Honestly, could we ignore him? He's a fringe candidate with a near-zero chance of reaching nomination. What impact does he have on the race other than to act as a potential spoiler and distraction candidate?
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Honestly, could we ignore him?
we can, but obviously that's not going to make much of a difference if the media doesn't--and quite a lot of media outlets seem to be refusing to just ignore him. RFK Jr also has quite an audience already and promotes extremely harmful viewpoints, so the extent to which ignoring him is useful is, i think, debatable on some grounds. it may or may not be a good idea to let him spout anti-vaccine rhetoric unchecked.
My concern is based on what happened with Trump. The more we debated him in 2016, and the more he was criticized in the media, the more his profile grew.
Of course the media won't do the sensible thing- Where's the profit incentive in that?
But perhaps by being indifferent instead of outraged, we'll not encourage them to write quite so much about him.
Trump, and I think RFK jr, appeal to anti-establishment people. When the establishment media criticize them, it validates their anti-establishment credentials.
Media like them because they're controversial, and controversy drives engagement. I'm sure they see RFK jr as the 'left wing' Trump and great for the bottom line.
The one thing we can do, maybe, is to not engage. Try not to think about him.
We should have tried that with Trump.
You'll remember that few weeks back, Joe Rogan challenged vaccine researcher Peter Hotez to debate RFK on his podcast.
When Hotez rightfully refused (I mean, what is the point of debating a pigeon), Elon Musk couldn't resist piling on -- accusing Hotez of being "scared" of debate. Cue the hooting across the bird site. (The whole thing reminded me of that scene with the apes at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I digress).
Anyhoo, the whole Rogan-Hotez-Musk episode, aside from being a low point in U.S. social-scientific discourse, raises all sorts of questions about how deeply one engages kookiness.
I tend to fall into the "laugh and ignore" camp because scientific truth can never be settled by who yells the loudest, and ... again, pigeons ... but there is a lot of room for nuance in determining the best way to combat misinformation. Particularly among populations in a position to be hurt by it. (anti-VAX nonsense and the elderly being a prime example).
I don't think giving a platform to ignorance debunks it. The people likely to be hornswoggled aren't going to listen to the expert.
And there's the problem that falsehoods are quick and easy to produce but can take time and effort to debunk.
In the time it takes you to debunk one claim, the anti-vaxxer can spew a dozen more. For you to win, you need to debunk everything they say. For them to win, they just need to keep spewing garbage with no evidence until you run out of time to debunk.
I really feel as though this new age of the Internet has given rise to allowing any self important asshole with money the ability to perpetrate lies and feed the beast of propaganda. Anytime I hear someone even mention Joe Rogan I immediately know they’re going to spew some idiotic viewpoints without any significant merit as well as making it impossible to refute their viewpoint. It’s veiled intellectualism.
I don't care if a candidate's chances are low. The content of what he has to say is why I want to ignore him.
Hopefully if we ignore him, the media won't amplify him quite as much.
Distraction is the purpose. Modern media has gone all in on clickbait and sensationalism leading to the rise of film and TV “star” candidates.
It’s awful.
It's frankly been the trend of all privately-owned media to be like this, since the inception of Capitalism.
It is obvious why he is running and why NewsNation is giving him a town hall. RFK Jr. has only gotten three party endorsements; Bernie got more and better ones.
He should be treated as someone who isn't going to win.
Just because someone has something to say, doesn't mean the rest of us HAVE to listen.
But how else are the masses going to learn that 5G is unzipping their DNA and inserting ATCG sequences that compose troll face gifs?
Michael Smerconish gave RFK Jr. a handjob on national television. It was frankly shocking to stumble across live.
It’s interesting how Smerconish restyled himself as a moderate, after being one of Limbaugh’s guest hosts in the ‘90s.
RFK Jr. was interested in politics at a very young age
I will be honest I'm out of the loop on this guy. Is he running left of Bernie and Jill Stine? Because that sure seems like a poor plan. The Democrats are not like the Republican primaries where they have to out extreme right until the general election.
He's an anti-vaxxer that echos a lot of Russian propaganda. He even tweeted an image of a woman wearing his campaign merchandise - and then people noticed that the sign on the cafe in the background was in Russian.
If anything, he seems like a right-winger trying to pretend that he's a liberal and hoping that people vote for him based on his famous family name.