Although Clapton has traditionally been reluctant to take public political stances, given his and Kennedy Jr.’s shared dim view of vaccines, especially the COVID vaccine, it is unsurprising that the two have joined forces. In July of 2021, when the panicdemic was still rampant, Clapton stated he would refuse to play at any venue that required proof of COVID vaccination before entry. His stance was not due to any anti-vaccine conspiracy theory subscribing, but rather personal experience following an adverse vaccination reaction that threatened his livelihood and life. As this excerpt from an earlier post written by the author details:

After receiving his first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca variant of the vaccine, Clapton stated:

“I went and had the jab … within several hours, I was shaking like a leaf, and I went to bed early, and I couldn’t get warm … and I thought, I’m running a fever. I was boiling hot and sweating, and then I was cold, and I was out for the count for about a week.

“I had been preparing for a project where I was going to be playing acoustic guitar with a couple of musicians and we were going to film it. That week knocked me out and I had to start again from scratch. I was OK, but it didn’t come off as well as I would like to because, professionally, it was a huge setback …”

Nevertheless, Clapton agreed to take the second dose. Putting it mildly, it did not go well.

“Bit by bit I realized that I probably shouldn’t have had the first jab, but then I was offered the second and I thought, well … what’s the point in stopping now. So I went and had the second, and then it got really bad. Within about a week … my hands didn’t really work.”

Clapton, who suffers from incurable but thus far manageable peripheral neuropathy, spent weeks unable to properly function, let alone play guitar.

“[When I had the second jab] this ramped up from, on a scale of 10, say from three to eight or nine. Agony and chronic pain. When you know there’s nothing that will work, there’s no medication you can take that will help, it’s very, very frightening. And the worst thing is you don’t know when it’s going to wear off or when it’s going to go away.

“So that was what frightened me the most, medically, health-wise, and it still does because I have gigs to do, I have recording work to do, but I can’t touch the guitar to play … it’s not fun … and when I put it down, it’s there until I go to bed, and I take sleeping pills because I can’t sleep because of the pain. That’s not a good way to live.

“It’s not all due to the vaccine but the vaccine took my immune system and just shook it around again, and that’s still going on. Then I read a lot of the evidence that I had been reading about with people that were having adverse reactions, that was on the list … damage to the immune system.”

Although the symptoms gradually subsided to where Clapton could again play, he remains highly critical of both the vaccine and the heavy-handed government mandates to take same.

Clapton acknowledges that his stand has proved costly on a personal basis, yet believes it necessary to continue raising his voice.

“I believe most of all in free speech and freedom of movement, choice of movement and life and love and kindness and with all of this exposure to the polarization of politics and the medicine and the science, I found it very difficult to be neutral because I’ve seen scorn and contempt from both sides, and I get caught in the crossfire a lot.

“… I’m talking today on behalf of people like me who may be lost, maybe need to hear someone talk about it from a human point of view without condemnation … There has to be a way to bring people together. I believe music can do that, but it’s a long way away. There’s still time, I believe, for us to come together.”

Clapton, who even at this late stage of his career remains on top of his game, is currently in the midst of a brief U.S. tour.

Kennedy Jr.’s skeptical view on vaccines is well chronicled. Despite nearly universal negative media coverage of his views, Kennedy Jr. continues to beat the drum not against vaccines and vaccination, but for much more thorough and honest testing of all vaccines, not just the demonstrably ineffective and ofttimes dangerous to the point of lethal COVID vaccines. The pro-vaccine people hide and take potshots but refuse to engage in honest debate for fear of having their assertions, proclaimed by the media as medicinal Holy Writ, proven unfounded by the very science they claim to be upholding. RedState has written extensively on COVID and related matters.

The Democrats’ presumed designated savior should Biden drop out of the race, namely California Governor Gavin Newsom, has, of course, been asked about Kennedy Jr. by the lapdog media and responded appropriately.

One suspects Newsom will not be in attendance at Kennedy Jr.’s reception.

The reception is a sign that even in bastions of Democratic strength, the party-mandated line is weakening. When you can have an Eric Clapton appear at your campaign event, it’s little wonder the Democrats fear Robert F. Kennedy Jr.