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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an unbiased presidential candidate maybe greatest identified for his anti-vaccine viewpoints and proclivity for spreading conspiracy theories, admitted he dumped a useless bear in New York’s Central Park again in 2014.
In a video Kennedy posted on X on Sunday, he revealed that he’d left a motorcycle and bear carcass within the park, hoping it could seem {that a} bike owner had killed the bear, and that it could be “amusing.” It’s a weird incident that prompted main information protection on the time — and that spawned a years-long thriller about how the bear even bought there. The story was set to grow to be public as a part of an extended, important New Yorker profile of Kennedy, which featured the anecdote, and which appeared to have prompted Kennedy to share his aspect of it.
The bear incident can be solely the newest in myriad problematic acts that Kennedy has been implicated in — together with spreading medical misinformation and allegations of sexual misconduct. He’s beforehand made headlines, too, after sharing {that a} parasitic worm had eaten a part of his mind. Collectively, these disclosures have all added to a peculiar persona and haphazard coverage positions he’s cultivated.
Regardless of his antics and controversial stances, Kennedy has managed to hold on to a winnowing base of help that’s drawn to his anti-establishment positions, and that believes he’s the one candidate prepared to inform it like it’s.
A current FiveThirtyEight polling aggregation exhibits Kennedy holding about 5.5 % help in a basic presidential election versus Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. That’s down from the ten.3 % he obtained in March in FiveThirtyEight’s roundup, when President Joe Biden was nonetheless the presumed Democratic nominee.
With Kennedy, progressive scholar Cornel West, and Inexperienced Occasion candidate Jill Stein all amongst these working as unbiased or third-party choices, it’s attainable different candidates would possibly assist resolve what’s shaping as much as be an in depth election — particularly in key swing states which have traditionally been gained by small margins.
The RFK bear incident – and different unusual positions – briefly defined
Within the X video, Kennedy says he was on his method to a falconing journey within the Hudson Valley, when he noticed the automobile in entrance of him hit and kill a bear cub.
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him at the back of my van as a result of I used to be going to pores and skin the bear,” Kennedy defined. “It was [in] superb situation and I used to be going to place the meat in my fridge.”
In response to Kennedy, the falconing journey went lengthy and he wasn’t capable of make it dwelling earlier than having to run to a dinner in New York Metropolis. As a result of that dinner additionally took longer than anticipated, he wasn’t capable of carry the bear again to his home previous to a flight he had that very same night.
Confronted with these time constraints, Kennedy says he — and people round him — felt that his best choice was to deposit the bear in Central Park, and make it seem like a motorcycle had killed the cub, as a result of that “can be humorous for individuals.” After doing so, Kennedy says he noticed an explosion of reports protection concerning the incident the subsequent day, and grew fearful that he’d discover himself in bother with regulation enforcement, however by no means got here clear about his involvement till now.
The invention of the bear spurred an investigation into animal cruelty, and raised questions on how the animal’s carcass made its approach into New York Metropolis.
It’s not the one regarding incident that has surfaced about Kennedy in the middle of his presidential marketing campaign — others have included all the things from outrage over him supposedly consuming canine to severe allegations of sexual assault. Eliza Cooney, who beforehand labored as a live-in nanny for his household, alleges that Kennedy groped her in his dwelling and touched her leg in a enterprise assembly. Kennedy has stated the piece that includes the sexual assault declare — which was revealed in Self-importance Honest — was “rubbish,” however added that he wasn’t a “church boy.” After the Self-importance Honest story revealed, Cooney shared a textual content Kennedy had despatched her with The Washington Submit, which acknowledged that he had “no reminiscence of this incident,” however apologized for any actions that will have made her uncomfortable.
That very same Self-importance Honest story outlines a sample of unusual and disturbing habits together with sending pals nude photographs of ladies and spreading conspiracy theories about all the things from Covid-19 to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a sample the New Yorker profile additionally highlights. “He can say some loopy shit,” his sister Rory Kennedy as soon as stated, in line with the Self-importance Honest report.
Kennedy’s coverage platform has centered closely on incorrect, anti-vaccine statements linking childhood vaccines with autism, which has been broadly debunked by physicians and scientists. One in every of his organizations can be answerable for paying for a big proportion of the adverts on Fb selling falsehoods about vaccines, the New York Instances reviews. And his stance has been tied to actual harm: In a single occasion, Kennedy and his nonprofit boosted misinformation in American Samoa about vaccines and sure contributed to an enormous measles outbreak within the area, FactCheck.org notes. Kennedy has additionally unfold conspiracies about Covid-19, and falsely claimed that it was “ethnically focused” to keep away from harming Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language individuals. On the marketing campaign path, he’s channeled these stances into rhetoric concerning the significance of defending individuals’s “well being,” and the necessity to fight persistent sicknesses and get toxins out of meals.
Kennedy has a small base of help that might play a job within the election
The individuals who’ve supported Kennedy have been drawn to him for a similar causes that critics oppose him.
By and huge his backers, who span the ideological spectrum, see him as talking truthfully about points like vaccines in ways in which they don’t see politicians within the two events doing so. Equally, they view him as somebody who’s prepared to name out the political institution, and cite his previous report of taking up huge companies as an environmental lawyer.
“He’s not in that celebration construction. These political events are authoritarian they usually don’t enable dissent. Anybody who speaks out in opposition to the Democratic orthodox is pushed out,” Kevin Nally, a Kennedy supporter and former Democratic voter, informed Reuters.
It’s additionally seemingly that a few of his early help was as a result of the truth that he supplied an alternative choice to Biden and Trump, each of whom got here with their very own baggage for a lot of voters. Kennedy’s help seems to have declined as Harris has entered the race, although it might nonetheless play a job within the election if he’s capable of get on key swing state ballots — one thing his marketing campaign remains to be working to do in locations like Pennsylvania.
Earlier this 12 months, Kennedy’s marketing campaign stated that he had been permitted to seem on the Michigan poll, one in every of a handful of states that will likely be an important battleground. Beforehand, former President Donald Trump gained Michigan in 2016 by simply over 10,700 votes, or roughly 0.3 proportion factors. And whereas Biden beat Trump by simply over 3 proportion factors in 2020, polls counsel the state might look extra like 2016 than 2020 this 12 months.
If Kennedy will get “1 % in these battleground states that might be determined very narrowly, he might trigger one candidate to lose the presidency, or one other candidate to win,” College of Virginia political scientist Barbara Perry informed Vox.
That dynamic has been evident previously with third celebration candidates, together with unbiased businessman Ross Perot in 1992, who was seen as siphoning off help from President George H.W. Bush, and Inexperienced Occasion candidate Jill Stein in 2016, who was seen as chopping into the backing of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Analysis means that neither Perot nor Stein truly swung their elections, nevertheless.)
Polls counsel that Kennedy might truly have an effect on each events, since his views run the gamut of extra conservative concepts like anti-vaccine positions, and extra climate-friendly proposals, like calling for corporations to cowl the prices of air pollution. It’s attainable, although, that he’s much more dangerous to Trump — regardless of his Democratic roots — due to their shared stances on vaccine mandates and Covid-19 restrictions. And reviews counsel that the previous president’s marketing campaign does have some considerations about Kennedy.
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