Why Kennedy...?

“We’ve been down so long that it’s beginning to look like up.” (...overheard coming out of the pool today)

It’s curious that right after I had read a book about the RFK assassination and watched two enthralling documentaries about the JFK assassination (one by Oliver Stone)...that Robert Kennedy Jr. decided to run in the 2024 U.S. presidential race. I had never even considered that another Kennedy might run...and probably many others had not either. Yet, here he was making the announcement on YouTube in mid-April. I had, in fact, thought that there would not be any left-leaning alternative presidential candidate, aside from mega-bore Howie Hawkins...until RFK Jr. announced his candidacy.

I’m not much of a patriotic American (and I loathe martial holidays like the one that passed recently and the one that’s coming up); I would prefer to be living under some benign socialist government that is honorable and just. However, since I do live in the U.S., I tend to prefer not to see blood running in the streets (especially if it’s mine or my relative ideological kin), and it seemed like that was the place we were heading toward, and possibly still is. We have the lunatic MAGA Republicans (of the Trump and DeSantis varieties) who, as writer Paul Street has pointed out numerous times, are fascists in all but name; and we have the equally lunatic “Shitlib” Democrats who believe everything that flows from the rotten mouths of corporate shills like Rachel Maddow...but of course with the MAGAs having many more guns in their possession. And who will the rabid MAGAs likely target after the Shitlibs? Well, most certainly Leftist intellectuals, if History is any guide.

Of course, outside the two parties, we have people like me...and also people not like me...who know they are being duped by both major political parties and want nothing to do with them anymore. Many of us have never had a stable political home. I voted for Michael Dukakis in my first election in 1988, but only because he was running against Reagan’s Veep – a known former-spook whose father had an even more shadowy past. I voted Socialist Worker Party and the Greens in subsequent elections before giving up entirely and voting for inanimate objects and pets in the Obama, Trump, and Biden years. Generally speaking, I’m no big fan of communistic totalitarianism...but, as I’ve said, I tend to lean in a socialistic direction…even as far as Castroism. I have a few friends who tend politically in a similar direction, but most often, the friends and relatives who I talk to are Democrats in some form or another. They vote Dem in local and state elections. They are vaguely pro-Labor (whatever that means these days) and certainly pro-gun-control; they are pro-Choice, and are Russophobes (having bought the MSM line) and still support U.S. involvement in Ukraine. In essence, they are “Obama liberals”. I often wonder frequently how and why I am still friends with them. However, despite their character flaws and near-total political ignorance, the majority would agree that Biden is doing a poor to middling job of running the country; that is something we can agree on.

This last point is why Robert Kennedy Jr. or someone like him needs to be in the race, vying as an Independent. Right now, politically Left as well as politically “moderate” people (I would hesitate to use term true liberals — but rather persons who are open-minded) have no political home and do not want to vote for Biden, and almost certainly do not want to vote for Trump or DeSantis. So, they currently have no choice...save RFK Jr. (Marianne Williamson; who is polling at 8% of registered Democrats; has no shot whatever and also has a bizarre background, e.g. the Church of Today, though her previous political campaigns have evidently been endorsed by moderate progressives like Alan Grayson.)

There is the strong chance that Joe Biden will be run again by the Dems...and we all know why: he is the perfect prop for the corporate and think-tank goons actually running the show. Of course, Biden’s approval rating is at a dismal 38% right now (I have no idea how he is polling so high), and there is always speculation that an equally repulsive candidate (i.e. Harris or Newsom) could be brought to fill his leaden shoes. Kennedy obviously thinks he will be able to make some incursion into the Democratic primary races, but the reality is is that he has no shot whatever at winning the Democratic nomination…because he will be browbeaten and blackballed by the DNC and its media shills, just as Colonel Chickenhawk Sanders was in 2016.

And then there are the two leading Republicans: Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, both Rightist, bigoted con-men in their respective realms.

Why is Kennedy’s run for president so important at this juncture in American history…? Because there is no (prominent) Left left in America. The actual Left (I do not mean the compromised DSA or the “Leftist wing” of the Democratic Party) has not been able to muster its forces against the status quo; it hasn’t been able to forward a coherent agenda or form a viable and stable political party, as evidenced by the failure of the People’s Party and the previous failures of the Greens.

I have watched the Kennedy interviews with Joe Rogan; Glenn Greenwald; and Jordan Peterson, all within the past few days. (While some of Kennedy’s answers are canned at times, the task wasn’t strictly laborious, until I got to the Peterson interview.) My perception of Kennedy is pretty positive. His policies are satisfactory from a traditional Leftist perspective: end the Forever Wars, dismantle the CIA, pardon Assange and Snowden, reintegrate America with the rest of the world through sound foreign policy, go after BigPharma, get the U.S. economy going again by locating more substantive jobs here, etc., etc. The only problem I had with Kennedy was his stance on Israel. Quite obviously Glenn Greenwald did too…...but, my view is that Kennedy needs to make some gesture to American Jewish voters in order to get elected. I don’t know if RFK Jr. really believes that Israel is not keeping Palestinian citizens in apartheid-like conditions and killing innocent civilians. It certainly does not fit with the rest of his ideology or perspectives. Kennedy’s seemingly exculpatory view of the Israeli state may not be what Greenwald and I want to hear, but it might be smart politics (in the short-run).

Right now, in the U.S., we are dealing with decades...really, centuries of an entrenched; heavily militaristic; capitalist death-culture whose main proponents and foot soldiers are going to be difficult to take down. RFK Jr.’s election, I think would at least level a blow to them...and would enable the arduous process of dismantling the odious institutions that have propped up this false democracy to begin. This is sadly not a time when the brute power of a communistic labor force can overwhelm a corrupt system in several strikes – the American working class is unorganized, ideologically splintered, and does not have adequate leadership. The accomplishment of the building of a new society is going to take time, and Herculean effort. And the election of Robert Kennedy, Jr. might just be one means to that end......

Note: Since I began writing this article, Cornell West has entered the race, seeking to be the Green Party candidate. While he may be to the left of Kennedy on particular issues, I don’t see him as being electable...mainly because he comes off in most media appearances as a self-absorbed and half-crazed preacherman...which I think, unfortunately, is what he is.