Credit: John Lamparski/Getty Images
There are a number of near-inevitable moments in US politics. Just like the changing of the seasons, every decade or so the national mood will swing from liberal to conservative or vice versa, from a quiet, firm hand to a charismatic, inspiring force. Election cycles will start earlier and earlier and will be more and more expensive. Promises will be made regarding gun control, and then silently not promised again.
But one thing is more predictable than anything else: like clockwork, every few years a member of the Kennedy dynasty will make itself felt. on the national stage. The first did so in 1884, 35 years after the family's arrival from Ireland. The last of them, Robert Kennedy Jr., did so when he filed documents confirming his intention to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Kennedy, 69, is the son and namesake of Robert F. Kennedy, who was fatally shot while running for president in 1968, five years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. A former leading environmental lawyer, in recent years he has become better known for his virulent anti-vaccine activism and penchant for adopting conspiracy theories — positions that have led other family members and even his wife to publicly admonish him.
During the last month, Kennedy's tweet was pinned to his Twitter profile. «Help me decide whether to run for president,» it says, citing its website. «If it turns out that I can raise money and mobilize enough people to win, I will join the race.»
If he runs, he says, “My first priority will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that has destroyed our economy, destroyed the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms. Together we can restore democracy to America.»
Whether he would enter politics has been a question for decades. Photo: Typhoon Joskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Something about the health of American politics is that the headline «Kennedy to Challenge Biden for White House» could well have been written in almost any election year since the late 1970s. Be that as it may, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a relative newcomer to a family that had at least one member in federal elected office from 1947 to 2011 (even today the US ambassadors to Austria and Australia, as well as the US special envoy to Northern Ireland — Kennedy.)
He is the third of 11 children born to RFK and Ethel Kennedy and grew up between McLean in Virginia and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the Kennedy family's traditional home state. He was nine years old when his uncle was killed, and 14 when his father suffered the same fate. At the latter's funeral, he was the youngest pallbearer and spoke to national attention while still at school. He then studied at Harvard and the London School of Economics.
Like every member of his family, since then his adult life has become colorful. At the age of 29, he was working as an assistant district attorney for Manhattan when he was arrested and pleaded guilty to possession of heroin. “Shortly after my father died, I started taking drugs,” he told Oprah Winfrey in 2007.
“I was part of a generational revolution that looked at drugs almost like a political statement—a rebellion against a previous generation that opposed the civil rights movement and promoted Vietnam. At the time, I don't think any of us knew how harmful drugs can be.»
Since then, Kennedy has been a sober and devout Catholic. After a year's probation and community service, he began to specialize in environmental law, gaining a reputation as an influential campaigner against bulk pollutants and for promoting a better understanding of climate change. He certainly knows nature: a licensed master falconer, he has trained hawks since childhood and still breeds them. He has also led several first-descent kayak expeditions around the world and has written numerous environmental books.
A father of six, he was married three times, first to Emily Black until their divorce in 1994, then to a designer interiors by Mary Kathleen Richardson (they married on a research vessel on the Hudson River) before divorcing in 2012. a few years later, Mary committed suicide in New York City, one of dozens of tragedies filed under what Ted Kennedy once called «some kind of terrible curse» hanging over the family.
On the other hand, Kennedy is now married to Hollywood actress and director Cheryl Hines after being introduced by Hines' Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Larry David. They live between Los Angeles and Cape Cod, but as Kennedy's activism and political interest have escalated, he's spending more and more time speaking to crowds in Washington, D.C.
Kennedy married Cheryl Hines in 2014. Photo: Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images for Waterkeeper Alliance
The question of whether he would go into politics has been asked for decades, as if giving up the right to run for office as a Kennedy is some kind of giving up the birthright. In the 2000s, after writing Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Buddies Rob the Country and Take Over Our Democracy, many speculated that he would be the next member of his family to run for the White House. Indeed, he was considered by some to be one of the most politically gifted Kennedys of his generation. However, as a friend of Hillary Clinton and many Democrats at the time, he turned it down. His 2008 diagnosis of spastic dysphonia, which left his voice thin and trembling, may also have played a role.
Channeling his obsessive energy and fierce intelligence into conspiracy theories was a later addition to his resume. Ironically, the murders of his uncle and father sowed the seeds of the modern craving for conspiracy theories in America, and in recent years Kennedy has declared that Sirhan Sirhan, who has been in prison for over 50 years for killing his father, is not guilty. and must be released. In 2017, he met Sirhan in a California prison and talked for three hours while Hines waited in the car.
His anti-vaccination stance has intensified since the late 1990s, when he began to falsely attribute the rise in food allergies in children to vaccines. He later drew a line between autism and vaccines in an infamous (and later retracted) 2005 journal article.
“I was reluctantly drawn into the controversy. As an advocate and environmentalist who has devoted years to working on mercury toxicity issues, I have often met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their children had been harmed by vaccines. Personally, I was skeptical,” he once said. His «research» was strongly condemned by the American scientific community.
As with connecting 5G mobile phone masts to mass government scrutiny, the Covid vaccination program could always be water to his mill. Kennedy has been a vocal critic and, in a recently published book, claimed that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden's top medical adviser during the pandemic, conspired to profit from vaccines. Dr. Fauci, he said, organized «fascism».
“The minute you are handed a vaccine passport, all the rights you have become a privilege contingent on your obedience to arbitrary government orders,” he told a crowd at a rally last year. It will make you a slave. In 2021, he was banned from Instagram for spreading misinformation.
At one point, Kennedy suggested that Holocaust victim Anne Frank was better off than Americans whose jobs require vaccinations. It was this comment that led Hines to publicly denounce his views. “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at the mandate rally in Washington was reprehensible and tactless,” she tweeted. “The atrocities suffered by millions of people during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinion is not a reflection of my own.» Kennedy later apologized.
It was always expected that Kennedy would one day run for president. Photo: AP Photo/Hans Pennink
The Kennedy siblings were equally dismissive, breaking the unwritten family rule of closing ranks and solving problems behind closed doors, making sure the American public understood that «Bobby Jr» was a black hole. After all, if a politician with the surname Kennedy says something in the US, he is immediately trusted. Five of his eight surviving siblings — two of his brothers have died — publicly distanced themselves from him during the pandemic.
«He was an outstanding big brother,» said Kerry Kennedy, his younger sister. New York Times last year. “He's great, he's well-read, he cares deeply, he's extremely charismatic. It has a childish cheerfulness and lightness. He is a wonderful person in every way […] And he also has this.”
In profiles over the years, a common observation is that Kennedy, no matter what he does, has impeccable self-confidence. This, perhaps, only comes when he grows up in a family like his. «Sometimes you want to shake it up and say, 'Jesus Jesus, Bobby, pay attention to something else,'» said Mike Papantonio, a lawyer and talk show host. “But in the end, he is committed to it. Jaws closed.
Kennedy was always expected to one day run for president. Many thought that the moment had passed. Now, months before his 70th birthday, he's about to do just that — challenge the man mentored by his late Uncle Ted. “I got over the biggest hurdle, which is my wife gave him the green light,” he told the crowd last month.
At the moment, the only competitor is Marianne Williamson, a writer and progressive activist. Had the Democrats lost the 2022 midterm elections, the list could have been longer. Whatever the case, Joe Biden and his party have surprised many by how successful their campaign has been.
Therefore, no one expects Biden, with no clear successors, to have big problems getting the Democratic nomination, despite the fact that if re-elected, he will be 86 years old when his second term ends. As the pressure subsided and Republicans wrestle with whether Donald Trump is worth the risk again, it has been speculated that Biden won't formally run for office until the summer.
In the meantime, the black sheep of the Kennedy dynasty may try to rally support. He might want to start with his family.
Свежие комментарии