Can We Ever "Heal the Divide"?

A recent exchange on FB with an old friend exemplifies just how deep the divide is. Author Dick Russell offers some insights into why Kennedy is the most vilified person in America.

I believe that we are at odds with our own appointed authorities who use legacy media to keep us in conflict with each other, distracting us from the real battle. Standing together we have a chance to restore power to the body politic so that our government will fulfill its original purpose, to serve the interests of the people.

The confirmation hearing of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. exposes the gaping chasm between two opposing views of reality. While rejecting him as the head of the HHS will not make vaccine skepticism go away, confirming him may be the biggest step in getting to the bottom of things—a place where we all can come together…

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How does one respond to the image above, a meme which references a story that the New York Times published in May, 2024?

Does it make you laugh at the state of affairs if a bug-eyed conspiracy theorist actually may become in charge of a 1.8 trillion dollar budget and sit in the cabinet of the United States?

Or does it remind you of how far the “Grey Lady” has fallen, stooping so low to run a story that suggests that this man, who has published books with thousands of peer-reviewed citations, who can deliver moving speeches without a teleprompter and disarm his most ardent critics with logic and data when given a chance to speak is somehow cognitively impaired?

An old friend of mine posted this on his FaceBook page. It’s from a FB group called “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 2024”:

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked into his Senate confirmation hearing like a man stepping onto an ice rink wearing banana peels for shoes. He had one job: convince the world that he was not a bug-eyed conspiracy theorist who once hoarded a whale head and left a bear carcass in Central Park. Instead, he walked out as the leading cause of migraines among Democratic senators.

This was supposed to be his moment of redemption, his big I’m-not-actually-insane speech. Instead, it turned into a political demolition derby featuring protesters screaming that he was a liar and a killer, Bernie Sanders interrogating him about baby clothes, Elizabeth Warren asking if he planned to run HHS like a side hustle, and a surreal moment where Kennedy had to confirm that he probably said Lyme disease was a military bioweapon. By the end of the day, Capitol Police had forcibly removed more people from the chamber than a dive bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

Kennedy barely got through his opening statement before a woman exploded from the gallery like a jack-in-the-box filled with rage and science degrees.

“YOU LIE!” she screamed, holding up a sign that read VACCINES SAVE LIVES before being swiftly tackled and dragged out by Capitol Police.

Kennedy blinked rapidly, which is how you know he was hearing the voice of the worm that used to live in his brain whispering, Abort mission, Bobby. Abort mission.

A brief moment of peace settled over the room, and then it happened again.

“YOU'RE KILLING PEOPLE!” another protester howled, launching into a full-body rage spiral before security carried her out, legs kicking, like a screaming suitcase with opinions.

Kennedy took a deep breath and tried to regain his footing, but Senator Ron Wyden had been waiting for this moment like a prosecutor with a personal vendetta.

“Are you lying to us, Mr. Kennedy?” Wyden snapped, staring daggers at him.

Kennedy forced a nervous smile, but it came out looking like he’d just been told he had to fight a horse for a parking spot.

“That claim has been repeatedly debunked,” he said, attempting to sound reasonable despite an entire room full of people who were watching YouTube compilations of him saying the exact opposite.

Wyden wasn’t buying it.

“You signed a petition to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Did you or did you not?”

Kennedy mumbled something about the petition being “misrepresented” as the air in the room thickened with sweat, bad decisions, and organic supplements.

Wyden was gearing up for a finishing blow when another protester detonated like a landmine.

“YOU’RE A FRAUD!” she shrieked as security dragged her away in a full-body lock.

Even the cops looked exhausted now.

Then came Bernie Sanders, a man who has not been in the mood for nonsense since 1972.

“Are you supportive of these baby onesies?” he demanded.

The room froze.

Kennedy’s brain crashed like a Windows 98 PC.

“Excuse me?”

Sanders lifted a printed-out photo of a baby bodysuit covered in anti-vaccine slogans.

“These are being sold by the Children’s Health Defense, the organization you founded.”

Kennedy looked like he had just accidentally eaten a ghost pepper and was trying to play it cool.

“I—I don’t have oversight over that organization anymore,” he mumbled.

Sanders cracked his knuckles like a man ready to fistfight a CEO and leaned in.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?”

Kennedy started sweating through his suit.

Laughter rippled through the room. A Republican senator actually covered his face.

Kennedy, now looking desperate for a fire alarm to pull, tried to pivot to his real passion: banning corn syrup.

Sanders wasn’t having it.

Then Elizabeth Warren took the mic, radiating pure prosecutorial energy.

