Sanewashing the anti-vaxxer destroying American scientific research and nostalgia by proxy
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I know we’ve already had a couple of posts about Daniel Immerwahr’s disgraceful sanewashing of RFK Jr., but there’s so much bad content in it that we haven’t covered perhaps the most egregious passages. Let’s start with some classic BothSidesism:
To Elizabeth Warren, Kennedy was an “anti-science conspiracy peddler.” Vaccines, 9/11, 5G networks, pasteurization, fluoride, AIDS, lab leaks, electoral theft, assassinations—“he’s nuts on a lot of fronts,” the New York Post’s editorial board concluded. The reporter Peter Bergen once asked Kennedy if there was any major event in the past decades for which he did accept the official explanation. The moon landing, Kennedy replied. He believed that one. But, even here, he had an idiosyncratic (and impeccably Kennedyesque) explanation. “I went skiing with Buzz Aldrin every year,” he said. “I knew the astronauts.”
So Kennedy was a wide target. Yet, awkwardly for this firing squad, he had until recently been one of their own. He spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Two years later, he appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair with Al Gore, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney as a member of the “Green Team.” (“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one of the most respected environmental advocates in the country,” the accompanying article explained.) In 2008, Barack Obama reportedly considered nominating him to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sure, Elizabeth Warren might think RFK Jr. was a crackpot then, but how do you explain how he once appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, a publication which has certainly never been known to devote coverage to any Massachusetts political dynasties? And did you know he was “reportedly considered” for a cabinet position? (I’m now remembering how every four years Politico or Axios will get some reliable rageclicks by publishing an anonymous list in which every cabinet position in an upcoming Democratic administration will be occupied by a finance CEO or Rahm Emmanuel.) CHECKMATE LIBS!
It gets much, much worse:
As Kennedy’s opponents saw it, the difference was that, regarding vaccines, he had lost his mind. At the confirmation hearing, Bernie Sanders invoked “sixteen studies done by scientists and doctors all over the world saying that vaccines do not cause autism.” Kennedy was unfazed. “Look at the I.O.M. assessment of those sixteen studies, Senator,” he replied, referring to the Institute of Medicine.
Sanders batted this away. “You have said, ‘The COVID vaccine was the deadliest vaccine ever made.’ ”
“The reason I said that, Senator Sanders, is because there were more reports on the VAERS system,” Kennedy explained, referring to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which collects self-reported data. “There were more reports of injuries and deaths than any, than all other vaccines combined.”
Sanders continued: “You disagree with the scientific community that—”
“Oh, I just, I’m agnostic, because we don’t have the science to make that determination.”
Citing evidence, ignoring appeals to authority, reserving judgment, demanding more research—these are potentially exhausting traits in a conversational partner, but they’re also marks of a scientific mind. Rather than being “anti-science,” Kennedy seems enchanted by it. His accusatory book “The Real Anthony Fauci” (2021) is packed with discussions of clinical studies, and it bears a blurb from a Nobel-winning virologist. (Anyone worried about the lack of public appetite for complex writing should contemplate the fact that this nearly five-hundred-page, data-drenched work of nonfiction has sold more than a million copies.) Kennedy has published two books with the subtitle “Let the Science Speak.”
This childish logical fallacy is the classic defense crank conspiracy theories use to defend themselves — expressing skepticism and citing various sources are things that scientists do, therefore every expression of skepticism and citation of sources is scientific. RFK Jr’s anti-vaxx conspiracy theorizing — which is currently playing a direct role in making children sick and in some cases dead — is just another form of science.
And what about RFK Jr.’s work of great seriousity, which was blurbed by a NOBEL PRIZE WINNER?
Indeed, let's look at some more of the blurbs for this very serious treatise from the very rigorously scientific RFK Jr.
[image or embed]— Scott Lemieux (@lemieuxlgm.bsky.social) May 26, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Very convenient to leave out the salient fact that the Nobel Prize winner has turned into a total crank, which is why he fits nicely alongside Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, which in turns explains why RFK Jr’s anti-Fauci hatchet job is sitting unread on so many shelves and coffee tables, and it sure ain’t about the public’s “appetite for complex writing.” Christ.
At this point, we should note again that if Trump’s head of HHS said and did all the same things but was an evangelical with no elite connections from Oklahoma or Mississippi, there’s zero chance the New Yorker would be publishing articles suggesting that he’s just doing a different kind of real science than actual scientists, as he joins the Trump administration’s efforts to destroy scientific research in the United States:
reputable medical journals keep saying that RFK and his pro-disease friends are full of shit and so naturally they must be shunned www.politico.com/news/2025/05…
[image or embed]— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) May 27, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Immerwahr’s dancing with various Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories gives away the show here. But…why? Where is this nostalgia for the Kennedys among people born decades after Oswald shot Kennedy coming from? I don’t get it, and I’ve never gotten it. But it’s really, really, really time to get the fuck over it already. And if Elite editors could stop running intelligence-insulting RFK Jr. Might Have a Point Actually pieces that would be great. This stuff is just Andrew Sullivan promoting The Bell Curve for the 21st century.
RFK jr is “enchanted” by science in the sense that he is a race scientist who believes in magic and eugenics
[image or embed]— Julia Carrie Wong (@joolia.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 10:04 AM