Make America Healthy Again is a joke.

[zurew]

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/26/politics/kfile-rfk-jr-trump-endorsement/index.html

Quote

 

Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of criticizing the man he now supports, including calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”

For years, Kennedy has repeatedly condemned Trump, referring to him as a “bully,” who appealed to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “xenophobia” and “prejudice.” Among the chief attacks Kennedy has leveled at Trump through the 2024 campaign is to accuse him of corruption for turning his administration over to corporate lobbyists and special interests and failing to “drain the swamp” as he’d promised.

But on Friday, Kennedy was full of praise for Trump, saying that while he and the former president “don’t agree on everything,” they do share similar isolationist views on US foreign policy, government censorship, and the need to address chronic disease in America.

 

Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett in April, Kennedy said Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election were appalling and a threat to democracy 

“I think that is a threat to democracy, (Trump) overthrowing — trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said

“There’s words, and then there’s actions… and when it comes to Trump, they simply don’t match,” he wrote in July.

And speaking in an interview on Breaking Points in July, Kennedy harshly attacked Trump for his time in office.

“I think Donald Trump was a terrible president,” Kennedy said. “I think a lot of the rhetoric that he talks about, I agree with, I think we need to wind down – you know, the swamp. But he wasn’t doing that. I don’t think he’s capable of governing of meeting the expectations and fulfilling the promises that he raises with his rhetoric.”

 

Edited November 22 by zurew

[How to be wise]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@How to be wise

“Despite rhetoric to the contrary, President Trump has a weakness for swamp creatures, especially corporate monopolies, their lobbyists, and their money.” -- RFK Jr

https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1800701275111399433

Before you ask why I changed my mind about RFK, you should ask why RFK changed his mind about Trump. And then consider which of us is aligned with integrity and which is not.

Let me prove once and for all that you suffer from a worse case of TDS than Stephen Colbert.

You said in your blog post last year that RFK has “some very good ideas”. What were those ideas you were talking about?

[Leo Gura]

Just now, How to be wise said:

You said in your blog post last year that RFK has “some very good ideas”. What were those ideas you were talking about?

Getting rid of corporate lobbying is a great idea.

But you are insane if you think any progress on that will happen in a Trump admin.

[Scholar]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Getting rid of corporate lobbying is a great idea.

But you are insane if you think any progress on that will happen in a Trump admin.

Lobbyism serves an important function, do you know what it is?

[How to be wise]

33 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Getting rid of corporate lobbying is a great idea.

What else? Let’s get you brainstorming. Clearly that wasn’t the only thing you liked about him. 

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

What else? Let’s get you brainstorming. Clearly that wasn’t the only thing you liked about him. 

I am not going to play your bad faith games since you don't even have the decency to admit that RFK is a bullshitter for flipping his own position of Trump.

First let me hear you say that RFK is a power-seeking corrupt snake. Then I can engage further with you. Let's hear you acknowledge every quote where RFK called Trump out as a corrupt monster.

Edited November 23 by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

On 11/21/2024 at 0:31 PM, Leo Gura said:

No. I said I did deeper research to uncover his deceptive, lying, and delusional nature.

He comes off as a nice guy in interviews. But when you actually research his past, his conduct with women, his drug abuse, his delusional conspiracy theories -- and how he lies about all that -- you realize how deluded he is.

Of course he's doing it all with good intentions from his POV, but that doesn't make it good.

His support for Trump is just the final nail in the coffin of his character, in case you missed the deep research.

Have to concur.  The guy even looks like a snake.  

 

On 11/21/2024 at 1:02 PM, Leo Gura said:

. Because obviously the Devil will never allow me to spread truth in his presence.

 

The Devil would not have any control over that.  You give him too much power.

Edited November 23 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

The Devil is not just one person, it is a system that corrupts you as you make compromises to play within it.

Edited November 23 by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The Devil is not just one person, it is a system.

But how do you not defeat the devil other than infiltrating his defenses via deception?  You cannot defeat him head on you have to use his own tactics which is deception and defeat him from within.

[Buck Edwards]

1 minute ago, Inliytened1 said:

But how do you not defeat the devil other than infiltrating his defenses via deception?  You cannot defeat him head on you have to use his own tactics which is deception and defeat him from within.

That would be akin to becoming the devil. 

