The Man Who Would Be President

On seeking office instead of going fishing.

Last night, here in Los Angeles, I had dinner Drs. Pierre Kory, Ryan Cole, and Brian Hooker, and we were all pleasantly surprised when presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. found the time to join us. He was curious to know what we are seeing in the realm of public health, and he expressed special concern about various signals that the incidence of cancer is rising, especially among young people.

Critics of Kennedy have told me he gets too much in the weeds about particular policy issues, and is inclined to lose sight of the big political and social picture. I am aware of the longstanding idea that intellectuals are not well-suited to holding high political office.

This criticism of RFK, Jr. might have some merit IF we had an honest and functioning administrative class in Washington and an incumbent president with a basic understanding of what is going on.

Now the United States finds itself embroiled in all kinds of needless high drama and crises. To understand the folly of it, one needs to be equipped with a mind that can see through all of the obfuscation and obscurantism that veils the truth of these issues.

Apart from his earnest intensity, the other thing that struck me about RFK, Jr. is that he’s exceptionally strong and fit for a man of any age, and he recently turned seventy. The contrast he makes with the senescent specter known as “Joe Biden” couldn’t be more striking.

Biden probably won’t campaign much, but will occasionally attempt to read a teleprompter. Kennedy, on the other hand, is going to have to work very hard. He will need every ounce of fitness, strength, and energy he’s got.

This morning, over coffee, I read an essay by Jeffrey Tucker titled “The Regime That Doesn’t Care” in the Epoch Times. Tucker refers to a historical precedent that I’ve often thought bears an eery resemblance to the U.S. government today. As he wrote:

I have been reading “The Vampire Economy” by German economist and financier Gunter Reimann, published in 1939 (and which I scanned and uploaded with the author’s permission).

The book was written as the Nazi Party had gained full control of government (and everything else) and the full war in Europe was about to commence with the German invasion of Poland.

Reimann brilliantly dissects the reality of a regime that cared nothing for the spreading suffering of the people.

Nazi leaders in Germany do not fear possible national economic ruin in wartime,” he writes. “They feel that, whatever happens, they will remain on top, that the worse matters become, the more dependent on them will be the propertied classes. And if the worst comes to the worst, they are prepared to sacrifice all other interests to maintain their hold on the State. If they themselves must go, they are ready to pull the temple down with them.

The passage reminded me of the anecdote that—as it became clear the German military was going to fail in Russia—Hitler remarked that the end was perhaps going to be like Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung—”Twilight of the Gods”—in which war breaks out between the gods that results in Valhalla going up in flames.

I read this anecdote thirty years ago in Joachim Fest’s biography of Hitler, and it has stuck with me ever since. I’ve often thought about it since the beginning of the Ukraine war, along with the terrible perception that there are people in Washington who do not fear nuclear war because they don’t care about humanity.

Shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany, one of his comrades remarked that much of the German aristocracy was alarmed by the Nazi Party’s radical excesses. Hitler replied something like the following:

None of these old guys have the stomach for politics. All they want to do is retire to their country estates and go fishing. Thus, all we have to do is convince them that we will protect them from the socialists and communists who want to seize their property, and they’ll give us their approval.

Currently, the American propertied class continues to remain fairly insulated from the grave and gathering dangers of DEBT, WAR, INFLATION and the criminal racketeering of the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex that is busy trying to produce another Pandemic Drama. The levitating stock market has done much to maintain this insulation. Propertied Baby Boomers may soon be in for a very rude awakening.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Donald Trump certainly have the personal resources to retire and go fishing. I applaud both of them for having the stomach to seek the office of the presidency.