Robert F. Kennedy Jr. smiled, threw up a stilted wave, and made eye contact with no one specifically. He was shuffling into Puckett’s restaurant in Franklin, Tennessee, earlier this month for a plate of noon meatloaf. No advance crew had peppered the room with stickers or buttons bearing his identify. Nobody had tipped off the native media. Flanked by his press secretary and a few plainclothes safety guards, Kennedy made his manner towards a big desk again close to the kitchen, the place he and I had been scheduled to fulfill for an interview. The roughly two dozen lunch patrons didn’t seem to clock him, nor did the waiter.
Kennedy’s impartial marketing campaign for the White Home has a free, confounding power to it. Most presidential candidates would glad-hand at a spot like Puckett’s; Kennedy didn’t trouble. Quite than run on a coverage slogan—“Medicare for all,” “Construct the wall”—Kennedy has opted for one thing nearer to mysticism. He makes use of the phrase existential in practically each speech. He spends an inordinate period of time on podcasts.
“You realize, a lot of life, we see from the floor,” Kennedy informed me that day. “It’s just like the floor of the ocean. There’s a storm happening, there’s winds blowing, and we get preoccupied with ambitions, with concern, with, you recognize, trepidation. After which in case you sink a number of ft beneath the ocean, it’s calm there. And that, I believe, is the place we’re speculated to spend as a lot time as doable, in that place the place it’s peaceable, the place you perceive every little thing is form of an phantasm. We’re strolling via a dream, and our job is to be sort to individuals, to be open, to be tolerant.”
Regardless of this hazy rhetoric, institution Democrats think about Kennedy to be a concrete hazard to the way forward for democracy. Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries has referred to as Kennedy “a residing, respiration false-flag operation” whose “entire marketing campaign is being run by right-wing political operatives who’ve one goal: attempt to take down President Joe Biden.”
Once I first interviewed Kennedy final yr, many individuals derided him as a distraction who would shortly fade into obscurity. 5 months out from Election Day, Kennedy is polling within the double digits and combating for nationwide poll entry. His crew insists that voters will have the ability to pull the lever for him in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Many political observers have argued that, like previous third-party candidates who’ve damage Democrats, he’s poised to attract extra votes from Biden than from former President Donald Trump. A current New York Instances/Siena ballot confirmed that Kennedy has notably sturdy assist amongst younger voters and Latinos, two teams Biden wants greater than Trump. But he’s additionally drawing assist from Republicans and conservatives. Many of those voters are keen to look previous his conspiratorial, anti-vaccination statements. Some could share his views.
Whereas Biden and Trump combat for first place, Kennedy is zigzagging across the nation, speaking about our must reconnect with the Earth and rediscover our shared humanity. Born and raised an East Coast Catholic, he now resembles an growing old California hippie preaching New Age mantras. He’s not operating a successful operation a lot as he’s on a public self-actualization journey. And America should stay with the implications.
Like with Biden and Trump, Kennedy’s psychological state receives armchair diagnoses each day. However, not like Biden and Trump, Kennedy says he as soon as had a parasitic worm in his mind. I requested him if he would consent to present process a cognitive check. “The cognitive examination is named the debates. I’d gladly take it,” he stated. “I take a cognitive examination each time I do a podcast—I problem the opposite candidates to take the cognitive check with me.” He added that he’d launch his medical information if his chief opponents did the identical.
Three nights earlier than our lunch in Tennessee, I confirmed up at Kennedy’s rally in Austin, Texas. Exterior the venue I noticed one attendee with colourful markers scribbling out a do-it-yourself signal: WORMS NOT WARS. The person, a 39-year-old named Steven Kinsey, informed me he had spent his total grownup life supporting Democrats, together with Biden. However a number of months in the past he occurred to listen to Kennedy on Theo Von’s podcast when the episode got here up on shuffle. “I used to be like, ‘Oh, isn’t that that loopy Kennedy?’” he stated. “So I simply left it on for leisure functions. And I used to be blown away. I used to be like, ‘This isn’t the identical man that everybody says is wacko.’”
