Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @DeanObeidallah@masto.ai. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
There’s a politician running for president who plans to address the conservative Moms For Liberty group this week. He has also trafficked in baseless conspiracy theories on everything from gun violence to vaccines and has been publicly praised by some of the right wing’s most unsavory characters, from Steve Bannon to Roger Stone to Tucker Carlson.
Can you guess which party this candidate belongs to? I’m betting you’ll say Republican — and you would be wrong.
No, I’m referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as a Democrat. Kennedy, of course, has every right to run. But there is no question that his views align far better with the GOP. If he seeks any presidential nomination, that is the one he should be vying for.
Kennedy will travel to Philadelphia this week to address a convention organized by the conservative Moms For Liberty group, which has been condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center for what the SPLC characterizes as extremist anti-government views, including advocating for the abolishment of the Department of Education.
Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a couple of other conservative 2024 GOP presidential contenders plan to address the Moms for Liberty audience as well.
The SPLC alleges that Moms for Liberty is following the playbook of the segregationist parent groups that emerged in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education mandating integration in public schools. The new designation is detailed in the center’s 2022 Year in Hate and Extremism report.
In a statement to NPR earlier this month, Moms for Liberty said, in response to the SPLC report: “Two-thirds of Americans think the public education system is on the wrong track today. That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education.”
The statement added, “We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.”
Some of Kennedy’s views are so far-fetched that one has to believe that they would draw criticism from many voters on either side of the political divide.
Among the long list of conspiracy theories Kennedy is associated with, he is perhaps best known for anti-vaccine misinformation that he has peddled for nearly two decades. This includes his claim that a mercury-based ingredient in vaccines caused autism.
Echoing remarks against vaccine mandates once uttered by US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, Kennedy declared at a rally last year, “Even in Hitler Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did” — remarks that were as inaccurate as they were offensive.
And like GOP presidential candidate DeSantis, Kennedy has gone on the attack against Dr. Anthony Fauci — the infectious disease expert who served under seven US presidents and guided the nation through the worst of the Covid-19 crisis.
In 2021, Kennedy published “The Real Anthony Fauci,” a book accusing the doctor of promoting “a historic coup d’état against Western democracy.” His assertions on Covid-19 vaccines were so off the deep end that members of his storied political family wrote an opinion article in 2019 disavowing his anti-vaccine views.
On gun violence, meanwhile, Kennedy has peddled a particularly quixotic conspiracy theory, claiming that school shootings are somehow linked to antidepressants. This helps explain why some of his relatives have publicly stated they will not be supporting him in his 2024 White House run and instead will support President Joe Biden.
In addition to Bannon, Stone and Carlson, Trump allies encouraging Kennedy include Michael Flynn, who briefly was the former president’s national security adviser.
It seems more than likely that some Trump acolytes are supporting Kennedy because they believe it will somehow hurt Biden’s reelection efforts. In fact, MAGA stalwart Sean Hannity said as much when he recently had the candidate on his Fox News show and said that Kennedy’s polling numbers at the time were a “nightmare” for Biden.
In reality, Kennedy is getting drubbed by Biden. His numbers have dropped from a high of 20% in a CNN survey in mid-May and are now in the mid-teens in some recent polls. I’m convinced that the more Democrats see what Kennedy is about, the more his support will drop.
When Kennedy loses in the Democratic primaries, we can expect Trump’s allies to entice him to run as an independent — especially if Trump is the GOP nominee — hoping Kennedy’s candidacy will peel away votes from Biden.
They may want to rethink this strategy, however. Given the degree of support for Kennedy by some of the GOP’s biggest stars, they may just find that Kennedy siphons votes away from Trump — or whoever the Republican presidential nominee turns out to be.