Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Film & TV

RFK Jr. (and Stanley Kubrick) don’t want you to drink the water

The Kennedy heir has vowed to eliminate fluoride from American taps, in a move straight out of ‘Dr. Strangelove’

It should come as little surprise that vaccine skeptic, carrion collector and Donald Trump’s promised health minister RFK Jr. has announced plans to remove fluoride from America’s drinking water. But maybe not for the reasons you may think. It could stem from a factor far more essential.

Kennedy’s stated rationale, conveyed on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday is that fluoride “is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” (Most of these claims, at the levels approved for American taps, don’t carry water; there is evidence that suggests a link between IQ drop in children and the mineral at higher quantities, though experts say more research is needed.)

While Kennedy’s proclivity for junk science is, along with his penchant for carpooling with roadkill in various states of decay, a defining feature, there is another thing we must consider.

Kennedy is a Kennedy, born at the height of the Cold War to a father who early in his career worked personally with Joseph McCarthy. And, when the younger Kennedy was around 10, he may have seen a film that warned of the dangers of fluoride, and its potential ties to Communism.

You’ll recall that in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the character of Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden) has a lengthy diatribe about the risks of fluoridation.

“Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?” Ripper asks diffident RAF officer Lionel Mandrake, one of a madcap trio portrayed by Peter Sellers.

For Ripper, there’s a good reason why Russkies stick to vodka. Water is the source of all life — a good chunk of the Earth and our bodies are composed of it.

“As human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids,” Ripper explains, while gunfire thunders offscreen.

Ripper, who is uncommonly concerned with his “essence,” drinks only distilled or rainwater — the reason is, of course, fluoridation, which is “the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face.”

Before Ripper, whose companionable conspiracies and raspy vocal inflections share something of the gruff gusto of Kennedy’s, can elaborate, a bullet flies through a window. He then continues to discuss fluoride — “foreign substances introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual” — while preparing a machine gun.

To be making proclamations about the unproven hazards of a water additive that simply strengthens teeth in moderate levels — while Flint, Michigan, only just reached the level of potable water — in the last days before a crucial election is akin to what Kubrick presented us: bonkers when more clear and present threats are bearing down on us.

(More directly this election cycle, Trump has used clips from Full Metal Jacket in campaign videos, seeming to approve of its portrayal of the military and wanting to return to its example. Kubrick’s daughter Vivian, who wrote the score for the film, is a QAnon believer and Trump supporter who claimed her father “would very much approve of saving America” in an X post that tagged Trump, General Michael Flynn, Alex Jones and RFK, Jr. Kubrick and Kennedy, it would seem, prove that even your family being the source of endless conspiracy theories is no bulwark against believing in a few yourself.)

With Trump’s warnings of an “enemy from within,” which include “the fascists, the Marxists, the communists,” it’s not completely unfeasible that Kennedy may have more in common with Ripper than an aversion to unwanted chemicals.

I mean, if water can, as Alex Jones has claimed, turn frogs gay as part of some leftist agenda, Kennedy or Trump may at some later date claim the water’s being tainted by the enemy. And, as history teaches us, when there’s a conspiracy about wells being poisoned, Jews inevitably shoulder some of that blame.

Trump, who said Kennedy’s pledge “sounds OK” and speaks of wanting the “cleanest water” while rolling back water protections, seems to stick mostly to Diet Coke. Even when he made an enemy of the soft drink giant back in 2012, it didn’t stop him from indulging.

“The Coca Cola company is not happy with me,” Trump tweeted, “that’s okay, I’ll still keep drinking that garbage.”

Understandable. No one wants to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version