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Why RFK Jr is so seductive America fell for a true outsider

It wasn't just Olivia Nuzzi who fell for him (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

It wasn't just Olivia Nuzzi who fell for him (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)


September 26, 2024   5 mins

Amid fears of civil war breaking out following the November election, the interlocking spheres of American political journalism were treated to a frisson this past week. Olivia Nuzzi, a reporter for the staunchly Left-liberal New York magazine, admitted to having had an “inappropriate” relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The details of the “scandal” are murky. Was the relationship, as Nuzzi claimed, limited to her sexting? Did Kennedy boast about having “intimate photos” of her? Did the inappropriateness really start after she wrote a piece about him? Whatever the answers, the affair has been filed away with all the other instances of Kennedy’s outsized existence: the worm in his brain, the dead bear he found in Central Park and arranged in a pose as a prank, his beheading of a dead whale in 1994, the revelation that he has had dozens of mistresses during his several marriages.

It was only natural that the media cover with single-minded intensity the trivial matter of a reporter’s professional infraction — once the media becomes its own subject, nothing short of nuclear war can distract it. But the question of why Nuzzi, a skilled and seemingly sober political reporter, should risk her professional existence for a dalliance, whatever its degree, with Kennedy, is intriguing. Because it’s not just Nuzzi who became magnetised by RFK Jr. Until Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race as a third-party candidate last month, throwing his support to Trump, much of the country was riveted by him.

America’s two-party system effectively functioned so long as the country was more or less defined by tense but clarifying polarities: coastal city and heartland small town, north and south, industrial and agricultural, rural and urban-suburban — even, at a certain post-war point, suburban vs everyone else. Democrats and Republicans sometimes shifted their different constituencies, but the shift occurred along clear ideological or geographical lines.

But the dissolution of American small towns, the conversion of cities from affordable, if gritty, havens to gleaming, exorbitantly priced enclaves, the rise of the increasingly unaffordable suburb in every region, the head-spinning transformations of the information economy, the new centres of gravity spawned by Silicon Valley and the digital revolution — all have made the two-party system nearly irrelevant and almost totally dysfunctional. If ever a country needed a parliamentary system, in which its increasingly fractured reality could resolve itself into a cohesive factionalism, it is the Not-So-United States of America. But the two-party system will never be dislodged from American life. American idealism needs the conceptual simplicity of two parties the way it needs a simple framework of good and evil.

The result is Donald Trump, the first of what is sure to be many party leaders who are barely of their party at all. In this American moment of hybrid cars, and sexually hybrid people, and hybrid work-patterns, and hybrid economies, American leaders are also becoming hybrid as their party’s frameworks disintegrate.

Trump is, clearly, composed of stark contradictions: a populist cosmopolitan, a louche devotee of God, a tribune of both the moneyed class and the working class. In her understated, endlessly self-correcting, self-adjusting and repositioning way, so is Kamala Harris, whose withdrawal from public scrutiny is an invitation to be all things, no matter how contradictory, to all people. Both Harris and Trump, then, are de facto third-party candidates breaking the boundaries of what their parties stand for, as they appeal to a country whose various boundaries — geographical, economic, cultural, personal — are being broken apart and reconfigured every day.

Enter RFK Jr, who was, for a time, the thing itself, the political figure the entire country has been waiting for, the very figure each party both fears and longs to assimilate and cultivate: the synthesising, unifying, bold and original alternative to a desiccated two-party system.

Kennedy’s announcement, in April 2023, that he was going to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination struck terror into the party. And for good reason. Kennedy had all the trappings of the deus-ex-machina hybrid candidate. He was, nominally speaking, a staunch liberal Democrat. But beneath that, he embodied the power of legend thanks to his lineage; unlike Jeb Bush, he was not merely a dynastic descendant, but a mythic transcendent, his family history well-shrouded in the manifold mysteries of the past. Most important of all, though, he possessed a rare and precious energy that has vanished from the American scene. He represented a counterculture. More specifically, he embodied the essence of a counterculture. He was a walking, talking “Fuck you”.

