Members of the Kennedy clan have made something of a habit over the decades of being present, Forrest Gump-like, at critical junctures in history. Joseph Kennedy, the family’s domineering patriarch, served as US ambassador to the UK in the run-up to World War II. John F. Kennedy was president when, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War came frighteningly close to turning thermo-nuclear hot.
Robert Kennedy had a cameo role during the McCarthy era, working as a lawyer for the red-baiting Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy. On the day of the moon landing in 1969, the morning papers also carried front page news that Senator Ted Kennedy had driven a car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, a late-night accident in which a young campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.
Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, the flame-thrower in waiting.Credit: Bloomberg
Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the third-born child of RFK and the nephew of the former president, is running for the White House in the most important election of the post-Civil War era. Once again, then, a Kennedy is in the cockpit of history. Though the focus, inevitably, has been on the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, this scion of America’s most famous political dynasty, a direct descendant of “Camelot”, could ultimately become the kingmaker.
Kennedy is polling strongly. In a hypothetical three-way contest with Trump and Biden, one survey put him at 22 per cent. Obviously, he is not going to win. Nonetheless, that is the highest level of support for any third-party candidate since Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire and proto-Trump, who shocked the political establishment in the 1992 election when he mounted an unexpectedly disruptive challenge against George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton.
Much like Perot, Kennedy is a human headline. This week, he called Biden “a much worse threat to democracy” than Trump, after surmising that the president’s attempts to pressure social media platforms into taking down posts promoting misinformation about COVID was more egregious than Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection, which he has also condemned. The Kennedys, ever since JFK started turning sentences with clever rhetorical inversions, have been renowned for their inspirational grandiloquence.
Robert F. Kennedy serves up something more modern-day: incendiary memes and attention-grabbing soundbites.
Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and Joe Biden. Credit: AP and YouTube
The 70-year-old, who is running as an independent, obviously benefits from name recognition. “Kennedy”, despite all the revelations about the dark side of Camelot, remains a potent political brand. However, a key to understanding his popularity is the simple fact that his surname isn’t either Trump or Biden. The re-run of the 2020 election is proving one of the most unpopular match-ups in US history. Kennedy is attracting a cohort of voters dubbed the double-haters, who don’t want to give either the 45th or 46th president four more years in the White House.
What makes his presence so intriguing is not just his ancestral bloodline. It is where he sits in the political spectrum. Robert F. Kennedy is where the American left meets the American right. He’s a clickbait candidate for fellow anti-vaxxers and conspiracy peddlers. RFK Jr has amplified the specious claim, for example, that COVID vaccines were developed to control people through microchips. Over a three-decade career as an environmental lawyer, however, he has also built a reputation as a green crusader, which appeals to progressives.
The bare-chested Forrest Gump factor that could make or break Trump and Biden
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Members of the Kennedy clan have made something of a habit over the decades of being present, Forrest Gump-like, at critical junctures in history. Joseph Kennedy, the family’s domineering patriarch, served as US ambassador to the UK in the run-up to World War II. John F. Kennedy was president when, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War came frighteningly close to turning thermo-nuclear hot.
Robert Kennedy had a cameo role during the McCarthy era, working as a lawyer for the red-baiting Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy. On the day of the moon landing in 1969, the morning papers also carried front page news that Senator Ted Kennedy had driven a car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, a late-night accident in which a young campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.
Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, the flame-thrower in waiting.Credit: Bloomberg
Now Robert F. Kennedy........
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