Those words were not spoken by Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. last week. Rather, they are words of our nation’s 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who voted for Franklin Roosevelt for President all four times he headed the ticket. By the 1960s, Reagan made the formal Party switch.
The political transformation of Bobby Kennedy Jr., one of the scions of Democratic Party royalty and longtime environmental activist and lawyer, may be as impactful as Reagan’s more gradual evolution. Kennedy left his party last year to become an Independent, and recently endorsed Donald Trump for president.
A less sensational but very significant, related evolution by Bobby Kennedy, Jr comes from his views on climate change, which were discussed this week when he was interviewed by Tucker Carlson on his podcast.
Mr. Kennedy mentioned that America is undergoing a major political realignment between the two major parties, Democrat and Republican, of which Kennedy himself is an example of this current trend. One of the ways that is manifest is the Democrats’ climate agenda, specifically its embrace of “carbon orthodoxy.” As the Democratic Party has become the “party of the elites,” Kennedy asserted, “Democrats have become subsumed in this carbon orthodoxy, that the only issue is carbon.”
“Everything is measured by its carbon footprint as in how many tons of carbon something produces,” Kennedy said, which is “something you should never do as an environmentalist… commodify and quantify everything.” Rather, Kennedy stated, “the best thing you can do for climate is restore the soils. Soil absorbs carbon."
CFACT (Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow) has written that climate policies are increasingly harmful to nature and traditional environmentalism. Kennedy echoed these points by condemning mining (for electric vehicle batteries), mountain clearing (for solar and wind projects), and off-shore wind turbines that are “exterminating the whales” – all policies favored by the present-day Democratic Party from which RFK Jr. departed.
Mr. Kennedy especially was critical of carbon capture pipelines, that are “wreaking havoc with agricultural lands across the Midwest, stealing private property rights with eminent domain…it is a useless technology that does not work; it’s all a boondoggle.”
“That’s what has become of the environmental movement in this country,” Kennedy said, “and if you depart from that orthodoxy, then you’re expelled from it.”
Kennedy acknowledged that he is “pretty much” expelled. And bravo for him; it’s a badge of honor.
The expulsion of Kennedy is more due to the government/corporate climate movement, where hundreds of billions of dollars are made by investment firms that are financing wind turbines, solar panels, carbon capture and other climate boondoggles than a war on nature itself. Kennedy singled out Goldman Sachs and Black Rock for cashing in on these climate policies.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr expressed an astute awareness that today’s climate agenda is not true environmentalism that respects and protects nature, as CFACT and numerous other activists and scientists have long argued. Perhaps the most riveting moment of his talk on the Carlson podcast was when he explained the importance of nature and the reasons we should be environmentalists, that there is a “spiritual connection.”
“When we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the Divine [and] understand who God is and what our own potential is and our duties as human beings,” Kennedy stated. “We preserve nature because we love our children; nature enriches us.”He went on to say that nature also “connects us to previous generations of human beings.”
The fact that Bobby Kennedy, Jr can generate so much news—and reaction—reveals the long-standing legacy of the Kennedy family, especially President John Kennedy, Bobby’s uncle, and his father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom were the victims of assassins’ bullets.
As Bobby Jr., Robert’s third child, said during his speech recently when he endorsed Donald Trump for president, the Democratic Party has changed in significant ways from prior generations by embracing government censorship, “forever wars,” and corporate power, including over climate policies at war with wildlife, sea life, oceans and landscapes.
Agree with Bobby Kennedy, Jr or not, he has become a profile in courage, to coin the title of the book authored by his Uncle Jack nearly 70 years ago. But the scorn he is enduring from Democratic Party politicians and at least some of his own siblings, ultimately will be insignificant and fleeting.
More importantly, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s understanding of and his attack on the government and corporate collusion of climate policies that are harmful to nature and working, middle class Americans will be a more impactful and positive legacy.
