Holley has palled around with RFK jr. on numerous occasions and credits him with “learning so much on the effects of vaccinations and the dangers [RFK imagines] it has caused to our children”. They appeared together for instance at a February 2020 anti-vaccine rally at the Connecticut State Capitol protesting a bill that would narrow vaccine exemptions, where Holley also gave a speech (Holley also led anti-vaccine activists on in protesting a similar bill in New Jersey that he was fighting, tooth and nail). Kennedy, on his side, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Holley through fundraising speeches and also delivered remarks to Holley and other members of the NJ Legislative Black Caucus on “the harmful effects of vaccinations”. Of course, at least in official settings, Holley tends to appeal to health freedom rhetoric and to lambast the media for its tendency to label anti-vaccine activists as ‘anti-vaccine activists’ (Holley ‘is not anti-vaccine’).
Holley has also e.g. engaged in familiar conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and Gates’s involvement in vaccination programs around the world, including attacking Gates for having “injected and caused harm to mulitple [sic] minority families in India and Africa” – Holley is referring to a famous and bonkers piece of misinformation originating with, of course, RFK jr. During COVID, Holley also promoted hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment, claiming that it saved his uncle’s life.
Diagnosis: Moronic conspiracy theorist. And as so often, that character trait didn’t prevent him from getting elected to positions of power. We are not entirely sure what he’s doing these days (he might be running a consulting firm), but it is unlikely to be anything good.
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