“He was a walking, talking ‘Fuck you’.”

America has always thrived on countercultures, in politics, society and the arts. But in politics, it hasn’t had one since the Sixties. Occupy Wall Street couldn’t even come up with a leader’s face to put on its often-admirable sentiments. In society, a counterculture hasn’t thrived since the various waves of feminism and gay rights, the LGBTQ movement being a set of ultra-refinements. Black Lives Matter? BIPOC? More ultra-refinements. The entire woke movement was a commercially restless status quo simply turning over on its side.

The absence of a counterculture in art is even more telling. From America’s Ashcan artists, to abstract expressionism, the Beats, pop art, and the Happenings of the Sixties, America’s defiant art movements often fuelled, to one degree or another, its political and broader cultural changes. But for the past 50 years, as titanic sums of money overtook art, society, culture and politics and put even the most diabolical American energies at the disposal of PayPal: Zip. Nada. Rien. Nichevo. The last time any American came close to hearing a consequential, beautiful, original, startling, profound “fuck you” was, probably, when Ben Kingsley pronounced the first of those two words with two syllables on that semi-countercultural phenomenon, The Sopranos.

If, on every point of the political spectrum, that chthonic phrase seems to be at the core of people’s politics, if casting a vote has now become synonymous with throwing a punch, it is because America has been, for the past 50 years or so, in search of a counterculture. Unable to find it in art, popular or high, people turn politics into a form of art brut. And since the heart of a counterculture has been to confront structures of power with the simple, deconstructing, levelling fact of biology — King Lear’s “poor bare, forked animal”; Montaigne’s “kings and philosophers shit” — it is no wonder that “blood” and “murder” are often on Trump’s lips, it is no wonder that he is consumed by the idea of immigrants cooking and devouring household animals. “Fuck you” is, after all, the fundamental biological act. But it has been RFK Jr who has elevated biology to its preeminent countercultural role.

Kennedy’s entire politics are centred on biology: his anti-vaxxer convictions; his warnings about cancer-causing cellphone towers and radiation; his belief that endocrine disruptors — chemicals found in plastic and pesticides — are affecting children’s sexual development; his certainty that emotionally blunting psychiatric drugs are behind the rise in school shootings. The bear and the whale, and even the seemingly compulsive sex, are run-offs from his political and intellectual obsessions. The promise of the countercultural turn to biology is twofold: the chance to clear away rotting structures of civilised power by returning to “the foul rag and bone shop of the heart”, and the sheer democratic power of being physical, which is a gift everyone possesses. For a brief span of time, Kennedy seemed to offer both.

Kennedy is gone from the national scene now, felled by character flaws that are as fascinating to analyse as they are impossible to tolerate. No one wants Sardanapalus to be president of the United States. But his popularity is proof of concept: America is teeming with Olivia Nuzzis, vulnerable to the seductions of outlaw defiance. Hybrid outsiders will continue to make their way to the increasingly accessible inside of American politics until, one day, if things keep declining as precipitously as they are, the American eagle is replaced, to the huzzahs of Bacchanalian voters declaring Year One, with that legendary icon of a once-flourishing counterculture: Marcel Duchamp’s urinal.


Lee Siegel is an American writer and cultural critic. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award. His selected essays will be published next spring.


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Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
16 days ago

There’s a fascinating alternative history there, had Kennedy challenged Joe Biden for the nomination, because had he done so, and gone at all close, then Kamala’s coronation wouldn’t have happened. Who knows, perhaps Biden’s infirmities would have come to the fore even sooner.
Those Kennedys, as a family they’ve sure left a few What If’s in their wake.

