RFK and Dead Cubs
Photo by National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Let’s review just how silly 2024’s Silly Season has been with the Presidential race so far.
- Donald Trump told a rambling story about man’s eternal conflict between being electrocuted and being eaten by a shark.
- We are now entering Week Two of the Dialogue about whether Kamala Harris is Black or not.
- We are entering Month Two of the Dialogue about whether a would-be assassin hit Donald Trump’s ear with a bullet or whether it was shrapnel from the bullet hitting the teleprompter.
- RFK, Jr. informed us that he once had a brain worm but it died, possibly from malnutrition.
- RFK, Jr. also waved off stories about him sexually assaulting a babysitter as an unfortunate instance of his “rambunctious youth”. He did, however, outright deny eating dog.
- Speaking of canines, Kristi Noem, in her bid to become Vice President, told a story about shooting her dog, a story so bad it made Catturd look good.
- At one point, Marco Rubio was rumored to be moving out of Florida so he could be Trump’s running mate.
- Fact checkers scrambled to respond to a joke claim that JD Vance once had sexual intercourse with a couch.
- Republicans flipped out because former geography teacher and current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called them weird.
- Not helping with the former, techbro JD Vance went on a publicity tour of obscure dude podcasts during which he told a … I guess it was supposed to be humorous? … story about telling his son to shut the hell up about Pokemon while he was on the phone to Trump. He also continued his jihad against single cat ladies … or something.
- After months of assuring us that Joe Biden had the mental acuity of a newly minted particle physicist, the press suddenly discovered he was not all there all the time and freaked out for three weeks until he withdrew from the race.
- Republicans, having spent eight years supporting Trump, tried to pretend that Kamala Harris’s husband having an affair in his first marriage was a scandal.
So when I say this might be the weirdest story so far, please understand the full context in which I say this:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, confessed on Sunday that he had left a dead bear cub in Central Park in Manhattan in 2014 because he thought it would be “amusing.”
Mr. Kennedy posted a video detailing the bizarre story on social media apparently ahead of an article in The New Yorker.
“Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one,” he said, tagging the magazine.
In the video, Mr. Kennedy appears to be seated in a kitchen as he casually tells the actress Roseanne Barr about the ordeal. He says that he was driving through the Hudson Valley when he saw a woman in a van hit and kill a young bear.
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear,” he says. “It was in very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator.”
Mr. Kennedy then details how he had to attend a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in New York City and then head to the airport, which meant he had to get rid of the bear. He decided to leave the bear in Central Park with an old bicycle to make it look like it had been hit by the bike.
Here’s the video in which he relates the story to, yes, that Roseanne Barr. The story does appear to have a ring of truth to it. Ten years ago, a dead bear cub was indeed found in Central Park with a bike that had been killed by a car (the. bear, not the bike). So either the story is true or RFK is pulling off one of the best trolls in some time.
Honestly, as riveting as RFK, Jr’s story is, he doesn’t really have great comedic timing. I much prefer the version of this story told by Woody Allen:
However, it does confirm something I have long suspected. If you are ever in a position where you need to dispose of a body and make it look like an accident, your best bet is to call a Kennedy.
Great routine, but moose is not lawful game in New York.Report
It’s like every 3rd party out there came out and said “Remember when the Libertarians nominated Bob Barr? We can top that.”
Libertarians nominated Chase Oliver which is helping bring the whole rift within the Libertarians to a head where the Classical Liberal types and the Mises types are fixing to split the party.
Looks like the Greens are going for Jill Stein again (I mean, the Greens have never been exactly vibrant, but there are seriously no reasonable challengers to Stein?).
The Constitution Party is running Randall Terry (yes, *THAT* Randall Terry).
And RFK Jr. is doing a good job of making perennial 3rd Party voters knit their brows and say “wait, what?”