Kennedy’s rhetoric—whether or not you imagine it to be wacko or compelling—is stuffed with contradictions. He views himself as a pacifist—an anti-war candidate who nonetheless falls to the appropriate of many liberals on key problems with the second, together with Israel in its conflict with Hamas. Kennedy informed me he’s “very pro-Palestinian,” however like Biden, he’s steadfastly supporting Israel. “I believe, for Israel’s future, for Gaza’s future, Hamas needs to be gotten rid of,” he stated. “I don’t see what occurs in a cease-fire. I don’t even perceive what individuals, you recognize, count on out of it.”
Kennedy made headlines in early Might for saying he supported abortion rights up till the second of start. However over lunch with me a number of days later, he defined why he had already modified his place, supporting abortion rights solely to the purpose of fetal viability. “I’ve had 40 years that present that I’m fairly detached to a political value of no matter difficulty,” he stated. “If I’m improper about one thing, if anyone exhibits me details, I’m going to alter my thoughts.” Once I requested whether or not he’d enshrine abortion rights on the federal stage, he was cagey. “Possibly an early—you recognize—earlier than viability,” he stated. “Pay attention, I don’t inform individuals I’m going to do one thing I don’t suppose could be accomplished.”
Within the early 2000s, Kennedy helped popularize the concept vaccines trigger autism, a idea that continues to be scientifically unproven. Final summer season, he falsely claimed that the coronavirus pandemic could have been “ethnically focused” to assault Caucasians and Black individuals, and that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language” are most immune from the virus. Nonetheless, he rejects the anti-vax label. “To begin with, just about every little thing that the press has written about my opinion of vaccines is improper,” he informed me. He stated he believes that his place on vaccines is “aligned with what 99 % of Individuals really feel.” In a little bit of revisionist historical past, he stated his stance boils right down to “If individuals need vaccines they need to have the ability to get ’em. I’m not going to do something to intervene with that.” He informed me that he needs individuals to have “the most effective science” on danger and efficacy. “And that’s all I’ve been saying for years. And that the people who find themselves injured by vaccines, there’s a specific amount of people who find themselves injured, and that we must be listening to them, not telling them that they’re wonderful and gaslighting them.”
Kennedy has virtually zero probability of successful the White Home and turning these coverage positions into legal guidelines. As of now, he received’t take part within the first presidential debate in June. Throughout our lunch, I requested him which state he most believes he’ll win, or, extra typically, if he has a viable path to 270 electoral votes. He talked about a number of spots the place he’s gaining traction, however couldn’t reply both query definitively. “I’m solely peripherally concerned in that a part of the marketing campaign,” he stated of state-level plans—he was saying, in different phrases, that he’s not concerned within the a part of the marketing campaign that’s involved with making an attempt to win the election. He deferred my nuts-and-bolts queries to his marketing campaign supervisor, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, his daughter-in-law.
“You realize, there’s a mathematical reply,” she informed me by cellphone final evening. “However there’s additionally a solution that basically has continued to transcend math all through.” She referred to this as “the America that nearly was and what could possibly be,” paraphrasing the creator Charles Eisenstein. “A part of what I believe a number of observers, at the least at this stage within the cycle, get improper, is taking a look at nationwide races relatively than taking a look at particular person states and the way collectively they ship a brand new chief to the White Home,” she stated.
I requested her which particular person states her marketing campaign will win.
“Effectively, you recognize, John, I’d like to inform you that record,” she stated. “One of many features to our electoral map that’s extraordinarily necessary will not be signaling the place we’re going to be targeted, guaranteeing promoting charges and a focus and so forth are reasonably priced and achievable there. So I can’t share the states with you besides to say that Bobby is chatting with all Individuals, and most particularly to Individuals who’ve been utterly ignored by the map of the two-party system for many years and many years and are able to have a say within the system.”
I requested her once more. She finally stated that her crew has a listing of 29 states, however refused to share any of them, elevating the likelihood that Kennedy’s opponents could attempt to infiltrate their marketing campaign. “The place we see the strongest numbers proper now could be, you recognize, the matter of a number of inside polling. I’m certain the opposite campaigns are doing their very own inside polling. However within the steadiness of assets, it wouldn’t be sensible for us to spend so much of hours on polling after which share them publicly.”