“Will you commit to not taking money from pharmaceutical companies while serving as Secretary of Health?” she asked, in the tone of a woman who already knew the answer but was going to enjoy watching him squirm.

Kennedy grinned like a dog that just chewed up your furniture and is hoping you’ll laugh it off.

“I don’t think they’d want to give me money,” he chuckled.

Warren did not chuckle.

“Will you commit to not profiting from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies while serving as HHS Secretary?”

Kennedy froze.

The color drained from his face.

“You’re asking me not to sue drug companies?” he said, voice rising.

“No, I’m not going to agree to that.”

Warren’s eyes gleamed like a hawk spotting a wounded rabbit.

“So you’ll be suing the same companies you’re supposed to regulate?”

Kennedy looked like he wanted to melt into his chair.

Then came Michael Bennet, a man who had been waiting patiently to drop a grenade into Kennedy’s lap.

"Did you say that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon?” Bennet asked, deadpan.

Kennedy hesitated.

“I probably said that.”

The audience gasped.

Bennet cocked an eyebrow.

“Did you say that pesticides turn children transgender?”

Kennedy turned bone white.

“I don’t recall saying that.”

Bennet’s lip twitched.

“But you do recall saying Lyme disease was a bioweapon?”

Kennedy looked like he had been hit by a tranquilizer dart.

Even the Republican senators were staring at their desks, avoiding eye contact.

The hearing finally adjourned, but Kennedy is not in the clear yet.

His next grilling is scheduled for tomorrow, and there’s no telling how much worse it can get.

His opponents smell blood. His supporters are already crafting conspiracy theories about the deep state.

And if the vote ends in a deadlock, Vice President JD Vance will cast the deciding vote.

Yes, JD Vance—the political equivalent of a wet cardboard box—will determine if a man once partially controlled by a brain parasite will run America’s health system.

The nation waits in suspense. Pass the whiskey.”

The author of this commentary has strong feelings about Kennedy, but is this really an accurate account?

Did they really think that this man, who sacrificed his star status among his party and the liberal media for his tireless work in fighting polluters and restoring the health of the Hudson River valley to take on the biggest lobbying industry in our country and face constant character attacks and baseless hit pieces was “sweating through his suit” because Bernie Sanders asked him if he supported the idea that it was okay for mothers to announce that they were unafraid that their baby was not vaccinated?

Did they really think that Kennedy was somehow caught off guard by the kind of questions he has been asked for years on countless talk shows and podcasts?

Is it really so outlandish to think that Lyme Disease is an engineered bioweapon after all that has been exposed around the lab origins of Covid-19?

Sanders “cracked his knuckles like a man ready to fistfight a CEO”? And “Elizabeth Warren radiated pure prosecutorial energy”? Really?

Are they completely blind to the reality that Kennedy is not a CEO, he’s the underdog standing up to a multibillion dollar industry and the CEOs that run it?

Warren radiated prosecutorial energy? Why would that be necessary when questioning a man that has committed no crime except for speaking the truth to power? What happened to cutting the underdog a little slack and allowing him to respond to difficult questions with more than a yes or no?

The deliberate and methodical questioning by the Senators, according to this account, made Kennedy grin like a dog, appear hit by a tranquilizer dart and turn bone white. Twice. At one point he looked like “he’d just been told he had to fight a horse for a parking spot”, something so obvious that any further explanation was unnecessary.

This twisted depiction of the hearing paints Kennedy as a dangerous individual who must be stopped by courageous Senators who are doing their duty to ensure that the will of the people, the ones shouting out in anguish who were unceremoniously dragged from the room by security, would be done.

One doesn’t have to agree with Kennedy’s beliefs or strategy to make America Healthy again to accept that he is applying for a job. But this wasn’t a job interview; it was more like an inquisition—at least in the way Senators Warren and Sanders handled it.

In my opinion Kennedy gave calm and measured responses to his questioners who were unable to contain their emotions. In other words, whoever wrote this up had it completely backwards. This brings me to my central point. The only way anyone could take this account seriously is if they were driven by powerful emotions, like those that erupt from fear or hatred. What is driving it? Acclaimed author, independent journalist and long-time Kennedy friend, Dick Russell offers an explanation (see below).

As I have recently opined in an essay here, the outcome of RFK Jr.’s bid to run the HHS, with respect to “trusting the science” is not as pivotal as many think.

What I mean is that if Kennedy takes the helm of the Department of HHS and releases the massive amounts of information the CDC has compiled over the decades with regard to vaccination status and health so that it can be mined for trends that implicate vaccines, especially those on the childhood immunization schedule as the cause of a chronic disease epidemic in this country, half the country won’t believe the results.

