Can RFK Jr. Win the Presidency—and Take Back America?

By Kevin Barrett, for the forthcoming issue of American Free Press - full article for paid subscribers only

On April 19, 2023, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaking at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, announced his candidacy for president. Without notes or teleprompter, Kennedy delivered a soaring 100-minute peroration that reminded dazzled onlookers of the greatest speeches of his illustrious father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

The theme of his campaign, Kennedy explained, is “Heal the Divide.” Noting the ever-worsening polarization that is tearing America apart, he said: “We are a nation divided. We are divided by race, by class, by religion, by geography, and by ideology. But we are also a nation united. We are united by our shared values, our shared history, and our shared destiny.”

So what kind of common ground is he seeking?  RFK Jr. began by urging Americans to get along, even to love each other, despite their differences—and offered his own family as an example. After giving a shout-out to the few dozen family members who support him and were in attendance, he admitted that others, including his sister Kathleen (who works in the Biden Administration) do not: “I love my family very much. We have a lot of disagreements, but I love them very much. I respect their opinions, and I hope they respect mine.” He then added that most Americans have had similar experiences, alluding to the differences of opinion over politics in general and COVID issues in particular that have torn so many families apart during the past three years.

Though mainstream media reports on Kennedy’s announcement predictably led with the inaccurate “anti-vaxxer” label, and focused on his criticisms of big pharma and the $100 billion biological warfare industry, RFK Jr.’s campaign has a much broader objective:

“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power.” So it isn’t just big pharma in his gunsights—it’s also the military-industrial complex, the mainstream monopoly media and its Mockingbird masters, the Federal Reserve and its bankster owners, and the Wall St. owned-and-operated CIA. In other words, RFK Jr. is taking on the same institutions, if not the same people, who murdered his father, his uncle, and his cousin. That is quite a “profile in courage.”

The above-listed institutions have united in support of the disastrous war on Russia through Ukraine. Though RFK Jr. unfortunately failed to mention that war in his speech, his earlier statements make it clear where he stands. On April 3 he tweeted:

“The collapse of U.S. influence over Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom’s new alliances with China and Iran are painful emblems of the abject failure of the Neocon strategy of maintaining U.S. global hegemony with aggressive projections of military power. China has displaced the American Empire by deftly projecting instead economic power. Over the past decade our country has spent trillions bombing roads, ports, bridges, and airports. China spent the equivalent building the same across the developing world. The Ukraine war is the final collapse of the Neocons’ short-lived ‘American Century.’ The Neocon projects in Iraq and Ukraine have cost $8.1 trillion, hollowed out our middle class, made a laughingstock of U.S. military power and moral authority, pushed China and Russia into an invincible alliance, destroyed the dollar as the global currency, cost millions of lives, and done nothing to advance democracy or win friendships or influence.”

That “tweet heard round the world” has been viewed over 5 million times as of this writing, and stands as one of the best-ever summaries of what 22 years of neocon rule have brought us. Even RFK Jr.’s father and uncle never blasted the corrupt forces of their day so brazenly. It is almost as if Kennedy is throwing down the gauntlet to the bad guys and saying “I dare you.”

Does he have a chance to win? Many supporters, including Edward Curtin, think so: “Many people are going to be very surprised by how he garners support over the next six months. They're going to have a hard time containing his message because people are sick of all the damn lies.” Others, like Alan Sabrosky, disagree: “The DNC will never let him be the nominee.” False Flag Weekly News commentator Cat McGuire goes further: “If Bobby really truly was intent on taking our country back, he would have never run as a Democrat.” Instead, she says, he should have run as an independent. But RFK backer Steve Kirsch responds that independent candidates don’t have a chance—the only way to win is to run in a major party, no matter how compromised, and try to generate enough people power to take it back.

So who’s right? Only time will tell.