I miss the Natural Law party. Where have you gone, John Hagelin? Transcendental Meditation can still save us!Report
“You think that’s weird? hold my beer and watch this” should not be a viable political strategy but oh well, here we are.Report
“Gun to your head, pick Harris or Trump.”
“Nope, I still have third party.”
“Okay, what if I make Chase Oliver the Libertarian candidate, Jill Stein the Green candidate, Randall Terry the Constitution candidate, have RFK Jr. start to tell stories about killing a bear and staging it in Central Park to Roseanne Barr, and then tell you, gun to your head, pick Harris or Trump.”
“Is John Hagelin still around?”
“No.”Report
I remain convinced that Trump’s success as the Republican candidate wrecked third-party candidacies. Nothing I’ve seen in the past 8 years has changed my mind on that.Report
“Looks like the Greens are going for Jill Stein again (I mean, the Greens have never been exactly vibrant, but there are seriously no reasonable challengers to Stein?).”
Yes, but they’re not Greens.Report
From Tom Tomorrow:
This is just to say.
I have dumped
the dead bear
that was in
my trunk
and which
I was hoping
to eat
later
Forgive me
I had dinner at Peter Luger’s
and then remembered
I had a plane to catchReport
We have a normal political party and then we have a bunch of parties that cater to people who are for the lulz nihilists and/or have unicorn and a pony political day dreams and not much knowledge or care on how to get there but they want it NOW
RFK Jr. has a campaign that is for the for the lulz nihilists whether they realize it or not.Report
It’s also a way to communicate “none of the above” and “I cared enough to show up to communicate that your candidates suck”.
“You’re a nihilist!”
” No. You’ve merely forgotten what it means to believe things.”Report
“You either vote for one of these two people, or you’re a nihilist” sounds like something a nihilist would say.
Not really, but if people are just gonna throw words around mindlessly, I don’t see why I can’t as well.Report
I assure you, I was not the one who introduced the term into the conversation.Report
Oh yes, sorry, I was replying to you, but referring to the comment you were replying to. Couldn’t bring myself to reply to that mess.Report
The problem is that as Philip H points out below Libertarians, Greens, etc are not really willing to do the ground work it takes to get power/make change in the United States. They rarely, if ever, run for local office, where are the Greens trying to get on city council in various blue cities? Surely there are some districts willing to consider a Green candidate.
Running for local office costs less money than running for President. You just also need to be willing to deal with boring issues like the road maintenance budget.
Sorry but I don’t consider a political party serious if it mainly just seems to exist for Presidential runs every four years and does nothing else in the interim.Report
American third parties don’t really have any coherent reason for existing anymore.
Back in the day, when the Republicans and Democrats were separated by economic, military, and foreign policy differences a third party had some space in which to carve out unique policy stances.
But with the collapse of the Cold War and the triumph of the current model of liberal markets backed by a social safety net, the difference between Republicans and Democrats is mostly driven by cultural identity issues.
These issues don’t leave any space for a coherent alternative.
Like, what would be a third party stance on trans people, that separates them from the two parties? What would a third party stance be on abortion?
What would the third party policy be on the issues outlined in Project 2025, that differentiate them from the Democrats?
When you look at the Libertarians, Greens, or whatever , they just seem like warmed over variations of one of the two parties.Report
I’m not sure I agree completely. Some of the third parties – like the DSA – do have policy preferences well to the left of the Democrats. Who remain, on their best days, centerists. So I think there is room, and room that Americans might like and benefit from.
Still, those policy preferences mean little if Americans aren’t exposed to them. And constantly running for President and not County Council generally means few Americans will e exposed to them.Report
DSA runs candidates, usually as Democrats, at every level from school board and Community College Board to the U.S. House of Representatives (I’m not aware of a DSA U.S. Senate candidate, but they might exist). Other left groups that run candidates tend to do so exclusively at the local level (e.g., SA)Report
If they are running as Democrats then how do we get people to understand they are DSA? Seems counterproductive if we truly want a new party.Report
Their opponents have no problem pointing it out.
