in politics.
It began with a surprising turn. Kennedy congratulated Musk for emancipating Twitter from government control and wondered what gave rise to his love for free speech. Musk was taken aback and took a while to realize that he was the one being interviewed! It was a nice and patrician-like turn, because it established that Kennedy wouldn’t use the platform for the usual purposes but rather to speak as a real but highly intelligent and warm human being with a passion for public affairs.
When the questions finally turned to Kennedy, he handled them with mastery over topics he knew well and also humility over that which he didn’t know well. He feared no questions at all, so each time, he gave a memorable answer that shattered all the usual suppositions and categories.
On the issue of pharmaceuticals, he really knows his stuff, which is to say that he knows where all the bodies are buried. On vaccines, he said he doesn’t want to make it a campaign issue but if someone asks him about the topic, he'll certainly answer any question. But then he expects his answer not to be censored, as happened last month on television.
Even on guns, Kennedy had an intriguing answer. He has doubts that the Second Amendment was really intended to protect all individual ownership but he said he accepts the Supreme Court opinion that it does. He further pointed out that any attempt to restrict or regulate, much less confiscate, firearms today would only contribute to the feeling that the government is attacking the whole of the Bill of Rights.
This was a deeply honest answer that makes sense of his old position but gives some feeling of comfort to those who worry that he would govern like a typical gun grabber. But here’s where it got really interesting. He pointed out that the United States has far more school shootings than any other country, and said he wants to know if psychotropic drugs have a role in that. He would start an immediate investigation concerning what drugs these kids had been prescribed and sound the alarm.
See what I mean? He has this way of cutting through all the ideological nonsense and speaking directly to what we might call common sense! Even on issues of monetary and fiscal policy, Kennedy was fascinating. It’s not really his area, but he pointed out that his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was working toward reigning in the Federal Reserve with a silver-based rule. I think I know something about this topic but that was news to me. I'll research more later.
Even if you had paid no attention to public affairs for a year, if you had listened to this interview, you would see precisely why Kennedy is so feared. He’s breaking up fixed categories of thought. He has this authenticity and bravery about him. He’s bringing back old-fashioned truth as we once knew it. There’s no topic that he isn’t willing to take on with the facts as he sees them. He isn’t about performance but rather just good sense.
It’s so darn refreshing.
I have no clue if his campaign can really make a go of it, but I can see why the ruling class wants it stopped as soon as possible. That’s why The New York Times made such an enormous mess out of its reporting of his announcement event in Boston. I was there, and it was brilliant. The NY Times’ coverage was laughably inaccurate, truncated, and phantasmagoric.
Good grief, these people are completely unhinged. Keep in mind that this isn’t supposed to be an opinion piece:
“Unlike Marianne Williamson, the other announced Democratic challenger to Mr. Biden, he does not appear to be aiming to appeal to Democrats who are ideologically opposed to the moderate president or are otherwise uneasy with renominating him. Instead, he has used his campaign platform—and his famous name—to promote misinformation and ideas that have little traction in his party.”
Did you catch that? The “moderate president,” oh sure! This is revealing in so many ways. If the establishment can define Biden as a “moderate,” he then can be seen as representing some mainstream view, when in reality, the warmongering corporatism of this administration runs counter to every value at the root of this country’s traditions. It’s nothing but a clever trick.
And if Kennedy’s ideas have so “little traction” in the Democratic Party, why is he polling so high among Democrats? It’s precisely because he’s making sense. Democrats too are human beings with brains, and they can see and hear this.
The article goes on:
“Mr. Kennedy, 69, is a longtime amplifier and propagator of baseless theories, beginning nearly two decades ago with his skepticism about the result of the 2004 presidential election as well as common childhood vaccines. His audience for such misinformation ballooned during the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, Mr. Kennedy repeated a host of false statements.”
The article proceeds with the usual pettifoggery, even to the point of saying that “American intelligence agencies” have assured us that COVID-19 has nothing to do with a bioweapons program. Oh, then that certainly settles the case!
Why is The New York Times so overtly deferential to the “intelligence agencies?” Perhaps because the paper is one of them? Keep in mind that this paper spent the better part of two years (2017–19) “investigating” the claim that Trump won in 2016 only with assistance from Russia, a claim that’s been wholly and completely debunked. This was propaganda all along.
The paper cheered the two impeachments of Trump. And when it came time to really stick the knife in with the COVID-19 panic, it was The New York Times that was chosen to kick off the mass disease panic (that was Feb. 27, 2020) and then promote the lockdowns that wrecked the economy and presidency. It was also the NY Times that blessed the insane idea that we should “go medieval” to tackle a virus that’s mild for 99 percent of the population.
Let’s just be blunt. Looking back, a silent coup d’état took place in this country following 2016, culminating in the emergency declaration of March 13, 2020. The administrative state, the deep state, took charge and threw out representative democracy. Nothing has changed in the meantime. That’s where we are today. This gang desperately wants to stay in charge and make sure that the American people are in no position to gain back power from the coup plotters.
Everything in public life, and politics in particular, needs to be seen through that lens. That’s why Kennedy and Ron DeSantis are regarded as existential threats. If either or both succeed, the American people might begin to imagine that they could be in power again. All other considerations of Republicans and Democrats, right and left, pale in comparison to this larger struggle.
Indeed, this is the key battle of our times.
The stakes are extremely high. The ruling class has entrenched itself in every sector: tech, media, corporations, churches, and, of course, government. They had a great ride during the COVID-19 years and now are desperate to retain their power.
The American system, however, stands against them. We’re supposed to have freedom and democratic forms. We sing about them constantly. These ideals are going nowhere.
