Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched his longshot to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination next year.
Kennedy, a member of one of the country’s most famous political families that has been linked to some far-right figures in recent years, kicked off his campaign in Boston on Wednesday, comparing his campaign to the American Revolution.
“My mission for the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt fusion of corporate and state power that now threatens to impose a new brand of corporate feudalism on our country,” Kennedy said.
Self-help author Marianne Williamson is also running for the Democratic nomination. Biden has said that she plans to run again, but she has not formally announced a campaign. She is expected to have an easy path to the nomination, with much of the Democratic establishment behind him.
Kennedy, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of his assassinated brother, Robert F. Kennedy, repeatedly referred to both during his lengthy speech Wednesday.
Kennedy Jr. was once best known as an environmental lawyer who worked on issues like clean water. But over the past two decades, he has become one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement. His work has been described by members of his own family and public health experts as deceptive and dangerous.
His efforts intensified after the pandemic and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and a 2021 AP investigation showed that he had linked up with anti-democratic figures and other groups. She has appeared at events promoting the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and with people cheering or downplaying the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
A photo posted to Instagram showed Kennedy backstage at a July 2021 Reawaken America event with former President Donald Trump’s ally Roger Stone, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and vaccine speculator Charlene Bollinger. All three have promoted the lie about the theft of the 2020 election.
Kennedy has been a guest on Infowars, the channel run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and on the “War Room” podcast hosted by longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, where he promoted his 2021 best-selling book, ” The Real Anthony Fauci,” in which he accused the top US infectious disease doctor of participating in “a historic coup against Western democracy.”
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