Anyway, I followed his campaign and watched his concession/endorsement speech where he cried and said he prayed for 19 years for God to put him in a position to help children.
For me it was when he was talking to Tucker about kids with developmental problems and said that if he could give his life to help just one of these children he'd do it - and that he'd do just about anything to help them all.
The vaccine and health arguments take on an entirely new dimension if you have one of these kids. If you've spent 15 years watching 'professionals' take your money and then shrug and walk away like they're a cop responding to an auto theft. With that same exact attitude of 'yeah this is technically my job but I don't care and it's not happening and you're absolutely not invited to comment on that'.
If you've spent 10 years having concerned strangers come by asking if they can help because they're watching you wrestle your seizing child and give her rescue breaths because she hasn't breathed in 90 seconds and her lips are turning blue. If you know exactly the nonchalant inflection to use when you say "oh, no thanks, unfortunately this is old hat", which is really all you can do to evangelize the fact that physicians literally can't do anything and literally don't care.
If you've spent 15 years meeting other parents of other kids who all have the same experience and confirm it's systemic. The experience of taking a car to a repairman and getting insanely padded bills and a car that still doesn't have the original problem fixed.
If you know none of those other parents believe the "vaccines cause autism" strawman but also are all aware that it is a strawman and know specifics about vaccines post-1986 and know that moral hazard is a thing and are therefore aware that there is a reckoning that's about 30 years overdue there.
Hopefully you can all see this is a bit more nuanced than "hey this fake anarchist is supporting socialism". The failures of this system go much deeper than we talk about. If someone resurrected Joe fucking Stalin and he was suddenly parading around talking about taking a hammer to the US medical system specifically because of how it has failed the parents of these children, I'd call that a good thing. I'd still point out where he was wrong. But the problem with RFKjr is that he's
not Joe Stalin. He's a guy who says some other sensible things on other topics.
He might believe in a version of America that I recognize is a fairy tale. But the thing is, belief is powerful. If you get enough people to believe something, it becomes real. RFK believes we can use the ring of power for good. Maybe if enough people believe that it can happen at least a little. Maybe my daughter won't die alone as a ward of the state. Those are my stakes, and I'm willing to budge on ideological purity as much as RFK is asking me to.
