The Student News Site of Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Lanthorn

The Student News Site of Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Lanthorn

The Student News Site of Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Lanthorn

Kennedy: a democratic candidate or an eccentric?

As you all know, the 2024 election is coming up. While we have the two candidates everyone is anticipating (Trump and Biden), we also have a new runner in the Democratic party.

Robert Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy earlier this year in April and has since been winning the hearts of many Republicans. Yes, you heard me right. A Democratic candidate is slowly winning over many Republicans with his push to close the border.

Now, this all sounds relatively normal. He’s a candidate pushing for the closing of the border, which has many pros and cons and has weighed on the minds of many Americans. Nothing about that proposal is overtly unsettling to Americans, given that it has been discussed in the past.

However, when you delve into some of his other advocations, it becomes more and more problematic. Kennedy Jr. believes that he will lower the number of people with chronic illnesses by the end of his term if he is to be elected.

He also believes that Prozac, an antidepressant, is the cause of people using guns in America. I don’t know about anyone else, but that statement is borderline hilarious. The fact that he is saying an ANTIdepressant is the cause of people using guns in America is just crazy. It seems like what he really believes is that people shouldn’t be taking medications because those types of chronic illnesses aren’t real in his mind. Now, I want to emphasize that he never says anything of the sort. However, whenever he talks about chronic illness in America, he exclusively refers to obesity and mental health conditions.

If that wasn’t unsettling enough, he also talks about how we had one of the “healthiest populations in the world, with only 6% of the population having chronic diseases,” in the 1950s and 60s.

To put this into perspective for you, he isn’t considering advances in medicine that allow for the proper diagnoses of certain things like autism, which he loops into other chronic conditions such as mental illnesses and obesity.

These advances are partially why there was such a jump in the number of chronic conditions in the U.S.

He neglects to focus on any other chronic conditions outside of mental health and obesity, which means when he is talking about eradicating the “chronic illness epidemic in the U.S.,” he is talking about getting rid of healthcare for people with mental health problems and lowering obesity rates.

Oh, and there’s more.

Kennedy Jr. is a known anti-vaccination misinformation advocate and supports many health-related conspiracy theories.

What does this all mean?

Kennedy Jr. is unfit to be in office.

He is known for making baseless claims about childhood vaccinations and COVID-19. He has been in many interviews where he blatantly makes numerous false statements. In one, he refers to COVID-19 as “‘clearly (being) a bioweapons problem,’” which has no foundation according to American intelligence agencies.

Not only is it concerning how many Americans are supporting him, but it is crazy how someone who advocates for governmental transparency can make so many baseless accusations about the healthcare system and chronic diseases.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather take my chances with Trump or Biden.

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