The Camelot myth haunts Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was brought up to believe that he would be the one to pick up the mantle left by Arthur, John F. Kennedy. Even as a precocious 20-year-old — having been hooked on hard drugs since 14, having been expelled from two boarding schools, and having faced a near-fatal heroin overdose — the young Bobby believed it was his “destiny” to be president.
Fifty years later, aged 70, Robert F. Kennedy has finally thrown his hat into the ring. He wants to return America to its Camelot era — that brief period of hope and promise after his uncle’s assassination — amid widespread disillusionment with the two main contenders for office. It’s a hard task. No third-party presidential candidate has received over 10% of the vote this century. But with RFK currently polling at 11.7% in the RCP poll of polls, could this election be different?
To carve out a path to power RFK must gather a vast number of signatures to enter the ballot in each state; in New York, which has the most stringent ballot laws in the country, he has to obtain 45,000 signatures in 45 days. But that’s what he’s hoping to do in Long Island. “No other presidential candidate in history has got this many signatures in such a short space of time,” he says. “We must vote out of hope — not fear.”
Invoking Franklin Roosevelt, he continues: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — is anyone here going to vote out of fear?” The massive crowd, crammed into the opulent Villa Lombardy, obligingly responds with a collective “No!” Some of the thousand-strong throng are long-time devotees, while others are merely Kennedy-curious. Yet what they all share is a political promiscuity that draws from both Left and Right. Steve, a musician, tells me that over the past three elections, he has moved from Bernie Sanders (until the DNC “rigged” the selection) in 2016 to Trump in 2020 to RFK Jr in 2024. “Kennedy talks about issues that the other two candidates totally ignore,” he says. “This is Kennedy against the uni-party — something I thought Trump did until he became President.”
It’s a sentiment that Kennedy himself has tried to tap into. He insists that Biden and Trump may appear different as far as disposition and ideology are concerned, but these differences only exist in the “culture war” space. When it comes to the real, or as he puts it the “existential”, issues facing the country — America’s debt, forever wars and chronic disease — there is very little to distinguish the two.
But there is a chink in the Kennedy armour: his position on Israel. Despite claiming to be the anti-war candidate, he has offered full-throated support for the Jewish state, calling Palestinians the “most pampered people in the world” and questioning the purpose of a ceasefire.
“The Israel stance is problematic,” says David, a student who volunteers on the RFK campaign. He agrees that it is a position which sits uncomfortably with his candidate’s dovish worldview: “I’m not part of the whole ceasefire, pro-Palestine movement but I do see the need for that war not to be expanded and for the US not to get involved in it.” He believes that Kennedy Jr would still be a better bet than Biden, who has “promoted the war machine” and “weaponised federal agencies”.
Students, though, are not the only ones fed up with America’s forever wars. Suzanne, another Bernie-Trump-RFK supporter, admires Kennedy for his commitment to prising the US out of “foreign misadventures”. “He’s not an America First-type like Trump,” she says. “His positions are much more considered — he doesn’t want to withdraw us from the world, but merely thinks that we should not be funding all these wars abroad.” Along with various other people I speak to there, Suzanne has particular ire for the man she voted for in 2016. “Trump talked a big game, but the debt blew up under him and he was the one that implemented all the Covid shutdowns…I’ll never forgive him for that.”
While RFK’s views on Covid are well-documented, ranging from the credible to the crankish, it would be misleading to characterise all his supporters as militant anti-vaxxers. Many would rather emphasise the importance of medical freedom in general. “I was vaccinated but I was against the shutdowns and mandates,” John Myers tells me. “But this isn’t just a Covid thing — it’s about the right to choose what’s best for you and not have the government tell me what to do.”
This libertarian streak runs through all Kennedy’s supporters. They clutch signs reading “restore the constitution”, “farms not pharma” and “LIBERTY!”. And they believe in him. His heterodox worldview means that he can appear to be all things to all people: to progressives, Kennedy is the great environmentalist who took on Monsanto and cleaned up the Hudson river; to conservatives, he is a God-fearing Christian who believes in the constitution (including the second amendment), small government and individual liberty. And as a result, he attracts people from both sides of the political aisle. People such as Darleen, who is a lifelong Democrat, and Bruce, who would never vote for Biden. “I’ve never been happier to support a candidate than Robert F. Kennedy Jr,” he says proudly. Darleen, meanwhile, is simply grateful that there is someone running for the presidency who doesn’t just talk a good game on the environment, but has the CV to show for it too. “The world is on fire — literally sometimes,” she says. “Bobby is the one to put it all out.”
The crowd is certainly more Mega than Maga. Some doff their green “Make Earth Great Again” caps to each other, while others sashay around in tie-dye T-shirts looking for people to add to the ballot. Kennedy himself remains an ardent environmentalist (nine years ago, he claimed to have called for a law that “punished” people who are sceptical of global warming), touting his record as a Riverkeeper prior to running for office. This New Age vibe in the room contrasts vividly with the few Boomer liberals who came for a quick hit of Kennedy nostalgia. “I loved his father so much,” says 81-year-old Francis. “Bobby is made from the same stuff — that’s why I’ll be voting for him.”
Camelot nostalgia surely plays some role in Kennedy Jr’s popularity. But RFK takes inspiration from a different myth: Sisyphus, who was consigned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. This is who Kennedy directly compared himself with on a podcast, saying “for me to have a concrete task that I know is right. I feel like it is a gift…the more people heap abuse on me, the bigger the gift is”.
And the abuse is piling up. Most recently by Donald Trump, who castigated RFK as a “Radical Left Liberal” after new polling revealed the independent was stealing more support from Trump than Biden. But Democrats are worried too, with advisers going after Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, warning that a vote for Bobby is a vote for Trump. “Democrats should use every tool available to them to expose the truth about Kennedy and Shanahan,” said Doug Gordon, a Democratic operative. “Expose the fact that both Kennedy and Shanahan have peddled conspiracy theories for years. Expose the fact that their run is helping [former President Trump] return to the White House,” he added.
These threats may speak more to the paranoid mindset of campaign managers, though, than the reality on the ground. It is not uncommon for independent candidates to poll well until the election draws nearer, whereupon voters tend to get cold feet. And unlike fellow challenger candidates, Jill Stein and Cornel West, Kennedy Jr is not party affiliated, making ballot access a great deal harder.
But there is something different about Kennedy. Two decades ago, he was a liberal darling: he had been named one of Time magazine’s “heroes” of the planet, described by Rolling Stone as one of “100 agents of change” and called “America’s toxin avenger” by People magazine. In 2008, Barack Obama was even urged to select Bobby for head of the Environmental Protection Agency to “endear” the new President with liberals. Now, he is persona non grata in Democratic circles, but his journey from Left to political homelessness is one that many other Americans shared too.
He is the avatar of a newly emerging political and cultural climate, a mood even, that is distrusting of those in power. Burned by the 2008 recession, dismayed by the Great Awokening and radicalised by Covid, many in the country are seeking something different. That both of the two leading presidential candidates have devoted resources to attacking the outsider candidate underscores just how unpredictable his effect on the race could be.
For now, Kennedy has made the ballot in nine states, and this week, he is expected to announce a further three. Given the tepid levels of enthusiasm for both of the main candidates — and a desire for something new — there might just be a tiny window for an insurgent candidate to exploit. For his part, Bobby will be hoping that the task will be Herculanean, not Sisyphean.
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/