I actually can't believe I haven't yet written about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., America's answer to the Habsburg curse. Maybe because I refuse to believe this is a real person that we’ve been forced to acknowledge.

But even while I've been distracted by Real News and Real Life, RFK Jr. has been undeterred, his past and present exploits seeming to play on a constant loop in the background, ready to go — if not for primetime, then for the 1am slot, when the insomnia has already reared its ugly head, you’ve given up on sleep, and well, we might as well see what This Guy has to say. How bad could it be?

Well.

(I'm not going to get into it but this is how, by the way, figures like him worm their way into the mainstream. By the time we're entertaining people like Kennedy and engaging them in genuine discussion, it's already too late. He's used our morbid curiosity to gain our attention, and now we are doomed to read about a presidential hopeful who just admitted to driving hundreds of miles to dump a dead bear in Central Park. This is what we've reaped.)

Because we're in it now. We've reached the point where we have to waste time dismissing someone who should, at best, be a reality TV supporting character, the kind about whom an ever diminishing faction of people does not play. RFK Jr. needs to be on Bravo, not Politico headlines. Who else but a Real Housewife could come up with a flyer like this one?

Do you know how distanced from reality you have to be to unironically describe Zachary Levi as "one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, known for his roles in blockbuster superhero movies," as the Kennedy campaign does on its website? When Levi's most famous work is that of Adult Tantrum-Thrower following Shazam 2's flop? Let's look at the material before calling someone a star. 

Forgive me for giving in to mild speculation, but do you understand how quiet I would be if God/Satan had seen fit to make me a Kennedy? You wouldn't hear a peep from me. Little Miss Does Her Job and Goes Home. And if I did, by some twist of poor judgment and a wide circle of frenemies, lean in to my genetic need for attention, I would go about it in much the same way Jack Schlossberg has — publicly deriding my unhinged cousin and using my ancestors' Wikipedia pages to become a sort of Internet court jester and fall into a Vogue byline (good for him btw, and I mean that). 

Instead, we have to deal with the nuclear fallout that is Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.'s presidential campaign. 

Whatever the opposite of an embarrassment of riches is, that's what we're working with here.

Somehow, this man's last name, deep instability, and unrelenting main character syndrome means that I have to research items like Children's Health Defense, a sordidly-named organization whose main purpose seems to be spreading anti-vaccine misinformation and which Kennedy, of course, has happily amplified.

Because sure, Kennedy has some environmentalist bona fides in his resume, but the thing that brought him to the national forefront is his loud and long-held anti-vax stance, from which unfolded a proper scripture of unhinged views and opinions worthy of Joe Rogan's respect and admiration.

I couldn’t possibly recount every instance of damage brought about by RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine advocacy, but the reach of his harm is ample. The AP did a great, comprehensive piece on it last year.

Of course, that’s not all. Here are a few non-anti-vax reasons why Kennedy has been in the news recently:

• He confessed (on camera, to Roseanne Barr, while sitting at a nondescript kitchen table, for a video he then uploaded to Twitter) to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park in 2014. The reason for this confession? The New Yorker had warned him they had uncovered the story and would be publishing it imminently. Imagine getting a call like that and deciding to hit up Roseanne Barr, of all people, to serve as your baffled audience as you reminisce about the time you drove from upstate New York to stage a bear cub's death in Central Park. Like, I'm sorry, but this is the work of a Fear Factor contestant, at best.

• Brain worms, which should immediately set off a twin reaction of fire alarms and "ahhh that does make sense." Just three months ago, the New York Times revealed that in 2010 RFK Jr. had hosted a parasitic worm in his brain. The worm, likely sensing a certain inhospitability, engaged in some light (I imagine) consumption and promptly died. To be clear, I'm not intimately familiar with the traditional life cycle of brain-eating worms, but the metaphor alone goes far. That poor worm. 

• RFK Jr. apparently reached out to the Harris campaign to discuss a cabinet position in exchange for his endorsement. This of course comes only a few weeks after a leaked video of a phone call between Kennedy and Trump during which they discussed the former's endorsement of the latter. Going with whoever gives you the most attention: Jonah Ryan core.

• A judge invalidated Kennedy's petition to put his name on the election ballot in New York, the same state where he dumped a dead bear, because he was using a sham NY address. Point for the bear.  

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I sympathize with the pull of distancing yourself from reality, but there should be limits.

It’s happening less often now that Biden has dropped out, but I've been slightly terrified of how many acquaintances have casually said to me, "Yeah, I'm thinking about voting for RFK, he seems like a good alternative," without a trace of irony. To vote for this man, who is deranged far beyond the ways in which politicians are usually deranged. Please.

Believe you me, I understand the disillusion with the two-party system, but opting for RFK Jr. is like forgoing the cigarettes to acquire a light arsenic habit. Babes. Please. Nicotine over arsenic, every time.¹

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