Why RFK, Jr. Makes Me Cry
Go ahead, laugh. I'm not the only one.
We all heard it was coming, and two days ago, it happened: RFK Jr. suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump.
It’s an extraordinary speech. As
said, “the man brought straight fire.”If you haven’t watched it, do yourself a favor and please, take the time. Most won’t.
I’ve read many, many comments about his speech and there seems to be one reaction that keeps surfacing amid all the speculation on strategy, tactics, and potential outcomes: tears.
As complex human and spiritual beings, we cry for lots of reasons — sorrow, joy, pain, gratitude, anger, happiness, and more. We’re pretty weird creatures, really. No one knows exactly why we cry, or why we stop crying, or how the whole crying game actually works — just as we don’t know why we sleep or what dreams really are.
We are profound mysteries.
The only way I know how to describe tears for myself is that they are always an indicator of truth received. I cry when the truth of someone else’s experience — happy or sad — lands within my soul. It’s a shared recognition, a visceral understanding.
It’s my spontaneous response when the truth of our shared human experience engulfs me, and often that truth is wrapped up in the power of love. I cry when love blows open and sweeps past all the doors I might close to protect me.
So what is the truth, the love, that Bobby touched in his speech?
Authenticity
There are plenty in the media who claim that Bobby is not what he claims, that he’s just a pawn at best or controlled opposition at worst. I’m in no position to offer concrete evidence to prove definitively he isn’t one of those.
All I have is my own interpretations and gut feel from watching him speak in person three times and in a dozen interviews or webinars. In all of those instances he’s come across to me as someone who actively pursues truth, even to his own personal detriment.
Writing The Real Anthony Fauci didn’t endear him to the establishment. Neither did mentioning, in his speech on Friday, the “palace coup against Biden,” the takeover and corruption of regulatory agencies, the government censorship and surveillance complex, and the complicity of the US in prolonging the war in the Ukraine.
Has any candidate ever talked that honestly about what’s going on behind the proverbial curtain? Or about their sordid pasts? During the past 16 months, he’s spoken candidly with anyone who wants to know about his former drug and sex addiction, with the humility of someone who hit rock bottom and managed, with the grace of God, to climb back up.
I love what
wrote about him:“Let’s not ask for perfect people, but for people whose voices we can hear, because they speak as themselves.”
She’s right. For those who choose to really listen, you can hear that he hasn’t shied away from his own vulnerability. He admits when he’s wrong — about as rare in a politician as you can get — and he allows himself the freedom to speak of God without bombast or embarrassment.
During his speech, he got choked up speaking about the generations of children he has seen getting sicker and sicker:
“And nobody in power seemed to care or even notice. For 19 years, I prayed every morning that God would put me in a position to end this calamity…
I ask myself, what choices must I make to maximize my chances to save America’s children and restore national health? I felt that if I refused this opportunity, I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror, knowing I could have saved the lives of countless children and reversed this country’s chronic disease epidemic…
Ultimately the only thing that will save our children and our country is if we choose to love them more than we hate each other.”
Is he just acting? Is all his talk of children just politically motivated? Is Children’s Health Defense just a sham organization, set up to further his ambitions? In what world is this headline from The New Republican accurate? “Power-Hungry RFK Jr. Finally Shows True Colors on Trump”
I’m sorry, but his compassion — backed up by an entire lifetime of action — reads as purely authentic, and it’s that authenticity that elicited my tears.
Hope
Here’s
again:“Cynical Smart Set wants you to worship them because they see how dark everybody who seems like a good guy really is. And they peddle the Trust Nobody grift, their collections of dots.”
I’m just not interested in joining the Cynical Smart Set. (Not that they’d have me.) I don’t function well from a place of complete cynicism, and I don’t think society as a whole does, either. Cynicism has its place — it’s a good idea to question motives and narratives, especially of those in power — but if it’s not tempered with hope, life is bleak and pretty much not worth living, IMHO.
By the way, when I use the term hope, I’m using it in the way Vaclav Havel defined it: “an orientation of the spirit.” I think of it as an attitude of pure possibility, a state of positive curiosity, an opening to ALL potentialities. For more about the essential nature of hope defeating tyranny, read my earlier essay, Redefining Hope and Acceptance.
That’s the kind of hope that Bobby’s father and uncle were able to inspire in the hearts of Americans from all walks of life. And that’s what I felt when I listened to the “straight fire” of Bobby’s speech: anything is possible in the house of life when we throw open the door and welcome it all. (Thanks, Rumi!)
Not Giving Up
Bobby has devoted his entire career to fighting for those who don’t have the resources or ability to fight for themselves. This isn’t someone who just writes a check. (Not that I’m disparaging philanthropy; help takes all forms. But some help comes at a far greater personal cost than a few million dollars.)
Taking on Monsanto and corporate polluters like General Electric made him a hero in the eyes of the Left, while taking on the pharmaceutical industry reduced him to cartoonish vilification… yet he never backed down.
Even in this moment of suspending his campaign, you can see he’s still in the fight. Rather than conceding outright, he’s leaving open the possibility (there’s that hope again!) that he could still win:
“I want everyone to know that I am only suspending my campaign, not terminating it. My name will still be on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or Vice President Harris. In red states — the same applies. I encourage you to do so. And if enough of you vote for me and neither of the major party candidates win 270 electoral votes, I could still end up in the White House in a contingent election.”