On the other hand, if Kennedy is sidelined and another person, less qualified but more acceptable to the status quo gets confirmed, vaccine hesitancy and distrust in the medical establishment will likely expand.

This is the real tragedy. We have a lot of smart people in this country, and under the right leadership with appropriate measures, especially transparency, we have the potential of truly improving the health of this nation—but only if people are willing to trust our public health agencies.

That was the thrust of the comment I left on my friend’s page.

Here was his response:

“…it seems kind of fitting that this is among my last interactions on Facebook. I am leaving out of frustration and disgust with how this medium and its owners are caving in to the darkness that is now flooding the zone.

It has been amazing to observe from afar what seems to be your descent into conspiracy theories and reliance on your medical credentials to intimidate those without them (myself included) in arguments about science. I read widely and certainly don’t take single voices or publications as gospel.

My view is that for a long time now, you, like other conspiracy theorists cherry-pick data to support your beliefs and amplify often legitimate critiques of aspects of the medical establishment to ad absurdist heights. I see commonality between these techniques and the way those on the right have taken some annoying overreach involving progressive initiatives such as DEI, respect for LGBTQ+, and faddish educational policies and turned these molehills into mountains. And to mix metaphors, then proceed to violently throw the baby out with th bathwater (instead of pushing for the quite modest reforms that are very often called for).

Indeed, RFK Jr. is no doubt right about how Big Food and our medical industrial complex (along with long unaddressed socio-economic factors) have conspired to make too many Americans obese and unhealthy. But the vaccine cynicism (not skepticism), the naked profiteering via misinformation, the reliance on dubious and retracted studies has all gone wildly too far. The fact that RFK Jr. may soon be made Secretary of HHS is a barometer of just how unhinged things have become. Trumps nominees are almost uniformly unqualified toadies bent on tearing down the institutions they are ostensibly being appointed to run. RFK Jr. fits this mold perfectly.

Finally, as for your Star Warsian reference to “MAHA” already winning and it not mattering if RFK Jr. is confirmed or not sounds very much like the lady protesting too much. My view and fervent hope is that if and when the conspiracy theorists take over, theirs will be a short and Pyrrhic victory as they are revealed by reality’s inexorable force to be the charlatans and quacks that they are.

I realize, of course, that nothing I said here will in any way sway your thinking just as the many arguments you have made over the years haven’t swayed mine. We are most definitely at an impasse and have been for a long time. Seems emblematic of our society writ large… In any case, I always liked you as a person, admired your intelligence, curiosity, and endless questing. Though I hope that those you support and you as well do not achieve positions of power with which to subject our society to your beliefs, I wish you and yours health and happiness. Peace out.

My friend is obviously skilled at expressing himself. He’s no slouch. He’s studied at some fine universities and I can vouch for the fact that he is, in fact, well-read. We had numerous deep and lengthy conversations about science, psychology, politics, education and history years ago.

For the record, I never rely on my credentials to intimidate anyone. I stick to my arguments and will only offer my credentials if asked. I learned early on in the pandemic that being an MD means nothing to people who disagree with you. In any case, you can only intimidate people into doing things, not believing them.

I certainly don’t agree with our new (and former) President on many things. I do support his selection of Kennedy to be a part of his cabinet because he is the most qualified person to run that Department, because he is a skeptic of the industry that very well may be the source of the epidemic of chronic disease that we are undeniably enduring.

How can an intelligent person not consider the possibility that if an industry profits by treating diseases they may not be so interested in curing them, i.e. having a healthy population?

In my view, I am being rational and he isn’t. I fully acknowledge that he feels exactly the opposite, but how can anyone vehemently stand in opposition to transparency around data claim to be rational?

Before relying on simple explanations like “graduate school isn’t an education it’s an indoctrination”, is there something else behind his perspective?

I think Dick Russell, who is a close friend to Kennedy and his authorized biographer has a thoughtful answer. He writes:

“I think it starts with what Walter Kirn summed up: “Democrats of that ilk, they always hate the people they think are apostates more than they hate the actual right-winger who is a familiar character to them.”

An apostate (same root as apostle) is classically defined as one who has disaffiliated, abandoned, or renounced a religion. And yes, that’s what RFK Jr. did in bidding farewell to the Democratic Party, to which his ancestors pledged their fealty and to which he was loyal all his life. His joining forces with Trump is a visceral gut punch.”

I invite you to read his piece on the topic here:

Why is RFK Jr. the most vilified man in America?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments.