In 2006, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thought I had achieved something great. in one article for Rolling Stone, he argued that the 2004 election was rigged to ensure a victory for George W. Bush, wrongly denying Democratic nominee John Kerry a place in the Oval Office. Citing research from a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Kennedy argued that the discrepancy between exit polls and actual votes, along with voter disenfranchisement, in Ohio, may be evidence of a coordinated effort to illegally put Bush in office.
“Despite the media silence, signs continue to emerge that something deeply troubling happened in 2004,” Kennedy wrote.
In reality, there was no media gridlock at all, and 2004 election conspiracy theories were, if anything, somewhat mainstream. Mother Jones published a story about them in November 2005and Christopher Hitchens did so in Vanity Fair even earlier, in March 2005. Many Democrats share disappointment widespread doubts about the fairness of the entire process. Immediately after the election, Judiciary Democrats in the Senate were even request an investigation into allegations of voting irregularities, showing how loud and long-lasting those allegations are.
But Kennedy has shown himself to be alone in asking tough questions, a tactic he has used throughout his career. And now, in his bid for president, he’s doing it again. The plot of his campaign made it clear that he had laid the groundwork for his supporters to blame his inevitable defeat on an elite conspiracy; It is perhaps reasonable to ask whether Kennedy’s team or supporters will question some aspects of the 2024 election results.
Kennedy’s campaign told WIRED that won’t happen. “Mr. Kennedy believes his opponent’s tactics are immoral and anti-Democratic, but they do not fit the definition of fraud,” spokeswoman Stefanie Spear wrote in an emailed statement. “He There are no plans to dispute the election results.”
But whether Kennedy himself actually did so or not is in some ways immaterial – he benefited from the survival of the style of honesty he helped pioneer .
During his campaign, Kennedy did not shy away from extreme statements about political corruption and revisionist history. He significantly downplayed the riots on January 6, 2021; In a fundraising email, his campaign called those arrested “activists” who had been “stripped of their constitutional freedoms,” and he made false statements. declared in a statement that they were not carrying weapons. “I have not reviewed the evidence in detail, but reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me that there is little evidence of an actual insurrection,” he wrote. (After some protest, Kennedy back to those commentscalled them “a mistake” and specifically acknowledged the claim that the rioters were not carrying weapons sent.)
Associations with suffragettes and January 6 supporters also continued to emerge within Kennedy’s camp. campaign fired a New York campaign consultant, Rita Palma, after CNN reported that she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 before the riot and encouraged voters to support Kennedy in New York because it would Helping Donald Trump’s re-election. However, the campaign did not denounce her attendance at the protest; Kennedy’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox, speak it fired her for “misrepresentation” after she claimed to be the New York state campaign manager.