Saul D
Saul D
16 days ago
Reply to  Seb Dakin

Kennedy did challenge Biden for the Democrat nomination originally (April 2023), but there was no way he was going to get close.
As the deselection of Biden showed, party barons and insiders have deep control of the Democrat party, and they’re not going to allow an unrestrained rebel outsider to get in to upset their apple-carts.
Like the Hollywood system, they have Kamala under a tight leash on where she appears, and what she says, in order to sell the movie they want to sell. She might be phoney and plastic like a marionette, but Democrats don’t care who is pulling the strings, so long as Harris looks like she can beat Trump.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
16 days ago
Reply to  Saul D

Exactly. Nancy Pelosi would never have allowed Kennedy to get near the throne. Back in 2007, according to Halprin’s book, ‘Game Change’ she and Harry Reid called Barack Obama into their office and got him to agree to challenge Hillary Clinton. Pelosi couldn’t stand Clinton and didn’t think she could win. If Pelosi didn’t make so much in the stock market (with her access to data on the Hill), she’d make a good horse stable owner. She’s been the ‘mafia don’ of the Democrat Party for ages. And now she’s running Harris, one of her San Francisco ‘horses’. So much for ‘saving Democracy’.

Terry M
Terry M
16 days ago
Reply to  Saul D

Exactly. The Democrats have their own Deep State, which greatly overlaps the more general Deep State.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

Just for the record, just how many of these “Deep State” things are there?

Saul D
Saul D
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

If you want some fun do a search for “interagency US government”…

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
16 days ago

Olivia Nuzzi wasn’t seduced by Bobby Kennedy. She’s a scheming but skilled journalist who made this whole affair out to be an affair by sending without encouragement Bobby Kennedy texts with a few “demure nudes”. She makes a mockery of her profession.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Shes a new journalist. Welcome to the future.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

Deeply saddening. I hope this is not our future, but just a shitty storm that soon shall pass. There are still some real journalists left out there, they’ve just become too far and few

Obadiah B Long
Obadiah B Long
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

It’s not the first time for her, either. It’s her pattern.

Richard Rolfe
Richard Rolfe
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

A case of nominative determinism. “Fancy a bit of nuzzi?”

Brett H
Brett H
16 days ago

Siegel has written something interesting here. But I was just getting up to speed in the reading then suddenly there’s the last paragraph. It’s like a larger section was missing and I’m wondering if the Unherd editors butcher some of these stories. Unless Siegel responds to this comment we’ll never know. But I would have liked to keep reading more about his observation of the outsider and US politics.
the two-party system will never be dislodged from American life. American idealism needs the conceptual simplicity of two parties the way it needs a simple framework of good and evil.
This is an interesting comment because it explains the childish simplicity with which the US public seems to view politics, the results they get and consequently the country they live in and finally the constantly destabilised world we all live in.
Both Harris and Trump … are de facto third-party candidates breaking the boundaries of what their parties stand for, as they appeal to a country whose various boundaries — geographical, economic, cultural, personal — are being broken apart and reconfigured every day.
Trump is certainly not the Republican party. The party at present would be nothing without him, perhaps only because he casts such a big shadow. He’s definitely and outsider and if he loses it’s back to the same-old same-old.
What is Harris? She’s not an outsider but she’s a fake candidate for a fake party. And the battle is between these two candidates, well so the media portrays it. Which may be true if politics in the US is as simplistic as Siegel suggests. If the Democrats had run Kennedy instead of Harris they might have made huge gains by know. That would have made for an interesting political battle which just might wake people up to what’s going on with the two party gridlock.

Martin M
Martin M
16 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

There is no way the Democrats could have run Kennedy. It would have been the end of them as a political party.

Terry M
Terry M
16 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

RJKjr is more legitimate, coherent, disciplined, experienced, and likeable than Kamala. How could he have been worse?

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
15 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

And better looking and more intelligent too!

Heather Erickson
Heather Erickson
15 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

He’s a conspiracy theory nutjob.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Terry M

RFK Jr is a crackpot conspiracy theorist crank. That is not the case with Kamala.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Because there is no Kamala.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Oh, you think she is an AI construct?

