RFK Jr. Spews Conspiracy Theories About Vaccines, 5G, Satellites: ‘Even in Hitler’s Germany, You Could Hide in an Attic Like Anne Frank’

Sarah RumpfJan 23rd, 2022, 5:23 pm
 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, spewing an incredible array of conspiracy theories, including comparing those who defy vaccine mandates to Jews hiding from Nazi genocide during the Holocaust.

Yes, really.

“What we’re seeing today, what we’re seeing today, is what I call turnkey totalitarianism,” Kennedy told the rally audience. “They are putting in place all of these technological mechanisms for control we’ve never seen before. It’s been the ambition of every totalitarian state from the beginning of mankind to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent. None them have been able to do it. They didn’t have the technological capacity.”

“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy continued. “I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father, and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible — many died doing it, but it was possible.”

Anne Frank, her mother Edith, father Otto, and older sister Margot lived with four other Jews to hide from the Nazis in a cramped attic annex above the Amsterdam factory where her father had worked, until they were discovered, arrested, and sent to concentration camps.

Otto Frank was the only member of the immediate family to survive. Anne and Margot died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early 1945. It is not possible to determine an exact date and cause of death, but both sisters are believed to have succumbed to typhus or one of the other diseases that were epidemic in the camp at the time. Multiple women who survived Bergen-Belsen and remembered Anne Frank from their time there described her in those last tragic weeks of her life as weak and emaciated, her head shaved, “delirious, terrible, burning up” from fever.

That is what Kennedy thought was a valid situation to compare to people refusing to take a safe and effective vaccine. And then he added a reference to East Germans fleeing communist oppression by attempting to cross over the Berlin Wall.

At least he was willing to admit that “many died.”

Kennedy then followed up that pair of odiously offensive comparisons with an absolutely bonkers sample platter of conspiracy theories, hitting Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 5G cell phone technology, and satellites:

Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide. Within five years, we’re going to see 415,000 low-orbit satellites — Bill Gates and his 65,000 satellites alone will be able to look at every square inch of the planet 24 hours a day. They’re putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior. Digital currency that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply. Vaccine passports.

If Kennedy could have just added a mention of chemtrails in that wacky little rant, he would’ve gotten Tinfoil Hat Bingo.

A video clip of Kennedy’s remarks by NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins went viral on Twitter, and drew swift backlash for its anti-science, anti-reality, and anti-decency takes. “An ignorant lying menace,” tweeted CNN’s Jake Tapper, a sentiment shared by many of Kennedy’s critics.

CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta covered the speech during a Sunday segment with Margaret Hoover and John Avlon, calling Kennedy’s remarks “incredibly offensive” and “just insanity.”

“It just boggles the mind,” said Acosta, adding that “there’s something wrong with him” to make this comparison to the Holocaust.

Avlon commented that the Holocaust comparison was sadly common among anti-vaxxers, and called out Kennedy’s words as the direct antithesis of the philosophy of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who had said in a now-famous statement on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. that “what we need in the United States is not division” or “lawlessness” but “love.” Kennedy had “lost the plot for a long time” on this issue, said Avlon, and his speech earlier today was “just a sickening sign of it.”

Hoover concurred with her husband and commentary partner, and noted that we were not actually living in a totalitarian state.

“There are good reasons during a global pandemic to encourage people to get vaccinations,” said Avlon, but “these kind of dial-to-11 insanity” and “insulting comparisons to Anne Frank and Auschwitz and the Nazi regime which we hear over and over and over again,” were “worse than intellectually lazy” it was “fear-mongering from the fright wing of the worst sort.”

“And it’s getting people killed,” concluded Acosta. “It’s sickening and it’s just getting people killed and it’s just making this pandemic last longer and longer.”

Kennedy was not the only speaker at this rally who made an utterly ridiculous and offensive comparison to some historical figure or moment.

Dr. Robert Malone, the antivaxxer whose comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast drew loud condemnation and sparked calls for Spotify to institute a misinformation policy, invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at the March on Washington in 1963 and quoted his words about “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Another antivaxxer and conspiracy theorist, Del Bigtree, threatened to hold some sort of “Nuremberg Trials” to go after not just Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden, but also the press.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

This post has been updated with additional information and video content.

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Sarah Rumpf - Contributing Editor

Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.