RFK Jr: Don’t Be Too Surprised
It runs in the family
Robert Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr) ended his presidential candidacy and has endorsed Donald Trump.
Several generations across the world, literally, are shocked and bereaved for the greater Kennedy legacy.
That’s the legacy of both his father and uncle, Robert and John, respectively, who served in the highest positions and were murdered for it.
Anyone old enough to have experienced the presidency of John Kennedy and the candidacy of Robert Kennedy will likely feel a sense of betrayal at the Trump endorsement.
But zoom out just a bit and the picture begins to come into focus.
RFK Jr and Trump are driven by the idea that conspiracies not only fill our world but are the controlling factors in it. From RFK Jr’s “wi-fi causes cancer” to Trump’s “stop the steal” and “white replacement”, no theory is to bizarre for them to run with.
Trump’s most ardent supporters, white nationalists and their pseudo-militias, are also steeped in conspiracy theories most notably the ancient antisemitic trope of world domination by Jews.
Antisemitic vitriol and nationalism as political ideology are, of course, rooted in the greatest genocidal act of modern times when Adolph Hitler and his followers used the same formula to rise to power and slaughter millions.
Then, too, the Kennedy clan found truck with the same conspiracies and even embraced some of Hitler’s genocidal plans.
Joseph Kennedy, Sr. was the millionaire patriarch of the Kennedy family who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain in the run-up to WWII. His first son, Jack and Robert’s older brother, Joe Kennedy, Jr., traveled to Hitler’s Germany in 1934.
Joe Jr was exultant regarding Hitler’s forced sterilization program saying it was, “a great thing” that “will do away with many of the disgusting specimens of men.” His view neatly encapsulates murderous racial eugenics in a handful of words.
Joe Sr as Ambassador was both a Nazi appeaser and also blamed Jews for out-sized influence in policy and trying to force the U.S. into war with Germany. Herbert Von Dirksen, the German Ambassador to London, said Kennedy was, “Germany’s best friend” there.
So Jack and Bobby, as we loved to call them, turn out to be the outliers or exceptions as the Kennedy folks know a good conspiracy theory when they see one.
Cheers.