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

But how do you not defeat the devil other than infiltrating his defenses via deception?  You cannot defeat him head on you have to use his own tactics which is deception and defeat him from within.

I just don't trust anyone part of the Trump admin to do that. No way am I going to assume anyone in Trump's orbit is doing that.

It would be safer to assume that they are molesting children behind close doors than secretly undermining the Devil.

Edited November 23 by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I just don't trust anyone part of the Trump admin to do that. No way am I going to assume anyone in Trump's orbit is doing that.

It would be safer to assume that they are molesting children behind close doors than secretly undermining the Devil.

They're too busy up Musk's ass watching rockets launch at the moment.  May as well call the guy who is top 10 in Diablo the President.  Talk about the devil. 

Edited November 23 by Inliytened1

[Inliytened1]

11 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

That would be akin to becoming the devil. 

Who judges who is the Devil and who is God?  Is there some outside guy and if so what is he?

[Jodistrict]

Kennedy has high integrity.  He was the only one who had the courage to run for president against the wishes of the democratic party machine (same as what Bernie Sanders did).  He decided to run as an independent because the system was rigged to nominate Joe Biden, rather than having a fair primary contest.  Notice, that it turned out RFK was correct.  If they had had a fair primary, the democrats would have won. 

RFK then tried to talk to Kamala Harris but she refused to meet with him.  Trump was more open minded.  He made a deal with Trump.  Notice again that RFK’s intuition was correct.  Trump won.   To limit RFK’s influence the democratic party machine has called him names and slandered his reputation through their MSM outlets.   Most Americans no longer trust the MSM for their propaganda and lack of depth and real information.   RFK is not a nut because propaganda says so.  Look at the entire situation and ask yourself who has conducted himself with more honor:  RFK or the democratic party machine and their MSM cronies.  

Edited November 23 by Jodistrict

[How to be wise]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I am not going to play your bad faith games since you don't even have the decency to admit that RFK is a bullshitter for flipping his own position of Trump.

First let me hear you say that RFK is a power-seeking corrupt snake. Then I can engage further with you. Let's hear you acknowledge every quote where RFK called Trump out as a corrupt monster.

I don’t have a bad opinion of RFK. He was invited by a major candidate to join his team, and he took it. I can’t blame him for that.
 

And as far as I can tell, he was not invited by Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. It actually says something about Trump that he is willing to reach out to someone who was a) running against him, and b) was running for a while in the opposing party. 
 

Trump doesn’t mind having people around him who, just four years ago, helped get him out of the White House. Musk, Rogan, Gabbard, RFK. These are all people who voted for Biden in 2020, and Trump is now willing to have them on his team. 
 

I don’t have a negative view of Trump personally, even though I disagree with him in some positions. 

[zazen]

@Jodistrict I see where you’re coming from. There’s a way of viewing integrity as being beyond bipartisan politics to the point your willing to cross tribal lines for the sake of your cause.

Perhaps he’s not betraying principles, he’s betraying the need for applause and risking tribal backlash because of what’s important to get done - being pragmatic over ideological - because the state of a nation requires it. This isn’t some purity contest - which is exactly what a lot of democrat defectors have said it’s become (Cenk most recently).

Maybe a lot of the big names migrating to the Republican side view it as more workable and mouldable. Their not necessarily all narcissists or devils - maybe just architects seeing the R party as unformed clay they can work with.

None of us can know RFK’s intent or what’s going on in his head, but if he’s pure intentioned then he isn’t playing the political game, he’s thrown the game board away completely for what he thinks matters.

Flirt with opinions, date ideas, marry principles, divorce ideologies.

Edited November 23 by zazen

[mmKay]

I’m struggling to put my thoughts together about RFK Jr. and how to be actually holistically fair when judging politicians beyonds their politics ( I'm aware this is not very pragmatic and potentially naive). Honestly, thinking about politics feels like a waste of time for me at this stage of life, so here’s a raw take polished by ChatGPT:

Some context:

RFK Jr. is 70 years old—he’s at the tail end of his life. He’s not a highly developed person, psychologically or morally. He’s not particularly wise, but at least his intentions seem okay. He’s no saint, martyr, or even an above-average person. He’s just an average Joe—and even calling him “average” might be too kind.

