The Kennedys Really Hate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Maybe They’re Onto Something.
In the last two weeks, boldfaced names like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Alicia Silverstone have voiced their support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s getting-harder-to-ignore-by-the-day run for president. This might sound impressive, particularly if you haven’t been paying attention to how Musk, Dorsey, and Silverstone’s public personas have evolved in recent years. But as Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to challenge President Biden to be the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election picks up steam, it’s also worth noticing what notable names are missing from his corner: That would be literally any others that also end in Kennedy.
In fact, various news outlets have been reporting all spring about how “disgusted” most of the Kennedys are by their brother/cousin/uncle’s decision to oppose Biden. Why does he have so little support among his family members? It’s pretty simple: As the son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Jr.’s name and connection to his family’s political dynasty are his biggest assets. But he doesn’t actually share most of the Kennedy clan’s mainstream Democratic politics. Instead, his beliefs pretty plainly diverge into conspiracy theories and anti-vax rhetoric. You might even call him a KINO. Politico went with “black sheep.”
A sampling of these beliefs? He thinks the pandemic originated at a U.S.-funded lab in China, he thinks 5G networks are killing us, he thinks the 2004 presidential election was stolen from John Kerry … and so on. He’s so far gone that he was suspended from Instagram in 2021 for spreading vaccine misinformation, though he was recently reinstated. But despite holding these fringe positions, Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to trade on his name appears to be working: He’s polling as high as 20 percent among Democratic voters, though as my colleague Jim Newell has explained, many of them may not know the extent to which he’s fallen off the deep end. Kennedy Jr. is also a popular figure on the right, though it’s unclear how sincere Republicans’ embrace of him has been.
Kennedy Jr. is well aware that he and his family aren’t on the same page: At a press conference in April, he said, “My whole family, including myself, have long personal relationships with President Biden … and many of them just plain disagree with me on issues like censorship and war and public health. They are entitled to their beliefs … and I love them back.” Still, he clearly knows how compelling his name alone is to voters. Why else would Kennedy, as CNN pointed out, choose to launch his presidential campaign in Boston, a city he’s never lived in, other than to emphasize his deep connection to Kennedy country?
On some level, Kennedy Jr. might be used to family strife by now. His family has been opposed to his views—going so far as to write op-eds against them at times—for a long time now. Even his own wife has had to distance herself. Last year, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, who is Kennedy’s third wife, “expressed disapproval of his anti-vaccine beliefs … after he compared the plight of an anti-vaxxer to the plight of Anne Frank in Nazi Germany,” People reported. Hines does, however, support Kennedy Jr.’s presidential run. At least he has her—Politico reported that “just a smattering of his children and grandchildren showed up” when he launched his presidential campaign earlier this year. In addition to political differences, Kennedy Jr. has inspired interfamily ire over advocating for the release of his father’s convicted killer, Sirhan Sirhan, from prison.
It’s not just that Kennedy Jr.’s family members don’t support his run, though. Some are actively speaking out against it, and have given statements to that effect. For example, his sister Kerry Kennedy said, in a quote picked up by multiple outlets, “I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, and the role of social media platforms in policing false information.” By and large, these disavowals have refrained from saying anything outright nasty, though according to CNN, there’s been at least one Kennedy family subtweet of Kennedy Jr.’s campaign—it came from Bobby Shriver, who, upon his cousin’s announcement, felt compelled to mention to his followers that he was excited to support Biden again.
Like Shriver, in addition to not showing up for Kennedy Jr., many Kennedys are openly backing Biden (who, on top of being a longtime member of the Democratic establishment, can bond with the Kennedys over being only the second Catholic president, after JFK). Worse, some of Kennedy Jr.’s family members literally currently work for the Biden administration in some capacity—Caroline Kennedy, Kennedy Jr.’s cousin, is the ambassador to Australia, for one.
Most political types agree that he doesn’t pose a serious threat to Biden, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a nuisance who’s pushing dangerous ideas with no basis in reality. For everyone but Kennedy Jr., the best outcome here would be for the campaign to end before it really gets going—and really embarrasses all of them. After all, they want to keep coasting on “Ask not what your country can do for you” and all that, and a guy who wrote a book calling Anthony Fauci a pandemic profiteer who is masterminding “a historic coup d’état against Western democracy” just isn’t good for the brand.
