The ‘experts’ who enabled RFK Jr’s rise

The nomination of husky-voiced, musclebound Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park – to be secretary of health and human services in the Trump administration has horrified ‘experts’, according to the BBC. A left-wing Democrat who admires the late Venezuelan Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez, hates big business, rails against the ultra-processed food that Donald Trump likes to eat and wants climate sceptics jailed, RFK Jr sounds like a BBC hero and hardly a natural member of the MAGA tribe. But his criticism of Covid vaccines catapulted him into the arms of Trump.

The experts who now bash him should reflect on their own role in making him popular. Anti-vax sentiment was a fringe concern until public health officials began misinforming the public about the efficacy and safety of Covid-19 vaccines, the origin of the disease and other aspects of the pandemic. They sowed the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind.