We can all agree that the Kennedy name is one of the most revered American political dynasties. Now, one descendant is trying to take on a more “orthodox” approach, by challenging a current and former president.
President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, no less than 60 years ago. Even if we can’t remember that fateful day, because most of us were quite young or weren’t even born at the time, we sure read a lot about it.
But JFK wasn’t the only target in the Kennedy family, as only five years later, in 1968, his brother, the former US attorney general, Robert F “Bobby” Kennedy, was also shot dead in a very tumultuous election year.
A long time ago
Even if decades have passed since their tragic and sudden death, the American people never forget about JFK and RFK. In the United States, and pretty much in other Western democratic world, they gained an iconic status after their deaths.
Their family members left behind tried as much as they could to pick up their political legacies. The Kennedy name has been one of the biggest brands in American politics, and the public interest in the remaining family members increased because of other tragedies and scandals that followed.
Some people like to say that they are the royal family of America. What’s for sure is that all the family’s symbolic castles in Massachusetts and Florida further increased this belief.
Clan members seemed to occupy political office, almost as if they were entitled by a divine right. However, the dynastic vision started to slowly fade over time.
The myths, personalities, and untimely deaths that were associated with the Kennedys inevitably started resonating less and less with the contemporary electorates. For now, there are none of the dynasties in elected state or national office.
In this election year, a maverick Kennedy hopes to reverse all of this. RFK’s 69-year-old son, who also shares his father’s name, is now running for president.
Whether Bobby Junior revives or further tarnishes the Kennedy brand is still an open question. At least four of his 10 siblings stated that he is “an embarrassment.”
He has abandoned his family’s traditional allegiance to the Democratic Party. He also pulled out of the Democratic nomination contest to run as an independent candidate against both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
He declared that his “intention was to spoil it for both of them.” RFK junior is also a self-styled environmentalist, an anti-vaxxer, and an avid supporter of the right to bear arms.
He also embraced plenty of conspiracy theories, one of them suggesting the CIA was heavily involved in the assassination of his father and uncle.
He also marked the 60th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy by launching his own petition to release the last governmental records related to the shooting.
The National Archives also says that 99% of the material is already in the public domain, following orders from both Presidents Biden and Trump. RFK Junior stated multiple times that he’s curious to know what’s so embarrassing that they are so afraid to show the American public 60 years later.
Political dynasty
The Kennedys came to America as immigrants from Ireland. JFK was the first Roman Catholic US President, and his grandfather was the mayor of Boston in the 1890s. Joe Kennedy was basically the patriarch of the clan, but also the founder of the family fortune.
His businesses flourished through the great depression and the prohibition of alcohol. President Franklin Roosevelt also gave Joseph P Kennedy I the highest rank in politics, by deciding to make him a controversial ambassador to the UK.
Ultimately, he resigned during the Battle of Britain in 1940, as he was suspected of Nazi sympathies, after making a comment that implied how “democracy is finished in England.”
He was also a huge supporter of the anti-communist senator Joe McCarthy. Nowadays, Joseph’s fortune is shared by many generations of direct descendants, who have mostly chosen to go into public service rather than business. Their net worth is estimated to be several billion dollars.
The Kennedy children
Joe and his ambitious wife, Rose, had nine children together. All of them are dead now. The eldest one, Joe Junior, was a US Navy bomber pilot who got killed above the English Channel in 1944.
Their youngest daughter, Jean Kennedy Smith, was the US ambassador to Ireland and died in 2000. Rose and Joseph “gifted” all their ambitions and money to their surviving sons – Jack, Bobby, and Ted. All three became US senators and presidential candidates.
Their siblings and descendants have often followed in their political footsteps. However, they did so to a lesser degree. JFK was chosen as the US’s youngest-ever president. He was quite young, rich, and beautiful, and the Kennedys were very careful to curate their glamorous image in the White House.
The “Challenger”
Joe Biden always enjoyed a very close relationship with his fellow Irish Americans. Besides sending Caroline Kennedy to Tokyo, he also made Ted’s second wife, Victoria, ambassador to Austria.
More than that, he appointed Ted’s 23-year-old grandson, Joseph P Kennedy III, a US special envoy to Northern Ireland. Now, Bobby is challenging Biden.
In a favorability opinion poll conducted in the most recent months, he topped the candidates list with a net rating of +27, ahead of Trump on +7 and Biden on -2.
Naturally, this doesn’t mean that he will win the US elections this year, but third-party candidates still matter, because they often affect who becomes the president.
Back in 2000, when Democrats won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, the activist Ralph Nader scored no less than 97,488 votes in Florida.
If AI Gore had picked up only 537 of those votes, he would have become president instead of George W Bush. In 2016, Democrats won once again the popular vote and lost the Electoral College.
In the swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan, both the Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party’s Jill Stein took plenty of marginal votes.
Kennedy has ratings of around 20%, but they are on par with the businessman Ross Perot, who is the strongest third force of modern times. Perot won 19% and 8% of the popular vote.
With the familiar entitlement that comes with his name, Kennedy is quite confident that he will win the battle against Trump and Biden “to get on the ballot of every state.”
If he pulls this off, he might take slightly more votes from Trump than from Biden. That might be enough to change who wins in closely fought key states.
Moreover, Trump also called Bobby a Biden “plant.” The people who are involved in Biden’s campaign are quite worried that Kennedy’s name might cost him all Democratic votes.
They also note that Bobby’s visit to Trump’s White House and the encouragement he received from Steve Bannon and other alternative media outlets like Fox News might help him become more popular.
And if we were to plug into the mood of populist discontent, Bobby is appealing for votes from “people who are willing to question orthodoxy.”
As embodied by both JFK and RFK, the Kennedy name is one of the most revered in American politics. Now, another descendant of the “royal” family is simultaneously trying to escape and exploit his family’s name.
There’s so much to know about this family’s legacy, so we want to recommend you this series.
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