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

No, She represents nothing. She has no actual beliefs except to survive as a politician. She has never said anything that indicates there’s a thoughtful soul inside. She’s vacant and relies on prepared “heartfelt” comments, dramatic hand gestures included.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

And almost everyone here in the US knows it (sans the hypnotized-by-mainstream-media minority)

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
16 days ago

In spite of (or maybe partially because of) his voice problem, Bobby Kennedy is a persuasive speaker. He could sell snake oil for a variety of ailments, and that’s a good metaphor for what he does. To continue the metaphor, snake oil does good in some cases and never harms, so buy it if you like. Why not?
Myself, I look at Bobby Kennedy’s track record and say, I’m not buying it. He has never led an organization of any kind. Never hired people or got anything done beyond his individual contribution. And as an individual contributor, he has been a trial lawyer — the scum of the earth, in my view.
Bobby Kennedy’s voice, raspy though it is, certainly adds to the debate with some insights and creativity. But he has shown no ability to build a company or a government organization. Those things are important in the real world; abstract ideas are not.
We don’t need a litigator or a fighter in the presidency or his cabinet. We need people who look for opportunities to cooperate rather than compete. Like Donald Trump does. He’s a dealmaker. His approach to the Russia-Ukraine war is just right — pushing a process rather than a plan.
Bobby Kennedy has some good ideas, but ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution, like a chief executive does, is the key and uncommon talent. If Bobby Kennedy has that, I see no sign of it.

Peter Hall
Peter Hall
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Well he did build a very effective environmental group which cleaned up the Hudson River and he has won billions in damages from polluters and forced them to change their practices. Those are real world results against the toughest of opponents. And many of the policies that he proposes are spot on. Hopefully he can succeed the next president.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
16 days ago
Reply to  Peter Hall

Bobby Kennedy did not start or build the Riverkeepers as an organization, and was eventually kicked out of the group. His efforts there and in court ere as an individual contributor, a trial lawyer. Those skills are the last thing we need in a president.

And what people say their policies are is meaningless. Execution is the key. Bobby Kennedy has not shown executive ability. Even his campaign for president was a bit of a train wreck, almost as bad as Kamala Harris’s 2020 campaign.

Robert
Robert
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

If Bobby Kennedy has that, I see no sign of it.
And if Bobby Kennedy’s name was Bobby Jobalosky nobody would give him a second thought, including Olivia Nuzzi.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Robert

if Bobby Kennedy’s name was Bobby Jobalosky 
But it isn’t, is it? His name and life are inextricably tied together. He’s not just a Kennedy, he’s more than that because of the opportunities he’s been given being a Kennedy,

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Some of the Kennedys were undoubtedly great politicians. RFK Jr isn’t of that calibre.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

That’s not my point.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

What do you think Bobby Kennedy’s biggest accomplishment was? Where is the track record that qualifies him to be president? I don’t see it. I see a trial lawyer of some ability buoyed by his family name and connections.

Katya Plyshevsky
Katya Plyshevsky
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

He has started multiple successful organizations. Children’s Health Defense being the latest. His history of suing just about every 3 letter agency, gives him great insight into how they operate, and exactly what’s wrong with them. He is genuine, courageous, intelligent and extremely knowledgeable on many subjects, which is more than i can say for the other two. Not having been in government is a plus in my book. He is the best candidate we’ve had in decades and the corrupt Dems did everything they could to make his election impossible.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
15 days ago

