Any justifications RFK Jr. may have had about using his power within the Trump Administration to fight processed food were destroyed yesterday, with the release of a photograph from the Trump Transition publicity team. The photograph showed RFK Jr. sitting down on a private jet with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., eating a meal of processed food from McDonald’s, consisting of a large order of French fries, a Big Mac, a 10 piece box of Chicken McNuggets, and a bottle of Coca Cola. Behind RFK Jr. was Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who was on the same flight but apparently wasn’t allowed to sit at the table to have his own feast of McDonald’s processed food.

The photograph was a dominance display, a demonstration by Donald Trump that he will not allow anyone to ally themselves with him without a complete and degrading surrender. It’s not just on the matter of processed food that Robert F. Kennedy was humiliating himself for the pleasure of Donald Trump, either.

RFK Jr. used to be known as an environmentalist activist. In this photograph, however, he was shown riding with Donald Trump on a private jet that flies that around the world burning fossil fuels.

A recent study by Professor Stefan Gossling of Linnaeus University in Sweden found that there has been a 46% increase in emissions by private jets over the last 5 years. A typical private jet flight, Professor Gossling found, “emits in one hour as much as an average human being emits in a year.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01775-z

Not only has RFK Jr. abandoned his public health principles in a display of obedience to Donald Trump, but he has ritually destroyed his environmentalism as well.

The message from this ritual humiliation is clear. There are only two paths forward under the second presidency of Donald Trump: Either you give Donald Trump total obedience, doing anything he says, or you are an enemy of Trump. No in-between position will be recognized.

In this Christian Nationalist model of leadership, there can be only one leader, to whom everyone else offers complete blind obedience.

There are no democratic elections in the Christian Bible. There are no senators or representatives in Christian texts. There are only kings and lords, and over them all, one leader who rules them all, with complete power, listening to no one, one leader who knows everything, and can do anything he wants.

What will Donald Trump tell you to do?

Will you obey the commands of this absolute leader?