Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: How I see the State of our Union

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., born on January 17, 1954, is a prominent American environmental attorney, author, and activist. He is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the former U.S. Attorney General and Senator, and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Known for his passionate advocacy for environmental issues, Kennedy Jr. has worked extensively with organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance, where he has championed causes related to clean water and sustainable energy. He delivered his State of the Union on March 7th, 2024. It feels more relevant than ever today.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running as an independent candidate for president of the United States

I'm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and I'm running as an independent candidate for president of the United States. I grew up in an America that seemed to have achieved its promise as an exemplary nation. Modern democracy had spread from one nation—ours in 1776—to six by 1865 and to 190 by the 1960s. We had become the city on the hill. We were a moral authority around the globe. Our government institutions—our Congress, the courts, the regulatory agencies, and even the American press—were renowned for their integrity and revered worldwide. Other nations wanted our American leadership. They knew the difference between leadership and bullying, which is something our current leaders seem to have forgotten. We were the template of liberty, proof that for a country to thrive, its people must be free: free to speak, free to worship, free to build great companies, free to start small businesses. We were the freest country in the world, and by no coincidence, also the most prosperous.

Other countries aspired to be like the United States of America

Americans could provide for their families on a single salary. They could buy a home, raise a family, and save for retirement without mountains of debt. We made the best music. We made the best movies. We made gold-standard automobiles that everybody in the world wanted. We made blue jeans. We reconstructed Europe. We have put men on the moon. We had the world's healthiest, best-educated children. Our productivity, ingenuity, and can-do spirit were the envy of the world. We had confidence in our strength, our capacity, and the limitless potential of our country. Yes, we had serious racial and environmental problems, but in the heydays of my youth, the environmental movement and the civil rights movement were picking up steam. My father and some of his allies were fighting to eliminate the last pockets of hunger in Appalachia, in the Mississippi Delta, and on the Indian reservations. We became, for the first time, a true constitutional democracy in this country, with all races voting and holding political office. 

Other countries aspired to be like us, and our children grew up proud of their passports, proud of their flag. My uncle, President Kennedy, left us a legacy of peace in the hope of ending the arms race and winding down the Cold War. Those were the traditions of freedom, prosperity, and peace that my father, my uncle, and Martin Luther King Jr. were striving to protect and advance. In the half-century since their deaths, we've lost touch with that vision for our country.

Wars have made America less safe

I want to tell you right now that we can still restore that America, the America that almost was and yet may be. But we have to start by being honest with ourselves. Neither my uncle nor my father would recognize the version of America that we have today. We've become a nation of chronic illness, of violence, of loneliness, depression, and division, and poverty. Our great cities are becoming tent encampments—modern-day Hoovervilles—filled with undocumented immigrants and dispossessed Americans and people living in their cars, plagued by mental illness, addiction, and despair. Our border has come under the control of criminal drug cartels that traffic in desolation and fentanyl and in busloads of desperate human beings. Our children are drowning in a crisis of alienation, dispossession, and complete disconnection from their communities. We've lost far more of our young people to drugs in the last decade than in the 20-year Vietnam War. 

We've printed nine centuries' worth of money in a little over a decade and spent $8 trillion on regime change wars. Those wars have made America less safe, our country less strong, and the world far less stable, while sending prices through the roof as our infrastructure falls apart. Tens of millions of young Americans no longer even dream of owning their own home. What happened to America, the land of opportunity, where you could be sure that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you would have a decent life? All the new wealth of the last generation has gone to the billionaires and to transnational corporations, while our tattered middle class, our infrastructure, and our industry have been hollowed out from the inside. Instead of promise, we've left our kids sick and drowning in debt.

America leads the world in obesity and chronic disease

The public debt has gone from about $5 trillion under President George W. Bush to $34 trillion today, and U.S. household debt is at a record high of $17.3 trillion. If you include discouraged workers, our true unemployment rate is 23%. Young parents face housing, grocery, and childcare costs that are unaffordable. Too many Americans are living bleak and hopeless lives, dreading the one medical emergency or the car repair that will tip them over the edge into homelessness. We rank 40th globally in our people's health and wellness. Out of the richest countries in the world, the United States is 35th in child poverty rates, just above Mexico. We rank 36th in literacy and 45th in press freedom. We have one of the highest cancer rates in the world, and our life expectancy now ranks 59th, according to the World Bank. That's right behind Algeria, which spends less than 1/30th per capita of what we spend. 

But even these grim figures hide the full picture of our dire health crisis. We now have the worst health outcomes in the rich world: the highest maternal mortality rates, the highest number of gun deaths per capita, and the highest number of teen pregnancies. We lead the world in obesity and chronic disease. According to the CDC, 60% of Americans have at least one chronic condition. When my uncle was president, only 6% of Americans had chronic disease. And all of these plights fall heaviest on our young people. Four in ten of them suffer depression, and half of them have considered suicide. One in ten has anxiety, one in ten has ADHD, and one in five is obese.

USA has become artificially divided by political forces

It's time for us to say enough is enough. We were once a free and thriving nation, the healthiest and strongest in the world. What we once were, we can be again. How do I know that? It's because everywhere I go in this country, I see a profound determination among Americans to heal. We might have become the sickest country on Earth, but we also have the most ingenious healers, both inside and outside conventional medicine. We may have sky-high levels of depression and addiction, but we also have innovators who have opened up new frontiers in recovery. We have some of the world's most depleted agricultural soils, but also some of the world's most innovative and energetic regenerative farmers. We have serious economic problems, but we also have the brightest and most ambitious entrepreneurs. 

We face hunger and homelessness, and yet we meet it with the highest philanthropic rates in the world and bottomless kindness and compassion. We may be on the mat today, but we can be on our feet—happy, healthy, and strong again with good leadership tomorrow. Our people and our system were built for resilience. And here's the most important thing I want to tell you about the state of our union: our nation seems more divided than ever, but Americans everywhere want to heal that divide. Our nation has become artificially divided by political forces that can survive only when we, the people, are at war with each other. People are tired of being manipulated by fear. We learned that lesson during COVID. We recognize that the same techniques of manipulating fear are being used by elites today to corral us into voting for one political candidate or the other.

Americans are ready to unite to rebuild the country

Americans are tired of these dire warnings that to preserve democracy itself, you better vote for our guy. I can tell you that in every state of this union, people are rejecting fear-mongering. Eighty percent of Americans say they don't want to be forced to choose in this election between the lesser of two evils. They're tired of voting against something or someone. I see it in the crowds—a mix of Republicans and Democrats and independents—who attend my rallies, that a growing number of Americans are rejecting divisiveness. They're ready to unite to rebuild this country and to fulfill the promise of the America of my youth. They're ready to vote for something and for someone they like, for someone who represents hope and healing, for someone with an inspiring vision for America's future, for a future that they can believe in. 

So that's the state of the union that I want to bring you today. It's a nation that hunger to heal. It's a nation ready to face reality, to rebuild, to end the forever foreign wars, to clean out the corrupt Washington establishment, and to turn again toward peace, freedom, good health, and prosperity. When we unite in that vision, we're going to be unstoppable.