More seriously, they’re always up front and they are very clear about their policies and values.Report
Currently the DSA website shows 11 endorsements – including 4 state officials and one congresswoman. The rest are for initiatives on ballots.
Better then nothing, but not by much.Report
Better to look at past endorsements to get a sense of how many candidates they’ll likely endorse this year. It will be considerably higher by November. I don’t believe the Austin chapter has held endorsement votes yet, for example.
Also worth looking at past endorsements to see how often they’ve lost. it’s hard to win with progressive candidates, and all those losses amount to a great deal of spent money and energy. I think it’s hurt DSA, and it’s also hurt the electoral wing of the group’s standing, especially since there’s a strong (and not unfounded) belief that running as Democrats is the problem. Newer members in the Austin chapter, especially the younger folks, are increasingly leaning towards establishing a third party, as a result. This seems… beyond their current capabilities, to me, but I wish them luck.Report
The Greens could theoretically go more hardcore on environmental issues than the Democratic Party can.Report
“Deep Ecology” never took off, for some reason. They probably realized that it’d do better with “there needs to be fewer of *THOSE* humans” than the much more boring and mundane “there needs to be fewer humans in general”.
Getting rid of *THOSE* humans? Hell, you can get everybody on board with that.Report
One area where they might be room for improvement is in the nuts and bolt technocratic aspects of government. The Democratic Party might be doing great when it comes to social programs but both parties are struggling to do the aspects of government that require building and maintaining physical things like transport systems, energy systems, etc.Report
No, both parties are NOT struggling. One party keeps cutting taxes, and forcing more and more of this onto the proverbial credit card; the other until very recently refused to grapple with this. New battleships are sexy and generate great positive press coverage – repacking the shaft bearings in government research vessels doesn’t. Never mind that in the US we long ago made a decision that most of that infrastructure should be maintained as locally as possible. Which means that keeping bridges form falling into the river becomes a multi-jurisdictional problem.
These are budget choices, heavily influenced by political cycles. They are not a lack of technocratic expertise.Report
No, the places governed by the Democratic Party are not really doing well when it comes to actually building stuff. Look at the long delays and timelines with practically every transit project in the 21st century. Honolulu, after a decades long planning battle the started in the 1960s, started construction on the rapid transit project in 2011. The first part was completed in June 2023. The rest is stated to be completed between 2025 and 2031.
Meanwhile, peer countries can build grand transit projects in much less time. France is building a major expansion of their metro system in half that time.Report
There reasons for that – starting with “peer” countries having both differing funding and differing approval processes. I suspect there are no NIMBY’s in China or France or anywhere else to any great extent. Our legal system – built by politicians and precedent – grants enormous standing to individuals to gum up the works on stuff like this.Report
3rd parties are created without having all the issues solved or even addressed.
The original GOP was formed to get rid of Slavery because both of the existing parties were “big tent” which meant tolerating it.
What we lack is a big issue that is capable of creating a new party… and if such an issue came along it is hard to see how it doesn’t get absorbed by the existing two.Report
I think this pretty much captures it.
The issues that American 3rd parties organize around are generally niche issues, that motivate only a small number of people.
Like most leftists ill caucus or vote Democratic because while their issues may be important, at the end of the day unless they are in a solidly red or blue district they want their vote to help tip the balance in a favorable direction.
There is really a vanishingly small number of people who actually see no difference between the two parties such that they would be comfortable having either win.
Because there really isn’t a big issue like slavery or the Vietnam War that overwhelms all the others to where very many people could look at Trump or Harris and be indifferent.Report
Living in one of the most left-leaning cities in the United States, and very close to other top tier left-leaning cities, it seems to me that the American Further Left really doesn’t like spending time on the mundane tasks of government. These are the Further Leftists willing to run as Democratic politicians in name. The ones that are totally against doing even that are even more repulsed by ordinary politics and the boring issues.
