Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has earned a reputation for peddling bizarre ideas, so it didn’t come as too big of a surprise when the conspiracy theorist sent out a fundraising appeal last week referring to Jan. 6 criminal defendants as “activists” who have been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”
Soon after, Kennedy’s campaign distanced itself from its own message, claiming that the language was an “error.”
Generous observers might’ve been willing to give the candidate and his team the benefit of the doubt. After all, it’s not as if Kennedy is overseeing a credible and professional political operation. Maybe, the argument went, there was a breakdown between the candidate, his team, and his fundraising vendor.
Alas, it wasn’t quite that simple.
Kennedy is on record telling The Washington Post, for example, he would consider pardoning Jan. 6 defendants — and he echoed the point on Fox News. The independent candidate has also repeatedly dismissed the severity of the attack on the Capitol.
It was against this backdrop that Kennedy decided to elaborate on his perspective in a written statement late last week. NBC News reported:
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Friday that he would appoint a special counsel to investigate the “harsh treatment” of Jan. 6 defendants if elected president. … Kennedy expanded on his views, saying he doubted that the incident qualifies as an “insurrection.”
Not surprisingly, Kennedy’s statement contained several assertions that were plainly false, including the claim that Jan. 6 rioters “carried no weapons.” (Reality, whether the candidate knows this or not, proves otherwise.)
As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim added, Kennedy also took the opportunity to peddle absurd claims about the “weaponization” of the federal government, which are impossible to take seriously.
I mention all of this in part because Kennedy’s strange worldview continues to clash with reality, but also because his Jan. 6 rhetoric served as a timely reminder about the implications of his independent 2024 candidacy. To oversimplify matters a bit, Team Biden has reason to worry about Kennedy taking Democratic votes because of his name. But Team Trump has reason to worry about Kennedy taking Republican votes because many of his more ridiculous beliefs dovetail nicely with GOP radicalism. Put it this way: A third-party presidential candidate is pushing Jan. 6 nonsense, embraces dangerous anti-vaccine ideas, downplays the role of guns in mass shootings, believes the Justice Department has been “weaponized” against Donald Trump and his allies, and echoes the Kremlin on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Does this sound like a White House hopeful who’ll appeal more to Democratic voters or Republican voters?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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