Lies and the liars who tell them.

Mid-April, 2020. Covid gripped the world. I was still going into the library to provide the minimal services we were providing.

One of our more colorful characters is named Chaka. Would that she were Miss Khan. She has a habit of calling five minutes before we are set to close. (Since I've been back to the library, I make it a policy to tell everyone that reference closes five minutes before the doors do, and they'll have to call back tomorrow.)

During my time at the library before I was sent to work as a contact tracer, she would call every day, two or three times, asking for this and that. Now, let's be frank: She's nuts. She calls several libraries in our system asking for the most ridiculous things. She's known. But this one time she asked something which set my blood to boil.

"Can you find me information that shows that Black people don't get Covid?"

If pursed lips made noise, she would have heard it. In my coldest voice, I told her that yes, in fact, Black people do get Covid. In fact, that very day there were stories of the toll Covid was taking in Africa. I then hung up on her. I think I might have scared her; I was at the library for a week or two more before I was assigned to contact tracing, and she did not call again.

I'm a librarian. I am not going to find you information which justifies the lies you tell yourself. I'm not going to find you information on aliens at Area 51. I'm not going to find you information about Covid vaccines making you sterile. I deal in facts and truth. To do otherwise would be a betrayal not only of my profession, but of who I am as a human being. Uncomfortable truths trump the lies we tell ourselves to get us through life without confronting those truths.

Let me get this out right now. Joe Biden will be the Democratic candidate for president in 2024. And he will be the president on January 21, 2025. However, he does have two contenders for the nomination.

Let's dispense with Marianne Williamson. She merits no deep mention.

But Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? Scion of a noted political family? Son of a martyr? Oh, I have words.

I don't know what broke him. His cousin John F. Kennedy, Jr. had his father assassinated, and didn't turn out to be a reprehensible troll. Neither has his cousin Caroline. But Robert has gone off the deep end.

He's gone from being a champion of the environment to a man who parrots the wildest health conspiracies. He's an antivaxxer. He supports Putin in his war against Ukraine. He's against immigration. He wants to assume dictatorial powers to "punish" those who promoted the Covid vaccines. And he's being propped up as a challenger to Pres. Biden by the likes of Steve Bannon, and shows no shame in that.

If he were to call me at the library, asking his insane questions, I would treat him as I did Chaka: with cold disdain. He calls himself a Democrat, but he is against everything for which the party stands. He is a conspiracist. He is an authoritarian. He makes his father weep in the afterlife. 

Mr. Kennedy is the product of our social media age. He lives in a bubble of his own making, and he is reinforced in that bubble by the positive reinforcement he receives from those who think like him. He goes on shows like the execrable Joe Rogan's and basks in adulation. In this, he is no different than Donald Trump; he thrives on the approval he garners from the worst people. 

After his appearance on Mr. Rogan's show, he received pushback from an actual scientist who knows what he's talking about, Peter Hotez. Mr. Rogan then challenged Dr. Hotez to appear on his show to "debate". Of course, that's a sucker's bet. Dr. Hotez demurred. But by then the damage was done. Some scum showed up at Dr. Hotez's residence, threatening him. And this all stems from the lies—not "misinformation", but "lies"—in which Mr. Kennedy traffics. One debates science in peer reviewed journals, not on the podcast of a moron. And yet our culture is such that shows like Mr. Rogan's blur the line between expertise and the guy screaming on the street corner that he's been experimented on by MK Ultra. 

We cannot survive as a civilization with the likes of Mr. Kennedy being able to spread their lies, and being accepted by a large minority of people. His lies kill. His lies put those who oppose him in danger. He has no morality. He is a zealot, and zealotry leads to the grave. The funny thing is that if he had run as a Republican, he would probably be in a close second to Trump. But that he is traducing both his family's name and the party to which it has dedicated its political life is extremely galling. Think what you will of political dynasties in a democracy, but he is destroying any future his relatives might have in politics. 

But people like him know only how to destroy. How to lie. How to lure people astray with their viper tongues. He is not a revealer of hidden truth. He's just another huckster, seeking to do as much damage because no one sees his brilliance. Much like Trump.

The internet has both been the greatest and worst thing to happen to humanity. We are now in damage control. Can we mature quickly enough so that the prescriptions of the like of Mr. Kennedy don't send us into a terminal spin? That is yet to be seen.