Conspiracy theories have once again reared their ugly head, this time coming from none other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is not only a Democratic presidential candidate but also a well-known conspiracy theorist. In a video published by the New York Post, Kennedy can be seen making wild claims about “ethnically targeted microbes” during a press dinner in Manhattan.
At the same dinner, there was another bizarre incident involving two older male attendees, where a conversation about climate change quickly spiraled into a heated shouting match, ultimately leading to one individual resorting to targeted flatulence. It’s safe to say that things took a rather strange turn that night.
Kennedy has a history of promoting falsehoods about science and medicine, and in the video at Tony’s Di Napoli, an Italian restaurant, he asserted that COVID-19 may be targeted to attack certain races disproportionately. Specifically, he made baseless claims that the virus specifically targets Caucasians and Black people due to their genetic makeup. He also claimed that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese individuals are more immune to the virus. These statements were made without any evidence, and Kennedy was careful to note that he did not know if the virus was intentionally targeted or not.
The disturbing aspect of this is that conspiracy theories linking Jewish people to the spread of COVID-19 have gained traction, with an Oxford University poll revealing that 20% of English people supported this idea to some extent in 2020. Jewish groups have vehemently denounced these theories as blatant antisemitism, drawing parallels to old-world conspiracies that fueled the Holocaust. It is crucial to note that these theories are unfounded and wholly untrue. Additionally, the virus initially affected Black people disproportionately, a result of structural inequalities that often lead to worse health outcomes for this demographic.
Kennedy further alleged that both the U.S. and China have invested “hundreds of millions of dollars” into the development of ethnically targeted microbes. He specifically mentioned U.S.-funded labs in Ukraine collecting “Russian DNA” for the purpose of targeting individuals by race. While the plausibility of ethnically targeted bioweapons is received with skepticism by scientists, reports of other nations working on such projects have circulated for decades. In his attempt to back his claims, Kennedy inaccurately cited a July 2020 study as a “proof of concept” for an ethnically targeted bioweapon.
Aside from Kennedy’s conspiracy-laden remarks, his dinner also made headlines due to a fiery altercation between attendees Anthony Haden-Guest, an art critic, and Doug Dechert, a former gossip columnist. The confrontation escalated when Dechert dismissed climate change as a hoax, prompting Haden-Guest to retaliate with insults, including calling Dechert a “miserable blob.” Described as a “foul bout of screaming” and even “polemic farting” by Page Six, it’s safe to say that this dinner was marked by bizarre encounters.
Despite these controversies, Kennedy has managed to garner some support from one in five Democratic voters, according to recent polls.
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