Although Kennedy will virtually definitely lose the election, he may nonetheless have an effect on its consequence by being a spoiler. The Democrats sense this. The DNC lately employed the veteran operative Lis Smith to guide a crew targeted on attacking third-party candidates, Kennedy specifically. Exterior Kennedy’s rally in Austin, a black field truck drove laps across the venue. Among the many rotating messages on its exterior about Kennedy and his operating mate: WHY IS TRUMP’S TOP DONOR SPENDING $20 MILLION TO PROP UP RFK JR. AND NICOLE SHANAHAN? Beneath Photoshopped photos of the 2 candidates in MAGA hats was a disclaimer: PAID FOR BY THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE.
The Democratic pollster and strategist Ben Tulchin has lately been wanting intently at two swing states, Arizona and Pennsylvania. In Arizona, specifically, Tulchin’s knowledge point out that Kennedy is a much bigger menace to Biden than he’s to Trump, particularly amongst younger individuals and Latinos. “I’ve been elevating the alarm with the Democratic Get together and anybody who will hear me within the Biden marketing campaign,” Tulchin informed me.
On the nationwide stage, although, a transparent image has but to emerge. Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth College Polling Institute, informed me in an electronic mail, “There isn’t any proof within the present polls that conclusively factors to RFK pulling extra assist from both facet.” He continued, “The issue is, after all, with anticipated shut outcomes in a number of key Electoral School states, any small spoiler impact that’s hidden within the polling margins can have main penalties. Pattern polling will not be exact sufficient to search out it, except you may interview each voter. That kind of polling is named an election.”
Kennedy retains steadily attracting not simply independents however a mixture of Democrats and Republicans alike. This aligns with what I’ve observed at his occasions—a various generational cross part: crypto bros, cowboys, crunchy hippies. Kennedy appears out from the stage and sees it, too—all of the wide-eyed voters wanting again.
To stiff-arm the spoiler characterization, Kennedy refers to his personal polling that exhibits he’d defeat both Biden or Trump in head-to-head matchups. “I’m not a spoiler, as a result of I can win,” he informed me flatly.
Trump rallies brim with a dystopian, campy Americana. Biden rallies barely exist. Kennedy rallies, in the meantime, are inclined to really feel like big home events. Opening acts often embrace cowl bands, and lots of attendees mingle whereas sipping drinks. Contained in the downtown-Austin venue, practically 1,000 individuals milled about a number of bars and listened to a band cycle via crowd favorites: Tom Petty’s “I Received’t Again Down,” 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?,” and, in an ironic twist, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lucky Son.”
One of many first audio system that evening was the regenerative-farming influencer Ryland Engelhart. He quoted the mystic poet Rumi and affectionately likened the RFK Jr. marketing campaign to Noah’s Ark—“a giant silly challenge.” Engelhart informed the group that he had been sitting on the bathroom scrolling via his cellphone when he first found Kennedy and his message. He spoke wistfully a few current fundraiser that ended with Kennedy becoming a member of his donors in a sweat lodge. He paraphrased one other Rumi line on the finish of his speech: Out past concepts of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there’s a discipline. I’ll meet you there. Then supplied a 2024 addendum: “There’s a president past Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I’ll meet you there.”
Shanahan made a uncommon public look that evening. A Silicon Valley businesswoman and reported billionaire, she has no political expertise and isn’t a pure public speaker. Most of her message was not in regards to the election, however about subjects similar to wholesome soil and the hazard of perpetually chemical substances in meals. “Lots of our most revolutionary options come from exterior typical politics—they’re within the realm of what’s been referred to as ‘different,’” she stated. “Sure, I do know that sounds so radical. It shouldn’t. I’ve seen the ability of those little alternative routes of pondering in my very own life. I’ve used different well being practices to revive my well being, my fertility … I do know what is feasible whenever you suppose with another, artistic mindset.”