Remember that one big reason why Bowman lost the primary was that he didn’t want to go to local community events, give some anodyne speech, and shake some hands. It turns out that a lot of voters like politicians that go to local community events, give anodyne speeches, and shake some hands. The Further Left believes that what they are arguing for is so naturally superior that they should not need to do this.Report
One particularly funny example is the high speed rail.
The criticism, until recently, was over how many billions were spent without a single foot of track being laid.
Now, apparently, construction has actually started between Merced and Bakersfield.
My main criticism of The Further Left is one of those “aspy engineer” criticisms: “It doesn’t work. You haven’t proven you can make it work. You haven’t demonstrated that your proof of concept works. And, at this point, even if everything went according to plan from this moment forward, we’re still nowhere *NEAR* on-time nor on-budget.”
I’ve been told that these things are secondary to caring. I don’t have the necessary premises to agree with that assessment. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the necessary premises to understand the argument.Report
The problem is that as Philip H points out below Libertarians, Greens, etc are not really willing to do the ground work it takes to get power/make change in the United States. They rarely, if ever, run for local office, where are the Greens trying to get on city council in various blue cities
I assume you’re aware of the barriers to doing the sorts of things you’re talking about. As a result of those barriers, people who vote Green or Libertarian or other third party tend to run as Democrats or Republicans in partisan elections at pretty much every level but statewide and national elections.
Even for races at lower levels (say, Congress or state legislature), in most cases, running without a major party support makes winning pretty much impossible, because that’s where so much of the money and the organizing infrastructure comes from.
If you’re arguing that people whose politics falls far outside the mainstream of the two main parties aren’t doing the work to organize their own parties with the money and infrastructure to compete at lower levels with the two major parties, then lol. The libertarians are a pretty good example: unlike any left party, they have wealthy donors willing to put money into their elections, and they’ve failed to do much outside of the Republican Party. They’ve transitioned to focusing on the judiciary (to great success). Left parties (e.g., socialist alternative) have struggled to get out of one or two localities, because it’s incredibly expensive, and getting rich people to donate to parties with names like “Socialist Alternative” is… no easy.
On the other hand, at the local level, the biggest block-walking campaigns, for non-partisan (though mostly Dem-endorsed) candidates are often organized by left groups, with many people who likely vote for Green at the presidential level, often, as Jaybird suggests, less because they agree with the Green Party’s politics, but as a protest. Are they protesting out of nihilism? Do people usually protest because they don’t believe in anything?Report
The problem you face is that so far, the third party candidates are either WAY weirder then the two party candidates, and/or they and their parties are not doing the work to get on all 50 ballots or even campaigning in all 50 states, to say nothing of the lack of such candidates campaigning for everything from school board to House of Representatives.
All of which is to say of the party isn’t going to do the serious work, they aren’t going to get taken seriously.Report
Libertarian and Green have a road to the White House… RFK Jr, sadly, does not.
Huh. Looks like Prohibition has finally given up the ghost.Report
No they don’t Jaybird. Based on prior voting patterns in the US, they each have a road to 1-3% of the vote. The Greens have a few state level politicians in a couple blue and purple states (like Washington and Maryland) but neither has congressmen or senators – or much of anyone else with name recognition anywhere. Sure, they can remain a protest vote, but they are not and have not yet been a real alternative for much of anyone.Report
The Libertarians could, theoretically, get 385 electoral votes if they got a majority of the votes in the states where they have ballot access.
The Greens could, theoretically, get 312 electoral votes if they got a majority of the votes in the states where they have ballot access.
You only need 270, baby.Report
Right, and how are they polling in those states? Does anyone even know they are running? Are they buying airtime? Billboards? DO they have canvassing and get out the vote operations?
