How Truly Stupid Can It Get: Trump, RFK, and American Decline
One loser creep endorsed another loser creep. It's all meaningless drivel, but telling.
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“He’s a very low key person,” Donald Trump told the crowd in Glendale, Arizona. “But he’s highly respected. He’s a great person.” Cue Robert F. Kennedy and his brainworm. Cue the insipid fireworks. Cue one of the dumbest moments in a remarkably dumb time.
You don’t need me to tell you about RFK, Jr. His multitude of scandals and accusations. The bizarre stories that just keep, somehow, getting more and more bizarre. How his entire family has openly criticized and disowned him. And, yet, here he is, literally getting the hero’s welcome by the nominee of one of the two major political parties, being played onstage by the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero,” leading Trump to claim that President John F. Kennedy and his father Robert Kennedy were “looking down” as he endorsed the disgraced former president with pride.
Honestly, it’s sick.
I don’t want to talk about the political ramifications, because they are besides the point and also remarkably small. RFK’s small base of support was built on rabid anti-vaxxers who threw their weight behind his embarrassing campaign because Trump, as president, fast-tracked the COVID vaccine. All these Right Wingers deluding themselves over whether RFK’s endorsement will lead to a 5 or 10 point bounce for Trump are absolutely out of their minds. This isn’t going to make a difference, no matter how much Trump and his flagging campaign want it to change the narratives.
Instead, I want to talk about the absurdity of this. How unabashedly stupid it all is. What it shows us about the United States of America in 2024 and what it reveals about the past century.