Americans Are Seeing Through RFK's Bad Faith

I'll be upfront with you – I'm always upfront with you – and say I fretted quite a bit last year about Robert Kennedy, Jr. playing spoiler for Joe Biden in his reelection bid. I thought for a while RFK's entrance into the race was all but a guarantee that Donald Trump would return to the White House and begin his Revenge Tour in 2025.

I wrote about my RFK-related anxieties last May and even talked about it on the short-lived Bad Faith Times podcast (let me know if the folks are interested in bring this back). A Kennedy entering the Democratic Party fray ahead of (another) existential presidential election with a deeply unpopular Democratic president seemed like a very bad thing for those of us who would like to maintain some semblance of representative democracy in the United States.

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It seems Americans are seeing through the flagrant bad faith of RFK's presidential campaign, which is backed by far-right financiers and features more than a few right-wing talking points in his presidential platform. A recent NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters across the country showed Kennedy hurting Trump more than he hurts Biden by a fairly large margin.

Perhaps this shouldn't come as some great surprise considering RFK's campaign was seemingly designed in a lab to appeal to Joe Rogan bros: People whose entire identify lies in contrarianism. Rogan and Kennedy deny objective reality at every turn because they read something contrary on the internet one time. They present this contrarian approach as independent thinking. They cannot be told what to do or believe because they are far too enlightened to believe anyone but fellow cranks on the internet talking nonsense about serious issues. Look no further than Rogan bro Aaron Rodgers, whose rampant victimhood complex fits in nicely with RFK's charge that he has been censored by an authoritarian leftist regime. In fact, no one is censoring him; Democratic voters are just repulsed by his politics. Maybe it has something to do with far-right interests bankrolling the entire RFK ratfucking campaign.

In the 20th century, this kind of contrarianism thought was a hallmark of the left. I'm not gonna let the Man tell me what to do, Man. In the 21st century, this approach to politics is the defining feature of the American right wing. Anything the libs say is wrong. It all goes back to modern far-right politics as a way to shock and appall those with bourgeois sensibilities.

That Kennedy is drawing more support from Trump backers is welcomed affirmation that people can see through a bad-faith argument in a sea of bad faith arguments. Even Trump's allies and campaign officials have privately worried that RFK will sink them in key battleground states (Kennedy was recently added to Michigan's ballot, for better or worse).

Let's call it what it is: RFK's "run" for the White House is a classic right-wing ratfuck. Kennedy – who holds far-right views on vaccines and other health-related issue – is running so that Trump can win. Ratfucking Joe Biden is the only goal on RFK's campaign. As a connoisseur of bad-faith politics, it's nice to see voters aren't so easily tricked by such a wildly dishonest presidential candidate.

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @cdcarter13.bsky.social and on Threads and X at @CDCarter13.