MAGA, Harming Humanity

WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN Robert F. Kennedy Sr. ran for president, and I, by then a political animal, was an excited supporter of his. I can still remember that day in March, 1968, when Bobby announced his candidacy, quite late in the race, and as I recall he bumped his head on something on his way into the building where he made the announcement. Black and white big box television. Grainy curved screen, rabbit ears, three channels, maybe. His assassination devastated me. I still think he would have won the Democratic nomination, and would have defeated Nixon, and would have been a great president. Quite frankly, his namesake son is somewhat of a disappointment to me, to say the least. I strongly sense, or suspect, that among people of my approximate generation, people who remember Bobby Kennedy and loved him when he was alive, probably tend to feel the same way about RFK Jr. as I do. A disappointment. Even more frankly, RFK Jr. seems to me to be a nut, so to speak. His personal history, of years of strenuous, outspoken opposition to vaccines in general, obviously, indisputably, disqualifies him for his position as head of the Health and Human Services cabinet department. Like seemingly every appointment Trump makes for any agency leadership or office of any kind, Kennedy is unuquely, demonstrably, obviously unqualified for the job. His ant-vaccine views are quite evident today, as indicated by his raving, ranting testimony in Congress yesterday. His entire seven months in this office thus far, just like the entire Trump administration, has been a concerted attack on the United States, in particular, its health care system. Kennedy and the Trump administration have cut Medicaid, reduced funding for medical research, and placed needless, harmless limits on the availability and distribution of vaccines of several sorts. Kennedy is indeed a charlatan, as a Democratic Senator pointed out on national television. So is everyone else in the Trump administration, including Trump himself, an amazingly consistent pattern of criminality among all members of this criminal fascist administration. Vaccine denial, like climate change denial, is, it can be argued, inherently criminal, in that by denying the very existence of serious threats to the United States, they effectively assist in their harmful effects. The president of the United States, whoever it happens to be at any given time, absolutely must be a world leader in stopping climate change, and in facilitating the elimination of disease and hunger through heavy investment in and support of medical science, vaccinees, and the redistribution of wealth. Redistribution of wealth through Medicare, Midicid, Social Security, taxation of the wealthy, and food, housing, and income assistance for the poor. What the Trump administration does is the exact opposite of these things. The Trump administration takes from the poor and gives to the rich, it harms the poor and the sick, it is the world's most powerful leader in perpetuating climate change, expediting and hastening humanity's destruction and extinction by atmospheric carbon. The multi million member MAGA cult is a science denying, reality denying suicidal death cult, whose ideology and agenda must be defeated and abandoned, for the sake of not only our future, but our very existence on this fragile planet.