Oddball Kennedy backs Trump

Until now, few would have thought it conceivable that Robert Kennedy Jr, scion of the best-known family in US Democratic politics, would work with Donald Trump to keep a Democrat out of the White House. But that is what happened at the weekend when Mr Kennedy, 70 – son of former senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963 – abandoned his own quixotic quest for the presidency and threw in his lot with Mr Trump, 78, a man he had described as “probably a sociopath”, “barely human”, and the “worse (sic) president ever”.

Mr Trump has had his own epithets for Mr Kennedy, who had been derided in the US media as a “crackpot” or, as The Wall Street Journal put it, a former Democrat who “lives in the fever swamps with his anti-vaccination views, his support for an extreme climate agenda, and his belief that American health ills are largely the result of collusion between big business and government regulators … he’s also the guy who admitted recently to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park”.

In the past, Mr Trump described Mr Kennedy as “one of the most liberal lunatics ever to run for office”. But that did not stop him, at the weekend, from gushing: “I know they (Mr Kennedy’s father and uncle JFK) are looking down right now and they are very, very proud of Bobby”.

Mr Kennedy’s five siblings disagree. In a joint statement, they said: “Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear”.

Whether Mr Kennedy’s endorsement will make any difference to the result of November’s election remains to be seen.
Mr Kennedy lost about half of his standing in the polls since Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Most were disgruntled Democrats who were returning to Kamala Harris. A recent poll indicated Mr Kennedy had about 2 per cent electoral support. It could make a difference in swing states such as Arizona and Georgia, where Mr Biden won narrowly in 2020. It also shows how odd the race for the White House has become.