The Covid-19 pandemic was very good to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member, sad to say, of arguably the most famous political family in the country. Mr. Kennedy is a Senate vote away from becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, even though he led a spike in anti-vaccine fears and a profitable website and publishing enterprise that throve on nonsense to a bid for the presidency itself. When that failed, Mr. Kennedy secured a prominent place among President-elect Donald J. Trump’s constellation of crackpots.
Mr. Kennedy is all over the place in his wild ideas. He has latched onto raw milk bans as a cause to fight. He is taking on fluoride in drinking water. Of the Covid-19 vaccine, he has claimed, “Covid was clearly a bioweapons problem.” Vaccines in general, he falsely said, cause autism. He has voiced unproven ideas about 5G systems, asserting that they allow governments to collect data and control users’ lives. He has blamed psychiatric medicine for gun violence in the U.S. and falsely contended that the gun ownership rate in this country was similar to that of Switzerland. He made an anti-vax influence tour of Samoa in 2019 that has been cited in causing the deaths of 83 unvaccinated people, mostly children. What makes Mr. Kennedy so dangerous is that has traded on his family’s name to spread unfounded doubt about our scientific and medical establishment — which is among the best in the world.
Mr. Kennedy is not alone; in the internet era, espousing unsound ideas and conspiracy theories has become a leading path to political power. Cranks have been around forever and are not going away. What actually is new in the modern era is a distrust of government so pervasive that one of its most basic functions — protecting its people — is subject to such widespread distrust. Crackpots are not limited to supposed leaders such as Mr. Kennedy — there might well be one at your family table over the holidays.
So how do you know a crank when you hear one? A popular index for the task was created by a University of California physicist with a point scale for identification. For example, points are awarded for claiming that the “scientific establishment” is engaged in a “ ‘conspiracy’ to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.” Five points may be awarded for a statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
Forty points are for “claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)” Uh-oh! Mr. Trump’s best buddy, Elon Musk, famously tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” as in Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Kennedy even published a book about him, accusing Dr. Fauci of launching “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy” by exercising outsize influence over the media and public health.
Identifying crackpots is easy. What to do with them is a more difficult question.