Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has earned a reputation for peddling bizarre ideas, so it didn’t come as too big of a surprise when the conspiracy theorist sent out a fundraising appeal last week referring to Jan. 6 criminal defendants as “activists” who have been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.” Soon after, Kennedy’s campaign distanced itself from its own message, claiming that the language was an “error.
NBC News reported: Not surprisingly, Kennedy’s statement contained several assertions that were plainly false, including the claim that Jan. 6 rioters “carried no weapons.” As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim added, Kennedy also took the opportunity to peddle absurd claims about the “weaponization” of the federal government, which are impossible to take seriously. I mention all of this in part because Kennedy’s strange worldview continues to clash with reality, but also because his Jan.