There is no question that the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) will have a great impact on the 2024 election.  There are many people who don’t like both Trump and Biden and are looking for a viable third option.

In some ways, Kennedy is the only possible path back to some semblance of normalcy.  If Trump or Biden (or a Biden replacement) wins the election, there is going to be chaos.  That is almost a guarantee.

Biden is the chaos president.  His handlers are intentionally trying to ruin the country and cause chaos everywhere.  It’s not just that they don’t have the right policies.  They are doing the destructive things they are doing on purpose.

Trump probably actually wants the country to do well.  He really does want to make America great again, even if it is just to brag about it.  One problem is that some of his policies aren’t good.  The bigger problem is that his enemies want to destroy him and his followers.  Some of his enemies have a lot of money, power, and influence.  If Trump wins and is allowed to take office, they will purposely cause chaos just so that he can’t succeed at anything.

We had many years of a Russia collusion hoax.  We still do.  2020 gave us COVID lockdowns and hysteria.  It also gave us the George Floyd riots.  It was total chaos in 2020, and we shouldn’t assume this was by coincidence.  This is likely why some people voted for Joe Biden.  They saw that as the only chance to return to some normalcy.

But that didn’t really stop the chaos.  We got new chaos from Biden and his handlers.  Trump’s followers didn’t go away.  If anything, Biden has caused greater division within the country.

Kennedy seems like the only way we can possibly return to some kind of civilized society in the near future.  He is something of an old school Democrat, a little bit similar to his uncle.

The Good

Up until October 7, 2023 (the attacks in Israel), Kennedy was very good on foreign policy.  He understands the history of Ukraine.  He will explain that there was a U.S.-backed coup in 2014 that overthrew the democratically-elected president who wanted friendly ties with Russia.  Since 2014, the ethnic Russians in the eastern area of Ukraine have been attacked.  In addition, Putin has long said that Ukraine is his line in the sand.  The Russians don’t want NATO missiles right on their border.

Kennedy understands this very well.  It is a breath of fresh air.

Kennedy has been heroic on the COVID hysteria.  He literally wrote the book against Tony Fauci and the medical establishment.  He has been a long-time advocate for vaccine safety.  A big part of his book is questioning the official narrative of HIV/ AIDS.  Although he doesn’t say that he will abolish the FDA and CDC, any shakeup in those agencies has to be a good thing.  Aside from radical libertarians, there aren’t many people questioning the major narratives coming out of the medical establishment.

Kennedy has also been very good on speaking up against the so-called intelligence agencies.  He believes that the CIA killed his uncle.  He suspects that his father may have also been killed by the deep state, although he is less certain on this point.

He doesn’t take a libertarian position of defunding and abolishing the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, etc.  But at least he understands that there is evil at the top of these agencies.  Again, any shakeup in this area can’t be a bad thing.  Anything he can do to expose the evil in our system is positive.

Kennedy has also been good in more recent years on the issue of free speech.  He recognizes that the government is trying to censor speech that goes against their official narratives.

In addition, it should be mentioned that Kennedy has been willing to go on many shows with the alternative media.  He has made himself available to several libertarian podcasters in the past.  Aside from Vivek Ramaswamy, nobody else in this election cycle has been willing to take tough questions from outsiders.

The Bad

Kennedy is still a leftist at heart.  He is better than the Democratic establishment here.  He doesn’t believe in massive welfare for illegal immigrants.  He is much more measured when talking about welfare in general.

Kennedy has been really bad on climate issues in the past.  He has backtracked quite a bit on some of these stances.  He is now better than most Democrat politicians on environmental issues.  Still, he is a leftist at heart.

Just in general, Kennedy comes up with solutions to real problems that often involve central planning.  There are countless problems that are a result of government interference in the first place.  Kennedy’s inclination is to fix problems, but his first solution isn’t usually to remove government.  It is often to add another layer of government to fix the problem.

Kennedy’s heart is likely in the right place here.  But we really don’t need more central planning.  We don’t need more government out of Washington DC.  We need to reduce the size and scope of government, especially at the national level.

Unfortunately, Kennedy’s pick for vice president is not encouraging.  He argued with Dave Smith for over an hour about Israel and then offered Dave a chance to be his running mate.  It’s still not clear if he was serious.  Dave declined the offer, at least unofficially, mostly because of Kennedy’s stance on the Israeli state.  So, instead of having a radical libertarian as his running mate, Kennedy chose Nicole Shanahan.

Shanahan questions the official narrative on vaccines like Kennedy.  That is good.  Unfortunately, she is a leftwing attorney who was married to one of the founders of Google.  This doesn’t exactly inspire a libertarian, or even someone just looking for change, to support Kennedy.

He has obviously abandoned going after libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives.  Instead, he is going after Democrats and the left wing.  If he had gone after the left wing just by being anti war, that would have been fine.  But it seems he is going after the left with his domestic policies as well now.  It is encouraging in that it probably takes more votes away from Biden.  It is not so encouraging if Kennedy actually becomes president.

The Ugly

Ever since the attacks in Israel, Kennedy has been a huge supporter of funding and supporting the Israeli state.  He justifies the mass bombing of Gaza and the killing of innocent life.  It is a bizarre position to hold given his other views on foreign policy.

He says he has opposed American involvement in every war since World War 2, yet he supports American involvement in Israel.  This becomes an immediate deal breaker for many libertarians.

There are a few people who have insinuated that Kennedy is compromised because of his position here.  Even the name Epstein has been thrown out there a few times, questioning what they have on Kennedy for him to take this hawkish position with Israel.  But then you have to wonder why most politicians in DC feel the need to defend Israel on everything.

The most logical explanation for Kennedy’s position in defending the Israeli state is that he doesn’t want the criticism, and he has been propagandized on the issue like so many others.  He just believes that the Israelis are the good guys and anyone who would try to harm them must be bad.  It may not go any deeper than that.

Still, if Kennedy were just bad on this one thing, maybe some libertarians could overlook it.  If he got us out of every other war, then it would be a net positive.  The problem is that if Kennedy is taking this hawkish and interventionist position with Israel, can we really trust him when it comes to the rest of foreign policy?

When you become president there is massive pressure from the deep state and the military-industrial complex.  If you are not firm in your principles going into it, you have little chance to survive.  You will either get destroyed reputationally, or you will compromise in a major way.

Conclusion

There are a few reasons to get behind Kennedy from a libertarian perspective.  One is that he isn’t Biden.  Another reason is that our country might return to some normalcy.

Still, this second reason is debatable.  Normalcy in this sense means returning to something like 2014.  This was before COVID and just before Trump was entering the scene.  But there were a lot of wars going on in 2014 where America was involved.  There were a lot of domestic problems.  The intelligence agencies were criminal then too.  Some of the corruption and abuse of power just wasn’t as well known, or it wasn’t seen as such.

In many ways, it is impossible to return to 2014 at this point.  We have seen too much.  It’s possible Kennedy might bring some temporary sanity to America, but the problems are still there.

One thing that libertarians should understand is that almost all politicians are a disappointment.  Ron Paul is the exception and not the rule.  Kennedy has already been disappointing and he isn’t even a frontrunner yet.  Imagine how many compromises there will be if he is actually elected.