The Children’s Health Defense is a good example of what Bobby Kennedy does. He did not start the organization, and has never been its chief executive officer. He swooped in as Chairman and has raised funds and brought lawsuits as its chief counsel, but the lawsuits have been a waste of time and money. Many of the cases have been dismissed with caustic comments from the judges.
The Children’s Heath Defense doesn’t seem to do much besides sue. But Bobby Kennedy takes home himself over $500,000 a year for a very part-time job doing that.
Instead of being effective as a doer in the real world, Bobby Kennedy is a dreamer and a talker. He’s never built a company or a team. He’s never done a deal. He’s as quixotic as Don Quixote, and that’s not something good to see in a president.
I listened to Bobby Kennedy once on the Joe Rogan podcast. Bobby Kennedy caught my ear with his assertion that WiFi signals cause the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. He said that there are 100s of studies that show that. But he’s wrong. There’s not 100s of studies. There’s not even one. That’s pure fiction, contrary to the laws of physics.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
16 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Kennedy might be a great contributor to a Trump administration. I like his ideas on health and environmental pollution as long as he only sticks to those. Although my fear is that taking on all these big egos, also Elon Musk as efficiency tsar, problems will eventually arise, people will get fired and ultimately create a powerful mess for Trump’s presidency . Hopefully I am wrong.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Maybe if RFK Jr was President, he could institute a Federal program to find the carcasses of all dead bears, wherever they fall, and bring them to Central Park.

Martin M
Martin M
16 days ago

Enter RFK Jr, who was, for a time, the thing itself, the political figure the entire country has been waiting for….” It might be true that the country was waiting for someone like that, but the fact that RFK Jr is barking mad counts against him being a “political messiah” of this nature.

Brett H
Brett H
16 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Certainly no worse than just about all the politicians throughout the world. Maybe you’ve just forgotten what individuals look like. These days a real individual is regarded as something of a “strongman” or “barking mad” and a threat to our rights, when in fact they’re a threat to the ones already grabbing at our rights.

Martin M
Martin M
16 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

RFK Jr is not a “strongman” in the political sense. I mean, Trump is probably a “strongman”, but I don’t recall any stories of him dumping a dead bear in Central Park. Also, Trump has on occasion embraced a few odd stories, but he is not a full-house conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr.

Brett H
Brett H
16 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Yes, I have used those words a bit loosely. What I meant is that the true individual, the outsider, whatever form that takes, is a threat to the system and so branded as dangerous and out of control. Sort of ironic for the USA, or proof of the myth and lie.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Trump himself was an “outsider” (in 2016 anyway), but he was nothing like RFK Jr.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

That’s the thing about outsiders, they’re nothing like the others.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

The longer you spend “in the system”, the harder it gets to paint yourself as an “outsider”.

Sawfish
Sawfish
14 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

To my mind, Trump is a blunt-to-the-point of insensitivity reactionary who uses provocative rhetoric to gain public attention. He is light on well-defined policy, but he is within a recognizable norm. It has been the work of the Democratic party to gaslight the nation into thinking he is philosophically outrageous.
It’s his rhetoric, not his actual political stance, that’s outrageous. I’d consider him an economic moderate when compared to those who say they wish to tax unrealized gains.

0 0
0 0
16 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Grabbing at what exactly?

Terry M
Terry M
16 days ago
Reply to  0 0

Forgot the pandemic already? Don’t listen to the news?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
16 days ago
Reply to  0 0

Democracy for instance?

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
16 days ago

Striking piece, clear and original.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
16 days ago

1) there is no evidence RFK had a ‘relationship’ with this woman. It was more that she threw her digital body at him, he tried to block but she kept coming.
2) He found the bear not in Central Park but in upstate NY, and brought it to Central Park.
3) “If ever the country needed a parliamentary system…”?!? What the F is this guy talking about? Show me a single parliamentary system that is coping better than the US with the current fallout from postmodernism and the economic and policital decline of the American Empire? This reads as a shallow attempt to chip away at the constitutional bedrock that remains the US’s strongest protection against all this manure…
4) Next comes Siegel’s bizarre paragraph on how Harris is both ‘a stark contradiction’ and ‘an invitation to be all things to all people’. What does that even mean? She’s an airhead with a little political ambition and connections to some powerful people who trust her to do exactly what she’s told.
5) Finally, I made it to the rant about ‘counterculture’ which reads as nothing more than an admission that Lee Siegel is an old fart. For what is meme culture, if not counterculture in its purest essence? Or else go watch a Flashgitz video on YT, old man. Point is, Siegel wouldn’t know counterculture if it hit him in his chthonic nose.