To be real, we’re talking about an old crusty dude in politics. And let’s face it: politics attracts a certain type of person—power-hungry people. That’s just the reality of the field. You don’t get into politics without some hunger for power. (Leo made a great post recently about this.)

Expecting someone like RFK Jr. to have the emotional and cognitive rigor, the wisdom, and the moral strength to resist the path of least resistance of  endorsing MAGA and joining Trump’s administration is just asking too much. He's definitely not a hollistic systems thinker. He’s not going to sit around thinking about the long-term wellbeing of society decades after he’s gone. That’s unrealistic. He's full of selfish BS as most of us are. We paint our selfish survival games in a light of someting noble to feel better about ourselves and about what we do. It's just chimp survival games in the end.

We’re being unfair to him by judging him with such a big-picture, holistic perspective. RFK Jr. is just another chimp—like most of humanity. Holding him to some high standard of decency is a very tall order, especially for someone in his position.

The reality is, this old crusty average Joe rationalized and deceived himself into thinking that joining and endorsing MAGA was a good idea. He probably thought, “This is my chance to get my foot in the door and do something positive.” To avoid cognitive dissonance or guilt, he backward-rationalized that MAGA isn’t so bad after all. His positions on vaccines—and probably other things—are completely bonkers. And yes, it’s absurd that he thinks he can achieve anything significant under Trump’s administration. Nothing will get done. In fact, things will probably get worse. But from his perspective, it made sense.

Is he the absolute worst option?

Sure, RFK Jr. is a damn bad pick when you look at the big picture. His ideas aren’t great, and his “good intentions” are questionable. But compared to some of the absolutely batshit people who could be in charge of the health department, he’s not the worst. At least his intention isn’t entirely terrible in contrast to how corrupt or malicious someone else might be.

This situation is what you’d expect from someone of his character and circumstances. He’s at the end of his life, power-hungry ( understandable) , working in a field dominated by power-hungry people, and lacks the wisdom,  foresight or maturity to understand the broader consequences of his actions. If you were in his shoes—70 years old, with limited time left, and a chance to play a game you find meanigful—what would you do? Would you have the drive and integrity to go solo, reject the path of least resistance of sideing with MAGA and backwards-rationalizing your behavior?  It’s easy to say you’d resist, but most people wouldn’t.

Conclusion:

Analyzing RFK Jr. too holistically or from a big-picture perspective and holding him to an above average standard feels unfair. He’s not some saint or moral crusader. He’s a pertty flawed, naive old man who rationalized his way into believing he could do something good or entretaining or self-serving before he dies. Sure, we can see through the delusion and recognize the harm his actions cause, but expecting him to act like some highly developed, morally superior person is unreasonable. In the end, he’s just a old crusty average joe guy in politics doing what he thinks is right, even if it’s deeply flawed.

That being said, who endorses Trump and MAGA is a good litmus test for integrity, but for cognitive and moral development  its quite a low bar. Most people are selfish and self deceived so its not that hard to fall for MAGA.

About RFK being oportunisting and sideing with trump, I dont know if that litmus test is 100% accurrate ( hear me out -- half baked analogy) 

A guy could be absolutely straight, not attracted to men at all whatsoever. 100% straight.
If hes offered 5 million for sleeping with a guy and he accepts, does that mean that his true colors had allways been homo ( or bi ) ?  Or that he's being oportunistic and doesn't value his integrity that high and has other priorities whether conscious or subconscious? An is it really that surprising that afterwards he rationalizeds to himself how this actually is good and fits with his character and values?

Just food for thought on how to poke sideing with MAGA as a litmus test ( its an ccurrate judgement of character 99'99% of the times IMO)

Edited November 23 by mmKay

[How to be wise]

9 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

Kennedy has high integrity.  He was the only one who had the courage to run for president against the wishes of the democratic party machine (same as what Bernie Sanders did). 

RFK then tried to talk to Kamala Harris but she refused to meet with him.  Trump was more open minded.  He made a deal with Trump.  Notice again that RFK’s intuition was correct.  Trump won.   To limit RFK’s influence the democratic party machine has called him names and slandered his reputation through their MSM outlets.   

True!

[Leo Gura]

More RFK epistemic pervertry:

People who support RFK are epistemic perverts. That's the whole appeal! That's what he's selling.

If you are an epistemic pervert you need someone who will champion your pervertry.

Edited November 23 by Leo Gura

[Yimpa]