When Kennedy took the stage, he informed the group, “Each time I see her communicate, I fall just a little bit extra in love along with her.” He went on, “Many of the presidential candidates now we have in the present day, they sound like they’re doing a satire of Veep. And that’s not what you hear from Nicole—you hear a lecture about soil!” He warned that the extra Individuals spend on drugs, the unhealthier we get. “What’s it that’s inflicting us to not see that?” he requested. “What’s it that’s inflicting us to continually feed this beast that’s making us an increasing number of sick on a regular basis? It’s the corrupt political system. It’s the subversion of our democracy.” His message constructed towards a call-and-response finale. “If Nicole and I get into workplace, every little thing goes to alter,” Kennedy stated.
“Don’t you need every little thing to alter?”
“Sure!” the group shouted.
“Is there something that you just wish to hold the identical?”
“No!”
Among the individuals most involved about Kennedy’s impression on the election are members of his family. Final yr, a number of Kennedys started talking out towards what they noticed as the hazards of his marketing campaign. His brother Christopher Kennedy lately characterised RFK as “unreachable,” a “true believer” with “fringe pondering,” “crackpot concepts,” and “unsound judgment.” On St. Patrick’s Day this yr, dozens of Kennedys gathered on the White Home and took a household picture with Biden—an unsubtle message to RFK.
I requested Kennedy what had gone via his thoughts when he noticed that picture. He stared off at a fridge alongside the wall separating the restaurant’s eating room from its kitchen. He wiped his eye. He leaned ahead with each elbows on the desk. All informed, it took him 34 seconds to formulate his reply. Kennedy acknowledged that he has members of the family who’re “not enthused” about his candidacy, and a few who’re supporting him. “I don’t harbor resentments anymore,” he stated. “I simply don’t. I believe they’re corrosive. They’re like swallowing poison and hoping another person will die.”
He informed me that he had anticipated to be polling properly amongst his fellow Child Boomers, as a result of they had been those with probably the most nostalgia for his father and uncle—the Camelot period. However to this point, he stated, youthful individuals had been his strongest bloc of assist, individuals who doubtless didn’t suppose a lot about that historical past. I requested if he felt primarily like a Kennedy, somebody carrying on a household legacy, or if he noticed himself as simply Bobby.
“The place can we get our sense of self?” he requested. “It comes from the ideas that are the boundaries of that entity. The ideas, the locations the place we are saying to ourselves, ‘I’d by no means try this.’ And it comes from, you recognize, emotions which can be the product of our historical past and our tradition and our genes. You realize, I grew up on this household. That fortunate occasion, for me, has been one of many formative options and forces of my life. And has crafted every little thing I imagine in as an individual. It’d be exhausting for me to separate myself from my household.”
He characterised the previous yr of campaigning as “a really intense lesson on all of the issues that you just’re speculated to be taught in the midst of your life.” Operating for president, he stated, teaches you the right way to course of antipathy. “You bought a number of hatred coming in, and anger, after which, you recognize, the alternative of that, too.” The aim he chases is to deal with “every little thing as an imposter,” even the adulation. However he appears to have a tougher time with that final half.
“I believe one of many inspiring issues for me is how many individuals have put hopes in me for change. And I’m certain in case you interview a few of these people who find themselves following me, it’s extraordinary to me that so many individuals present up,” he stated. “Lots of them come to me crying and simply voice their hopes. And it looks like a giant accountability.” He informed me that this has modified him in a “basic” manner. “It’s made me attempt to be the person who, you recognize, individuals hope I’m.”
It’s exhausting to know who that individual is, or what he stands for. Kennedy informed me that he believes the worst issues Trump did as president had been instituting lockdowns throughout the early part of the pandemic and strolling away from a nuclear-weapons treaty with Russia. He referred to Biden’s border coverage as “a disaster.” He needs voters to mistrust the federal government, but he additionally needs to run the federal government. Kennedy stays a magnet for the disillusioned. His philosophy isn’t profound, however his supporters appear to know that he’s saying one thing, and that it’s just a little harmful and alluring. In an election with two deeply unpopular major-party candidates, that message—even when it doesn’t add as much as a lot—is resonating.