Catherine Conroy
Catherine Conroy
16 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Ah, thank you. You’ve pretty much articulated my reaction to this pretensious article. (I’m an old fart by the way).

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
16 days ago

Me too 🙂

Jo Jo
Jo Jo
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

And me, wondered what it was about.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
16 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

In re: “…parliamentary system”
The Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Danes and others are dealing with and adapting to the populist swing in their electorates. We, on the other hand, are still being censored and shunned for such populist leanings. More than 45% of the US electorate are officially independent, with no party representation in our own governance.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
16 days ago

The Germans are certainly NOT dealing with and adapting to the populist swing in their electorates. They are a hair’s breadth away from banning the only real alternative party to the mainstream coalition, all of course in the name of ‘democracy’.
http://www.eugyppius.com for more on what’s happening in the Federal Republic.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

And yet they’ve started to back away from their mass immigration scheme. The very fact that they’re talking about it, no matter how insincerely, puts them way ahead of the US.
(What does Eugyppius have to do with it?)

Jo Jo
Jo Jo
13 days ago

He’s a German blogger, mostly writes about Politics, and also AfD. Usually interesting, and entertaining.

Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
16 days ago

The Republicans are trying to deal with populists while not losing any more than necessary of their old base.

Traditional politics would have seen the Democrats also trying to respond to the populist groundswell, but they have so much money, institutional power, and the ability to personalize and demonize Trump (per Alinsky’s playbook) that they expect to win total victory without compromising.

This all is not a structural problem to be cured by proportional representation, which is what Siegel really means. It is a problem of a totalitarian-minded regime having assembled unprecedented power and seeking to consolidate it before the people wake up.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin Johnson

None of which would have happened in a parliamentary system. I’m not sure what you mean by “proportional representation”; I was talking about “parliamentary” representation.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago

The main difference between the US system and that used in other Anglosphere countries is that the legislative and the executive are split. If the US had a Parliamentary system, Mike Johnson (as the Leader of the majority party in the Lower House) would probably be Prime Minister (and thus Head of Government), and Joe Biden would hold a ceremonial role. In Australia (where I live), we even have a Senate, but it doesn’t really count for much.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago

Most European countries have proportional representation, so it is easier for populist outsiders to get a toehold.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
16 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Outstanding comment, particularly the last paragraph and the use of chthonic, which would seem to apply to many of UnHerd’s contributors over the last year or so.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
16 days ago

Ta Allison 🙂

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
16 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Siegel doesn’t seem to have realised that all politics in the West now consists of electorates trying, with mixed success, to rid themselves of an entrenched governing class that has ceased to serve their interests or cater to their real needs in any way at all in favour of pandering to corporate and bureaucratic vested interests and rent-seeking NGOs.

It’s all pretty straightforward really.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

I think they’ve realised it. In fact, they’re trying to put a stop to it.

David Sharples
David Sharples
14 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

After reading this article I’m questioning my recent subscription.
I do not agree with RFK on many things, however I do respect him. This is clearly an unfair hit piece. I’m not paying for propaganda, when the regular press has it for free.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  David Sharples

Agree that UnHerd is going downhill by highlighting his blabbering articles, for sure, and it doesn’t make me feel like expending the energy to find more intelligent pieces. Perhaps it’s time to rethink my subscription as well…

Jason Smith
Jason Smith
16 days ago

True outsider!? A spoilt brat, raised on privilege and almost unlimited wealth to believe he was better than everyone, and couldn’t understand why nobody wanted him to be president

Terry M
Terry M
16 days ago
Reply to  Jason Smith

An outsider to the Dem party elite, not to the overall oligarchy.

