On Tuesday, far-right presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his running mate will be Nicole Shanahan, an ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley patent attorney who has previously donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic presidential candidates.
From 2018 to December 2022, Shanahan was married to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and the 10th richest person in the world.of wall street journal reported in July 2022 that Shanahan and fascist billionaire Elon Musk had a brief affair before his divorce from Brin was finalized.of journal It was previously reported that Shanahan was seeking at least $1 billion from Blinn in divorce proceedings, but the final sum was confidential.
President Kennedy announced Shanahan's remarks at a political rally in his hometown of Oakland, California, which was attended by fewer than 1,000 people. According to Shanahan, she grew up “on food stamps” in Oakland before attending college, and she graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, after which she earned a law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law. . Shanahan's girlfriend's mother was a Chinese immigrant. Her father was German-Irish American.
For the past two weeks, media reports have all but confirmed that Shanahan will be nominated. She has been involved in Mr. Kennedy's campaign since last April, when Mr. Kennedy first announced he would run as a Democrat.
Mr. Shanahan spoke in an interview after Mr. Kennedy left the party last October and renamed himself an “independent.” new york times, she said she was “incredibly disappointed.” She added: “It's like a withdrawal and suspension of all political donations.”
But she said times By January of this year, she had recommitted to Kennedy's campaign and reportedly seeded Kennedy's super PAC with $4.5 million, of which $4 million went toward RFK Jr.'s $7 million 30-second Super Bowl ad. . That TV spot mirrored his 1960 promotion of his famous uncle.
Mr. Shanahan was previously a Democrat, but acknowledged in a speech Tuesday that he had left the party. In her speech, she sought to appeal to young voters and anti-science zealots who were President Kennedy's base. Echoing her words from her campaign, she warned of the dangers of “electromagnetic pollution” and claimed that the scientific community does not know about the “post-shooting effects.”
In an interview with new york times Last month, she said she “really wonders about the harm caused by vaccines,” adding that while she wouldn't call herself an “anti-vaxxer,” she thought “there needs to be a space to have these conversations.” .
Mr. Shanahan himself has never run for political office, but his wealth has made him a candidate for various Democratic Party positions over the past decade, including current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, presidential candidates Marianne Williamson, and President Joe Biden. He was able to donate thousands of dollars to his campaign.
Reflecting the rightward shift of the Democratic Party and the ruling class as a whole, Shanahan admitted: pack In 2022, he also made a donation to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin's recall campaign.
Boudin was elected with the support of “progressives” on campaign promises to reduce prison sentences and tackle police brutality. This made him the target of a well-funded right-wing law and order campaign funded by billionaires like Shanahan and other business interests.
talk to pack Shanahan said of his decision to support Boudin's recall that before Boudin took office, “I thought San Francisco was in a good place … and that San Francisco had the very pro-reform attitude that they wanted.” Chesa won. … Chesa, in my opinion, has found itself in a situation where it does not necessarily need to be reformed, but needs to be preserved…”
Before Kennedy took the stage and announced Shanahan as his nominee, several other Kennedy representatives gave speeches in support of the candidate, touting his record of opposition to public health and science.
Among those who praised Kennedy was his communications, which is the executive director of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), the world's largest purveyor of anti-vaccine disinformation, second only to Kennedy's child health advocacy. – Director Del Bigtree was also there. .
Bigtree was well-known in the anti-vaccine community even before the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. In 2016, he produced an anti-vaccine propaganda film. Vaxxed: From cover-up to catastrophe, directed by disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield authored a bogus study in 1998. lanceta claim that the MMR vaccine caused autism was later retracted.
Even though the study was retracted and neither Wakefield nor anyone else has been able to reproduce the results, Kennedy and others continue to spread the lie that vaccines cause autism.
Big Tree piggybacked on former President Donald Trump's “Stop the Steal” movement, repeating false claims that election machines rigged votes for Biden. On January 6, 2021, Big Tree joined Trump's political entourage Roger Stone at the “MAGA Freedom Rally DC” in Washington, DC.
Big Tree was followed by Jay Bhattacharya, a eugenicist and one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, who spoke at the Oakland event. The Great Barrington Declaration was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank. The report posited that “herd immunity” against COVID-19 could be achieved through “intensive protection.”
The proposal would protect the elderly and people with underlying health conditions, while encouraging young people and healthy people to get infected. Over the past four years, this basic outline of murderous policy has been adopted by every capitalist government, including the United States, where more than 1,000 people have been dying from COVID-19 every week since last August.
The announcement of Shanahan as President Kennedy's running mate comes as the son of assassinated U.S. attorney general and New York senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of assassinated President John F. The announcement comes after weeks of speculation. According to reports, candidates RFK Jr. was interested in included former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura and New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Kennedy was required to announce his running mate in order to begin applying for voting status. As of this writing, Kennedy is only eligible to appear on the ballot in Utah.
There is no doubt that part of the calculation that led to Shanahan's running mate was her vast wealth. Shanahan spoke in Oakland, where she emphasized that her top priority over the next seven months is to get Kennedy's name on the ballot.
As the WSWS has detailed in several recent articles, Democrats are waging a multi-million dollar campaign to prevent candidates other than Joe Biden from appearing on the ballot. . The Democratic Party's main target is the campaign of Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Joseph Kishore and vice presidential candidate Jerry White.
Democrats are also targeting the campaigns of Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West. In a statement to the WSWS, Stein's campaign manager, Jason Cole, accused both the Democratic and Republican parties of blocking access to the vote, saying both parties are “funding the political system.” They are completely beholden to the interests of the companies that provide them.”
Edwin DeJesus, co-manager and head of voting access for the Cornel West campaign, similarly said in a statement to the WSWS: “We call ourselves the guardians of democracy and seek to exclude third-party participation.” denounced.
Democrats are also targeting Kennedy's campaign, despite the fact that Kennedy Jr. appears to be garnering even more support from former President Trump. CBS News reported over the weekend that the 15,000 signatures the Kennedy campaign collected to appear on the Nevada ballot were invalid because Shanahan did not indicate he was his running mate when submitting the signatures.
On Monday, the Kennedy campaign threatened to sue Nevada to keep Kennedy's name on the ballot. Paul Rossi, Kennedy's voting access attorney, provided an email to CBS confirming that the Kennedy campaign contacted the Nevada Secretary of State's office in November to confirm that it was not required to list a running mate on the application. I confirmed that I did.
“Does the vice presidential candidate have to be listed on the petition?” Kennedy's ballot access administrator asked in an email seen by CBS. “No,” was the reply.