No? Then what are we discussing exactly? I mean I enjoy a good wank as much as anyone (and third party candidates all appears to be good wanks for the very online), but when my rights and the rights of my kids and my friends and my community are on the line, a good wank is the least of my worries.Report
He didn’t say probable, Philip, he just said theoretically. Theoretically I could walk from my office in Minneapolis to Buenos Aires given enough time- it is physically and legally possible. I am extremely unlikely to ever do so (almost as unlikely to do so as those third parties are unlikely to get to the White House) but I could, in theory, do it.Report
I am not inclined to give JB any credit for his thinly veiled for the lulz/giant meteor nihilism and I am not inclined to the that the angry men who want Trump to burn it all down have a point either. Jaybird defends the burn it all down crowd implicitly if not explicitly but he is often too cowardly to admit to his own Joker-inspired instincts.
Political Science has a whole law on why Presidential/FPTP systems tend to develop into two political parties. There is a law about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
There are tough to implement reforms to end this but instead we generally just get over grown miscreant middle-schoolers who want to treat politicians like substitute teachers. This should never be indulged.Report
“Jaybird should vote for Trump!”
“Jaybird disagrees.”Report
I also don’t think Jaybird (or Saul- or anyone) should vote for Trump.Report
You’re not the one screaming at me that I have to pick one of the two parties or else I’m not being serious, though.Report
You aren’t. Because you have convinced yourself the GOP won’t hurt you and the Democrats won’t help you. Neither of which is a true statement.Report
Nah, that’s not it. My argument is that neither has achieved being “good enough to vote for”, they only both manage to be “bad enough to vote against”.
A 3rd Party vote communicates to both real parties “I voted against you” at the same time.
If there were a “none of the above” option, I’d pick that.
Sadly, there isn’t one.Report
Nope. Not in any real meaningful way.
Sure there is – don’t vote.Report
I could never criticize a libertarian* for voting for the libertarian party. That has a considerable internal intellectual coherence though I do, occasionally see clips of Libertarian party goings on and sigh with a certain degree of pity.
Now green party voters? In this country? Yeah, I’m sorry they’re either dupes or delusional.Report
The Libertarian party goings on are like one of those play-within-a-play plays that is being written by a complete and total hack of a playwright who only reads Mamet and saw Shaffer’s Equus once and concluded that subtext was for cowards.Report
Heheh that sounds about right though no one outside the party doubts that it’s full of earnest libertarians. Can’t say the same for the Greens.Report
Exactly. Dan Savage had a good rant about this.Report
Depending on how you read it, his rants have either aged really well or not at all. Personally, he and I are in violent agreement on this issue.Report
I hadn’t even considered the possibility that he was lying. Would that make things more or less crazy? I don’t even know.Report
RFK seems to have a exhibitionist narcissist streak in him. He has to know all this crazy pants shite would come out. Partly he is leaning into the trump effect that allows nutty rich jerks to do whatever they want. A big part is that he is dying for all the kennedy family attention. Lot easier to get that attention by being an a**hole, brain worm, possibly human flesh eating falcon guy, getting 80+ Samoan kids killed by measles then, you know, accomplishing something worthwhile in life.Report
Aside from the fact he won’t EVER eclipse his dad, or his uncle . . . He’s got Caroline to contend with, and she has pointedly stayed out of politics since achieving majority. Much to her credit.Report
Tatiana, Kennedy’s niece, was on the original byline of the 2014 story.
She has since released a statement: “Like law enforcement, I had no idea who was responsible for this when I wrote the story.”Report
Likely story. As if a scoop on a dead bear dumped in the park ain’t the fastest ticket to the top of the New York press corps.Report
A quick google:
“Trichinosis, also known as trichinellosis, is a food-borne disease caused by eating raw or undercooked meat from animals infected with the microscopic parasite Trichinella. Bears, wild boars, walruses, foxes, cougars, and domestic pigs are all animals that can be infected with the parasite. In the United States, trichinellosis is rare and usually comes from eating wild game meat like bear.”
Emphasis added.Report