Geoff W
Geoff W
15 days ago
Reply to  Jason Smith

Indeed, the very embodiment of the Establishment. If it wasn’t for his surname, we would never have heard of this moronic overgrown frat boy.

0 0
0 0
16 days ago

Lots of cute takes here on what passes for politics over there. But overselling RFKs appeal like that makes one worried Siegel has been charmed more than a bit himself at one time or another. That doesn’t exactly reinforce his authority.

Alex Cranberg
Alex Cranberg
16 days ago

This piece is just trying too hard. RFK was felled not by character flaws but by party machinations. The effort to delegitimize him more of the same. The two party system only seems hard pressed compared to what a parliamentary system would deliver because we are in one of our periodic healthy bouts of realignment and party identity shifts. Ultimately the two outsiders got together.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
16 days ago

Maybe, just maybe, America is “teeming” with people frustrated by the same ole, same ole in DC, the self-enriching cabal that serves the interests of donors rather than its constituents. Maybe instead of feverishly nitpicking at character flaws for the sake of tearing down someone who has cut through the white noise, it would be instructive to consider how that white noise came to be, how it has failed to serve the interests of ordinary Americans, and how the presence of outsiders is a symptom of that.
Maybe instead of the usual ad hominem slung toward RFK, Jr. over real things that are happening with kids, the author could look into what is causing those issues if it’s not vaccines and the other stuff that Kennedy blames. Because those things are happening. This, of course, requires more than being a keyboard warrior, dispensing insults and nonsense, with a sprinkling of things like this: felled by character flaws that are as fascinating to analyse as they are impossible to tolerate.”
This country twice elected Bill Clinton so, no, some character flaws are not impossible to tolerate. Kamala Harris was once a side chick, but the party tolerates that. Dan Walz lies as easily as he smiles, and the same tolerance abounds. The issue is not Kennedy or Trump, per se, it’s how a system has become corrupted to the point where Donald is possible and a legacy Dem no longer recognizes his own party.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Yep, you nailed it

mac mahmood
mac mahmood
16 days ago

Seems to me that parties in the US themselves have become outsiders in the system fighting a rear guard battle to remain relevant.

Colin Stobbs
Colin Stobbs
16 days ago

Yet another incredibly weak piece about American politics along with Rosie’s bit about Trumps women. They add virtually nothing to our understanding of what’s going on and almost seem designed to obfuscate.
Emily Jashinsky is much more real and useful than this crap so there is some discernment in there. Is the bar so low, are the editors out to lunch or is this Unherd being constructive with an agenda?
Anyone with half an eye on the US election can see that RFK dropped out because the DNC was all out to get him removed from the ticket (and any debate) and he just didn’t have the resources to combat it. It does not look good for anyone trying to break this 2 party (if not 2 sides of a single coin) setup.
When are we going to get away from this beauty pagent view of political leaders, they are all flawed just as we are, and get back to policies and actions?

Timothy Denton
Timothy Denton
16 days ago

This article is pretentious nonsense. RFK is a serious and important figure in US politics.

Heather Erickson
Heather Erickson
15 days ago
Reply to  Timothy Denton

No he’s not

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago

Yes he is, No he’s not. Yes he is, No he’s not. Get it?

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Timothy Denton

He certainly has way more comedic value than most politicians. I’ll give him that.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
16 days ago

This article is laughable. Kamala is not a third party candidate; she is literally the creation of the Democrat Party. She won no primary in 2019, even though she was treated as a leading candidate. When she joined Biden as his VP in 2020, there was no bounce for her and Biden in the polls. She won no primary in 2024. In fact Biden was allowed to run so long for re-election even though he was clearly senile, so that there was no time for primaries to be held and for a genuine candidate to defeat Kamala, as Bernie Sanders had defeated Hilary Clinton in 2016.
Kamala is the empty vessel into which the Democrat elite pour their funders’ policies. She is the person who charms those inside her party but can barely get a vote amongst even Democrat voters. She is the half-black half-Indian woman who strikes no chord with black or Asian voters.