I also couldn’t help but notice that when Bobby addressed the crowd at Trump’s rally in Arizona on Friday night, he was clear that he was aligning with Trump… and yet… watch and listen carefully to the end of his address, where he peppered the crowd with rhetorical questions. Each question started with “Don’t you want a president who…”
For example:
“Don’t you want a president who’s going to get us out of the wars, and who’s going to rebuild the middle class in this country?”
Each time he asked, he gestured toward Trump.
But he never answered the question himself. He never actually said, “Trump will do that.” Even at the very end, he refrained from saying that Trump was the one who would follow through.
Take two minutes and watch for yourself, starting at 10:35 to the end.
Like the excellent lawyer he is, he kept alive the possibility that he could be the one who will do that, while still plausibly suggesting otherwise.
Who isn’t inspired by witnessing individuals or teams that don’t give up? “Cut me, Mick,” from Rocky comes to mind. Or Andy Dufresne crawling through endless sewage pipes in The Shawshank Redemption. How about Truman’s relentless pursuit of the truth of his reality in The Truman Show? Tears, anyone?
Disappointing Others
Todd Norian, with whom I co-authored his memoir called Tantra Yoga: Journey to Unbreakable Wholeness, once said, “If you’re not disappointing others, whom do you think you’re disappointing?
Only our deep convictions can point us toward decisions that make others unhappy with us. I felt that keenly when we picked up and moved from our kids’ childhood home in NY to FL. We disappointed many friends and family in our adherence to our principles.
But that disappointment pales in comparison to the shitstorm I imagine is raining down on Bobby right now. He mentions it briefly:
“This decision is agonizing for me, because of the difficulties it causes to my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. But I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do and that certainly gives me internal peace even in storms.”
Just his sibling reaction alone must wound terribly:
Following what you feel to be right, your “moral obligation” as he deemed it, no matter the consequences, is a damn lonely road. That he’s willing to keep doing that, keep heeding the call he hears to stay on his golden path, is an act of self-honor that makes me cry — no matter what I or anyone else thinks of his choice.
Which brings me to…
Courage
In an earlier essay entitled Electing the Wizard, Revisited, I write about the scene in The Wizard of Oz when all four friends encounter the “wizard” for the first time. The flaming, floating head of the wizard finally addresses Lion:
The angry disembodied head has only to say, imperiously, “WELL??” and the big scaredy cat faints dead away, flattened to the marble floor.
Rushing to the unconscious coward’s side, Dorothy can’t help herself. She lashes out at the Wizard, “You oughta be ashamed of yourself! Frightening him like that when he came to you for help!”
In that moment, Dorothy’s concern for Lion overpowers any concern she has for her own safety. She is brave and strong in the face of grave danger, because her love for her friend makes her so.
Courage is born of love: love for a friend, a child, your country. Soldiers find courage to fight for the fellow soldiers whom they love.
It’s Bobby’s love for the people of this country that has sustained his courage to fight corporations, run for president… and now, step away from that race to serve the children of this country.
That kind of courage, that kind of love, is rare.
Tonika Todorova of
says this:Deep down, each and every one of us, knows the way home. Deep down, we know the courage it takes to do the right thing at the right time.
Ultimately, my tears at his speech were not because he’s stepping out of the race. I no longer believe in heroes that swoop in and fix everything, à la Hollywood. It may be that our system is so far gone that it must implode before we can rebuild it from the ground up. If that happens, I hope he’s around to help.
No, my tears were the raw truth of Bobby’s experience washing over me. They were my soul’s response to witnessing another brave soul striving to be authentic and hope-filled, not giving up, and raising the sword of personal truth in the face of disapproval and ostracism.
Twice when I saw Bobby speak in person, I stood in line to have a photo opp with him. Both times, as I shook his hand and looked into his watery blue eyes, I said what I needed to say to him, what I would say to him again if I could:
“Thank you for your courage. No really, thank you.”
You’ve probably guessed by now: I cried then, too.
Thanks Mary. For all his flaws, Bobby is the figure most responsible for mainstreaming anti-Jibby Jab discourse. And he has paid the price by being disowned by his family in the most public and humiliating way possible.
Beautifully said Mary.
I hear these criticisms too. People I know well and respect and who nonetheless for me are too quick to pour scorn on every public figure, suggest they must be 'controlled opposition' or in some way 'all as bad as each other'. It leads to a very one dimensional world in which there is no point in us trying to differentiate any candidate from any other. And that cannot be the reality. Even without your advantage of having seen RFK in person, it seems not difficult to me to see that, even if not perfect, there is a lot of good in the man. And not only in his intention and attitude and orientation, but in what he actually does in the world. It speaks loudly to me too that he is widely admired by both Democrat and Republican voters. It is great that he has managed to make what he feels to be right move here while, as you say, not surrendering his own campaign and aspirations entirely.
His move must make Trump's election even more likely (barring massive fraud or a more successful assassination attempt - or even suspension of elections due to a global conflict?? .... Let us pray). If Trump wins, it would be wonderful to see RFK put in some strong position to take on 'the health establishment'. (Attorney General? Health Sec? I don't know...). It's clear enough from our past dialogues that we share the view that some kind of 'extensive break down of the known', followed by a long and difficult rebuilding process is a reasonably strong possibility for the near future. But also that in the meantime we must do everything we can to reduce the savagery of the transition and to maximise the early sowing of seeds for something better. From whatever role RFK works, even if not in official office, he contributes to that.
Cry you might. He is (as far as I can tell, having only what comes through the various media to go on) a great man. An inspiration to us all to stay in the fight.