Many, lately, feel called to help save this country, in response to Steve Bannon’s famous hypophora, “What is my task, and what is my purpose?” Many also feel that President Trump is the key implement uniquely appointed for the current historical moment. So it is not far-fetched to consider that we witnessed RFK Jr’s public answer before God in response to the call to form a bond with Trump.
Not only because he described his journey to this moment as fundamentally spiritual and guided by prayer. But because he took a sledgehammer to everything that had been in his way. He painted a huge target on his back. Then he wrapped up by mentioning twice that his family is unhappy with this move, and it grieves him; but it had to be done. He used the pretense of a farewell address, the only RFK Jr speech the mainstream media would relish airing, to go unrelentingly ham until CNN cut away in the middle anyway with the hosts chattering nervously over it.
Jesus warned that families would become divided, and that only he who hates his life in this world will keep it eternally. But you never think it’s going to happen on live TV. You certainly never thought you would see the government working over the weekend to try to make a man hate his life; but the headlines by Monday of that week proved otherwise.
RFK Jr gave a nearly hour-long speech, alone, before a small audience in a dignified but sparsely decorated setting. His wife, Cheryl Hines, incidentally, was not with him. But wives join in support and celebration, not a fight. And this was a fight; he deployed the rhetorical equivalent of a series of Hellfire missiles dead center on his enemies.
Much of the speech was a play-by-play of crimes of the Deep State, or as he simply called it, the Democratic Party. “The DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself...” Pow. “[The DNC] ran a sham primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden.” Pow. “When a predictably awful debate performance precipitated a palace coup against President Biden, the same shadowy DNC operatives appointed his successor...” Kaboom. “No policies, no interviews, no debates, only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly-produced circus.” Kablooie. Then he went into a detailed timeline illustrating how the US was the aggressor, guilty of fomenting Ukraine-Russia tension – over several years and multiple administrations. Double kablooie.
How about how Trump called him just hours after being shot? For those who have been praying for Trump’s protection and for a miracle, this gem of a buried lede that RFK Jr unearthed halfway into his speech likely hit the “wow, an actual miracle is happening here” funny bone. This would be the second miracle associated with the failed assassination.
Most candidates running for office eventually drop out and endorse another candidate. But very few are called personally by the leading candidate minutes after emergency care for a gunshot wound. The stark imagery is hard to ignore. RFK Jr may not have arrived at his ultimate position but for Trump’s call. Another sign of the bond that has formed: the news of the call itself came from someone other than Trump. This shows mutual trust and respect, much-needed virtues for the coming times.
Nevertheless, RFK Jr pursued a data-driven decision-making process following the call. We were told he’d reached out to the Harris campaign to see what they had to offer, and was ignored – by the campaign running on defiance of gravity. No wonder Harris' team didn’t wish to face the obvious electoral math.
Big mistake.
RFK Jr has amassed remarkable capital by sharing his perspectives and values through the political equivalent of small jazz clubs. I attended one such event last year, hosted by the First Principles Forum. He opened with an anecdote about the events that led his uncle, JFK, to say he wanted to “take that CIA and shatter it into a thousand pieces” shortly before he was assassinated. RFK Jr plied the audience with statistics about endocrine disruptors. He talked about falconry. It was sincere, quirky, and compelling. It was also surreal to hear personal anecdotes about assassinations – from a man whose visage is the last tie to that history, the embodiment of “skin in the game” – knowing that he was actively being silenced by the media. Case in point: YouTube removed the video of this referenced speech shortly after it was posted.
RFK Jr placed an existential target on his back that day. Knowing that the Secret Service would recall his protection faster than the FBI destroyed Thomas Matthew Crooks’ body, he went full-frontal scorched-earth. Michigan and Wisconsin would proceed to challenge his intention to be removed from their ballots. Spurious cocaine gossip was sniffed out by the same outlets that had ignored him for the past year.
The jarring report of headline return-fire has only proved RFK Jr’s point: the current occupants of the government have a single-minded agenda of state control, with any inconvenience or potential harm to contenders counted as a bonus.
Getting a jumpstart on dividing the family, RFK Jr’s sister released a pro-Harris X post signed by the other siblings before his speech was even over. Then she gleefully betrayed him in an ABC interview the next day.
But all these attacks over the coming days were too late. Forged in the fire with which he’d burned all the bridges hours earlier, RFK Jr emerged into the pyrotechnics of Trump’s rally a new man. Embracing, in the 2nd most iconic photo in a photo-worthy era, the two men displayed a new, stronger entity – the Unity Party – formed by the crucible of increasingly high-stakes politics. With a brief look of awe over the crowd, RFK Jr found his new family on a stage just hours after executing the speech that would break ties with his siblings on a different stage across town.
RFK Jr is a welcome, strengthening addition for Trump voters. His presence signals a truce on the matter of vaccines and vaccine mandates about which many ardent Trump supporters have inwardly held a grudge. MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, strikes a resonant chord among the diverse gymrat/homesteader/slonker set who find this issue central to restoring American greatness. And the specter of political assassination – the darkest manifestation of power struggle, a sign that corruption has jammed the gears of transparency – is a skeleton that poetic justice tells us is RFK Jr’s privilege and responsibility to evict from the closet.
All who found spiritual meaning in President Trump’s sparing should also consider the changing of hearts inspired by that act, and the great good that can yet come from it. RFK Jr’s speech is available in text and video, as is the Trump rally; history made before our eyes.