David George
David George
15 days ago

“Empty vessel” pretty much sums it up. Her foul tempered, face like a split sack, running mate Walz just as empty and unlikeable.
Trump needs to make more of his remarkable team, J D Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy. All of them competent, courageous and committed. God bless them.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  David George

Yeah, Trump needs to push that “immigrants eating cats” thing more. That’s a winner.

David George
David George
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Some people think all cultures are equal, they are delusional.

Micael Gustavsson
Micael Gustavsson
15 days ago
Reply to  David George

A culture that tolerates lies about immigrants eating pets is surely inferior.

Jamie
Jamie
16 days ago

It is the case that RFK is staggeringly articulate and informed, and persuasive. That a “columnist” —Siegel— reduces RFK’s oratory to “seduction” betrays this columnist’s own vulnerability to the charms of the Kennedys. Read Naomi Wolf on this topic, look in the mirror and weep. Put any, any! Present candidate on the debate stage with RFK and see what happens.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  Jamie

Mic drop

Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson
16 days ago

Calling Kamala Harris an outsider hybrid is ridiculous. She is the quintessential hack politician, recognizable to anyone with a nodding familiarity with traditional machine politics. She has no beliefs other than to advance herself by doing whatever her betters tell her to do, just like minor officials under Tammany or the mid-century Chicago Democrats or a large number of old political machines. This makes her the perfect candidate of the new, oligarchic Democratic Party. The only odd things are the way she was made a Presidential candidate, and how rare it has been to have such an empty hack in that position.

As for RFK being rejected, not a word about the well-organized work of the DNC and its affiliates to demonize him and use lawfare to keep him off primary ballots, while financially bleeding him?

Really!! Siegel has usually been pretty good but in the last couple of weeks, something about his work has changed and not for the better.

blue 0
blue 0
16 days ago

Lee writes
“Kennedy is gone from the national scene now, felled by character flaws that are as fascinating to analyse as they are impossible to tolerate”
No Lee, RFK is gone because the corrupt, intolerant Democrat party performed many illegal actions to keep him off the ballot.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  blue 0

Yeah that, and that he’s a complete lunatic.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Keep drinking your cool-aid, son.

Heather Erickson
Heather Erickson
15 days ago

Who the heck wrote this? Not an American. Noone in America gave two shits about this guy, hence why he dropped out.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago

In May this year among crucial independent voters, Kennedy was pulling in 16 percent support.” That’s hardly no one.

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Take the surname away, and he’d be just another fringe crank.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

So you think 16% of voters would be voting on the name only, not the point of view he has about different issues?

Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Some yes. Others would themselves be fringe cranks, who are voting for a kindred spirit.

Attention Surplus Disorder
Attention Surplus Disorder
14 days ago

This whole article is unintelligible gibberish.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
13 days ago

I don’t know why I bother to read your drivel… maybe it’s akin to gawking at a terrible car wreck. Kennedy has most certainly *not* vanished from the scene, he and Tulsi Gabbard are basically touring and explaining to the truly exhausted majority of people who are done with the two-party shit show that there are new ways to build coalitions. You are a transparent partisan hack if I’ve ever seen one. In your words, sir, “f**k YOU”

Dana I
Dana I
13 days ago

What an inane, pseudo-intellectual pile of garbage this article is

mike flynn
mike flynn
12 days ago

Stopped reading when you called Harris a de facto 3d party candidate. Ludicrous.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
12 days ago

Well I am cancelling my subscription as this is not accurate.
Imagine devoting your life to cleaning up the lakes and water in US. Then taking on the ludicrous situation where we have some 20 vaccines before you are 18. None of them have a safety certificate which means they have not had a control group. Imagine that! I am not any vax but appreciate when someone stands up and asks for proof. CDC have in 2014 agreed after he sued them that no child vax had a safety record.