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When it Comes to the Kennedys: Being a Jerk Just Skips a Generation [1]
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Date: 2023-07-21
Having read countless social media posts decrying Robert Kennedy, Jr as nothing like his dad (or the intelligent humanist policies of his father and uncle), it bears reminding that the antivaxxer – would be presidential contender – comes by his publicly hurtful political stances (and accompanying racist commentary) through the same blood line. It just skipped a generation.
Robert Kennedy, Jr’s grandfather, was an antisemite elitist who – it has been argued – was kind of okay with Hitler’s final solution. He certainly worked against Roosevelt’s attempts to help France and Great Britain at every turn.
In fact, historian Susan Ronald wrote that King George VI’s diaries accurately account for the hatchet-job the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain did on his boss and the nation he had sworn to serve. Using data gleaned while researching the second world war she summed up Bobby Jr.’s granddad, “I clearly saw the purposeful extent to which he acted with self-interest and treachery. The British Foreign Office (to a man) and the king saw him for what he was. It was shocking to understand just how much Joe was ‘drunk on his own verbosity,’ damning Roosevelt and his administration to anyone who would listen…”
Was Franklin Roosevelt bamboozled by Joe? Was the only four-term president unaware that his man in London worked against him? Unlikely. Roosevelt just worked around him. He and Churchill didn’t need an ambassador to get their jobs done.
No, