Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for the White House — polling just under 10% — presents a third capitalist candidate alongside President Joseph Biden and former President Donald Trump. A decadeslong Democrat from a well-known wealthy ruling-class family, Kennedy often echoes views found on the right of bourgeois politics. But his campaign is aimed primarily at taking votes away from Biden.
The Democratic and Republican parties have dominated bourgeois politics for well over a century, telling workers their only choice is to pick the “lesser evil.” From time to time, third capitalist parties add another evil to the “choice,” but the electoral system is always rigged to assure the propertied ruling families retain control over the reins of power.
Kennedy initially challenged Biden for the Democratic Party’s nomination, but then switched gears, announcing in October he would run as an “independent.” He said he had no choice, the Democrats’ primary race was controlled by the party’s leadership.
Kennedy makes no attempt to present his campaign as a break from capitalist politics, just from its two major parties. “We declare independence from the two political parties and the corrupt interests that dominate them and the entire rigged system, of rancor, of rage,” he said when he announced his switch.
But the bitter factional warfare waged by the Democrats and Republicans isn’t the fundamental conflict in U.S. politics. Class divisions between the working class and the capitalist rulers are at the heart of all political questions. The profits of the bosses and bankers depend on increasing the exploitation of the toilers amid deepening competition worldwide in an increasingly unstable world.
This pushes workers to join together to resist, to build unions and to advance toward our own independent class organization in the political arena.
Like the Greens, Libertarians and other capitalist parties, Kennedy’s claim to “independence” masks these decisive class divisions.
Kennedy espouses Jew-hatred
Kennedy presents himself as a long-standing fighter for the environment and opponent of oppression. But he laces his views with bigotry, conspiracy theories and Jew-hatred.
“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” he claimed in a video released by the New York Post. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
At an anti-vaccination rally in 2022 he claimed government COVID lockdowns were somehow worse than the Holocaust. “Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank,” he said. Frank was one of the 6 million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis during the second imperialist World War.
These are views that call for condemnation by working people and the labor movement.
Kennedy has embraced other conspiracy schemes, blaming high school shootings on the availability of drugs like Prozac, and insisting the CIA was behind the assassination of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy. This infatuation with conspiracies and cabals aims to divert attention from the reality that dog-eat-dog capitalism works through the class exploitation of the big majority by the propertied few. Such “theories” are aimed at sending working people on a fool’s errand searching for the “dark state” and other bogeymen rather than recognizing our own capacities to join together to change the world.
On April 1, Kennedy aimed his fire at Biden, saying he is “a worse threat to democracy” than Trump. His evidence is that in 2021 White House staff demanded social media companies take down Kennedy’s posts denouncing COVID vaccines, which they did.
Kennedy’s themes echo some of Trump’s policies and rhetoric — like calling for the sealing of the U.S.-Mexico border and condemning Washington’s “endless wars.” Trump cheerfully urges liberals to vote for Kennedy rather than Biden.
Sometimes Kennedy presents himself as the continuity with his uncle and his father, former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, both of whom claimed the mantle of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He also portrays himself as an outsider who stands up to the “corrupt” Democratic and Republican parties.
But his campaign is far from “outside” the capitalist class. Forbes says Nicole Shenahan, who Kennedy picked as his running mate and is the ex-wife of Google founder Sergey Brin, would be one of the wealthiest vice presidents ever. When Kennedy introduced her, she claimed they’d be taking on “greedy profiteers.”
Kennedy’s campaign has provoked a furious response from Democrats who want him — and other third parties — kicked off the ballot. The Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Kennedy of violating campaign disclosure laws in his ballot efforts.
Kennedy’s campaign is “dangerous,” four other Kennedy family members wrote shortly after he announced as an independent. By “dangerous,” they mean to the Democrats’ prospects of reelecting Biden.
For working people, Kennedy’s campaign has nothing to offer. Conspiracies, anger at secret antagonists and the like, point no road forward.
To advance an independent working-class course, we need to build our own working-class party, a labor party based on the unions, to offer an alternative to all the capitalist parties and their candidates.
There is no serious motion toward a labor party yet. But millions of workers are looking for ways to resist falling real wages, and grueling working and living conditions. They’re increasingly looking to use the unions to fight for a better life. Rachele Fruit, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, gives voice to these struggles and presents a road toward taking political power into our own hands. That’s the campaign to join.