When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended his independent presidential run in August 2024 and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, it might have seemed a surprising turn of events.
Kennedy began his presidential run as a Democrat and is the scion of a Democratic dynasty. Nephew to former President John F. Kennedy and the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Kennedy spent most of his career as a lawyer representing environmental groups that sued polluting corporations and municipalities.
Yet Kennedy, 70, has long held positions that put him at odds with the Democratic mainstream. He pushes public health misinformation around vaccines and HIV/AIDS, opposes U.S. military involvement in foreign wars, including in Ukraine, and claims that the CIA assassinated his uncle.
Kennedy’s ideologically mixed politics are hard to categorize in traditional left-right terms.
My political science research finds that Kennedy’s journey from left-aligned skepticism into Trumpism is part of a broader trend of contemporary left-to-right populist transformations happening across the United States.
Populism is a political story that presents the good “people” of a nation as in a struggle against its “elites,” who have corrupted democratic institutions to further their own selfish interests. It cuts across the ideological spectrum, often combining left-wing economic critiques with right-wing cultural ones.
Based on my research, I find that Kennedy uses a populist style of speech that matches the rhetoric of today’s online alternative media, also known as the “alternative influence network.”
If populism cuts across the ideological spectrum, so does the alternative media.
This network of politically diverse independent podcasters, YouTube hosts and other creators connects with young, politically disaffected audiences by mixing politics with comedy and pop culture, and presenting themselves as embattled defenders of free thinking – in opposition to mainstream media and mainstream parties.
Top-rated shows include “Breaking Points,” “Stay Free with Russell Brand,” “The Joe Rogan Experience,” The Culture War with Tim Pool and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.”
While many of these shows have been around since the 2010s, the network expanded throughout the Trump era. Their popularity skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public distrust in government, anger over pandemic restrictions and vaccine skepticism surged.
These shows hosted Kennedy frequently throughout his presidential run in 2023 and 2024.
I analyzed a set of Kennedy’s appearances for this story. Both Kennedy and alternative media hosts claim to care about “the real issues” facing Americans such as war, corporate and political malfeasance and economic troubles. They condemn the “mainstream” for promoting frivolous “culture war” topics related to race and identity politics.
Kennedy and the alternative media hosts also combine left and right arguments in a typically populist way. They claim that corporations control the government and that liberals and corporations censor free speech.
For example, on a May 2024, episode of “Stay Free with Russell Brand,” Brand asserted that corrupt institutions are backed by the “deep state.” He asked Kennedy how he would fight these powerful interests.
“The major agencies of government have all been captured by the industries they’re supposed to regulate and act as sock puppets serving the mercantile interests of these big corporations,” responded Kennedy. “I have a particular ability to unravel that because I’ve litigated against so many of these agencies.”
My research found that Kennedy often bonded with his alternative media hosts over his perception that liberal media sources – allegedly controlled by the Democratic National Committee or the CIA – were censoring his campaign.
Like Kennedy, alternative media hosts often identify as former or disaffected Democrats. Many used to work at mainstream left news sites, where they say they experienced censorship.
In a June 2023 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan explained that he no longer identifies as a liberal because of the “orthodoxy it preaches” around issues like vaccines. He then cited YouTube’s removal of some of Kennedy’s vaccine-related videos for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Kennedy had just spent 90 minutes outlining his journey toward vaccine skepticism, which started with meeting a mother who believed vaccines caused her son’s autism.
“If a woman tells you something about her child, you should listen,” he said.
Kennedy also described being convinced by a set of studies that public health officials had ignored.
“Trust the experts is not a function of science, it’s a function of religion,” he said. “I’ve been litigating 40 years; there’s experts on both sides.”
Afterward, he thanked Rogan for maintaining “this little island of free speech in a desert of suppression and of critical thinking.”
Kennedy reiterated this point in the Aug. 23, 2024, speech that ended his campaign, saying the “alternative media” had kept his ideas alive, while the mainstream networks had shut him out despite his historically high third-party poll numbers of 15% to 20%.
“The DNC-allied mainstream media networks maintained a near-perfect embargo on interviews with me,” Kennedy said.
Speaking directly to the reporters in the room, he added, “Your institutions and media made themselves government mouthpieces and stenographers for the organs of power.”
Trust in a range of U.S. institutions is at historical lows. Americans on both the right and the left are skeptical of power and crave radical change.
Alternative media hosts tap into this desire, helping to push some disaffected listeners down the same left-to-right pipeline that landed Kennedy in Trump’s orbit.
Trump and his allies are adept at harnessing the power of the alternative media ecosystem. Trump has appeared on male-centric shows like “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von and ”The Joe Rogan Experience,“ and he founded the alternative social media platform Truth Social.
Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon hosts an influential podcast called the "War Room” on another MAGA alternative media platform, Rumble. Known for its fiery populist rhetoric, the “War Room” broadcasts live for an astonishing 22 hours a week.
Until recently, Democrats have largely embraced traditional media. During the first months of her 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” ABC’s “The View” and MSNBC’s “Stephanie Ruhle.”
Then, on Oct. 12, Harris appeared on “Call her Daddy.” Spotify’s second-most popular podcast, it has a young, female audience. Days later, she sat down for an interview with Fox News and is reportedly in talks to appear on Joe Rogan’s show.
Kennedy might approve of all this aisle-crossing.
“Step outside the culture war!” he tweeted in July 2024. “Step outside the politics of hating the other side!”
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Rachel Meade, Boston University
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Rachel Meade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
