What it’s like watching RFK Jr.’s hearing with his biggest fans as an autistic person
What it’s like watching RFK Jr.’s hearing with his biggest fans as an autistic person
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Analysis: Robert F. Kennedy has earned a strong cult following. Eric Garcia spent Kennedy’s confirmation hearing with his faithful flock. The basement of the Dirksen Senate Office building was packed Wednesday morning with people lining up to watch Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee even though it was taking place on the first floor.
![[Bernie Sanders grills RFK Jr. over 'unvaxxed' baby clothes: 'Are you supportive of these onesies?‘]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/29/18/00/Bernie-Sanders.jpeg)
It was the first day of hearings for Kennedy in his attempt to become secretary of Health and Human Services. He will also testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the very committee his late Uncle Ted led as chairman before he was diagnosed with brain cancer.
![[Trump shakes hands with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Arizona]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/29/13/35/SEI236824394.jpeg)
Supporters were decked out in Kennedy gear, and many of them referred to him as “Bobby,” the name used for his father when he roamed through these same halls as a senator from New York and US attorney general before his 1968 presidential campaign and assassination.
Sheri Gagnon and her granddaughter drove from South Carolina to take in the spectacle. “And so I thought, wow, we can go up and support Bobby because Bobby's been supporting us,” she told The Independent. Kennedy has come under withering criticism for his use of debunked vaccine conspiracy theories. And I’m one of his critics as an autistic person who believes his anti-vaccine rhetoric has harmed the community.
For years, I have traveled around the country interviewing autistic people about their experiences, which are chronicled in my book We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. In that capacity, I interviewed one young autistic person whose mother blamed herself for vaccinating her child.
