THE TWILIGHT ZONE STORY THAT EXPLAINS GOP SUPPORT FOR RFK JR.

You've just received a box. You're told that if you press a button on the box, you'll be given a million dollars, but someone you don't know will die. Do you press the button?

We're all familiar with this question. It inspired a 1970 short story by Richard Matheson called "Button, Button," which became an episode of The Twilight Zone when the series was revived in the 1980s, and was also the basis of a 2009 film called The Box.

I think it explains why Republicans who know better have allowed Robert Kennedy Jr. to do so much damage to public health in America. I'm thinking of people like Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, cast the deciding vote in Kennedy's favor when Kennedy was under consideration as health and human services secretary. Now Cassidy claims to be upset because Kennedy's minions have voted to roll back hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns.

I agree with everything you say here my former congressional colleague. And I also blame you for everything you say here. Bcuz you had the power to stop this dangerous quack. And you caved. Shame on you.

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— Joe Walsh (@walshfreedom.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 1:10 PM

Why did Cassidy and so many other Republicans roll over for this former Democrat whose principal goals had nothing to do with the core MAGA agenda? For that matter, why did Donald Trump seek Kennedy's endorsement during the 2024 presidential campaign and incorporate Kennedy's flaky and dangerous ideas into his own movement?

Think of Kennedy as the box. Many of the voters who flocked to Kennedy during his run for president weren't MAGA, and were demographically very different from MAGA voters. Quite a few were upscale suburbanites who'd developed an interest in alternative, quackish health ideas. Trump sided with Kennedy in order to win over Kennedy's voting bloc. The rest of the GOP went along. For them, the Kennedy voting bloc was the million dollars.

Many of them understood that empowering Kennedy would have terrible public health consequences. But congressional Republicans, including Cassidy, wagered that the people who'll suffer and die as a result of Kennedy's choices will be people they don't know. So they pressed the Kennedy button.

Many of the moral choices made by Republicans follow this formula. Republicans back unlimited access to AR-15s because being absolutist on guns brings them a bloc of committed voters; they assume that the resulting violence won't affect them or their friends and family, that the schools their children and grandchildren attend will never be shot up. Republicans win voters by being anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion, even though I'm sure many of them aren't personally absolutist on this subject; they assume they and their friends and relatives can be quietly or surreptitiously LGBTQ and can quietly or surreptitiously obtain reproductive care if they need it, and only people they don't know will suffer. The ones who understand that climate change is real think they can personally move away from its worst effects of climate change; others will suffer, but they'll be showered with campaign cash from fossil fuel billionaires. And so on.

The Republican Party includes a lot of true believers on all these issues, of course. On vaccines, Trump has been an occasional skeptic, and many Republicans are skeptical as well. But the Republicans who are just going along for the ride are doing so because they assume the button won't harm anyone they know.

And this is how some of them feel about Trump himself. They know the damage he's doing, but they assume it won't hurt them or anyone they care about. People they don't know will die or be hurt, but the votes will continue to come their way. Those votes are the million dollars, and while Trump might be the most dangerous button of all, they'll press it eagerly.