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 acquired there. The story was set to turn out to be public as a part of an extended, vital 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 most recent 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 assist that’s drawn to his anti-establishment positions, and that believes he’s the one candidate keen to inform it like it’s.
A latest FiveThirtyEight polling aggregation exhibits Kennedy holding about 5.5 % assist in a common 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 Social gathering candidate Jill Stein all amongst these working as unbiased or third-party choices, it’s doable various candidates may assist determine what’s shaping as much as be an in depth election — particularly in key swing states which have traditionally been received by small margins.
The RFK bear incident – and different unusual positions – briefly defined
Within the X video, Kennedy says he was on his strategy 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 behind 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 keeping with Kennedy, the falconing journey went lengthy and he wasn’t in a position to make it residence 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 in a position to 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 appear like a motorcycle had killed the cub, as a result of that “could be humorous for folks.” After doing so, Kennedy says he noticed an explosion of stories protection concerning the incident the following day, and grew frightened that he’d discover himself in hassle 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 means into New York Metropolis.
It’s not the one regarding incident that has surfaced about Kennedy in the midst of his presidential marketing campaign — others have included every part 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 residence and touched her leg in a enterprise assembly. Kennedy has stated the piece that includes the sexual assault declare — which was revealed in Vainness Truthful — was “rubbish,” however added that he wasn’t a “church boy.” After the Vainness Truthful 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 which will have made her uncomfortable.
That very same Vainness Truthful story outlines a sample of unusual and disturbing conduct together with sending pals nude photographs of girls and spreading conspiracy theories about every part 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 keeping with the Vainness Truthful report.
Kennedy’s coverage platform has targeted closely on incorrect, anti-vaccine statements linking childhood vaccines with autism, which has been extensively debunked by physicians and scientists. Considered one of his organizations can be answerable for paying for a big proportion of the adverts on Fb selling falsehoods about vaccines, the New York Occasions stories. And his stance has been tied to actual injury: In a single occasion, Kennedy and his nonprofit boosted misinformation in American Samoa about vaccines and certain 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 folks. On the marketing campaign path, he’s channeled these stances into rhetoric concerning the significance of defending folks’s “well being,” and the necessity to fight persistent sicknesses and get toxins out of meals.
Kennedy has a small base of assist that might play a task 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 keen to name out the political institution, and cite his previous file of taking over massive 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, instructed Reuters.
It’s additionally seemingly that a few of his early assist was as a consequence of the truth that he provided a substitute for Biden and Trump, each of whom got here with their very own baggage for a lot of voters. Kennedy’s assist seems to have declined as Harris has entered the race, although it may nonetheless play a task within the election if he’s in a position to get on key swing state ballots — one thing his marketing campaign remains to be working to do in locations like Pennsylvania.
Earlier this yr, Kennedy’s marketing campaign stated that he had been accredited to seem on the Michigan poll, considered one of a handful of states that might be a vital battleground. Beforehand, former President Donald Trump received Michigan in 2016 by simply over 10,700 votes, or roughly 0.3 share factors. And whereas Biden beat Trump by simply over 3 share factors in 2020, polls counsel the state might look extra like 2016 than 2020 this yr.
If Kennedy will get “1 % in these battleground states that could possibly be determined very narrowly, he may trigger one candidate to lose the presidency, or one other candidate to win,” College of Virginia political scientist Barbara Perry instructed Vox.
That dynamic has been evident up to now with third celebration candidates, together with unbiased businessman Ross Perot in 1992, who was seen as siphoning off assist from President George H.W. Bush, and Inexperienced Social gathering 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 really swung their elections, nevertheless.)
Polls counsel that Kennedy may really 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 firms to cowl the prices of air pollution. It’s doable, 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 stories counsel that the previous president’s marketing campaign does have some considerations about Kennedy.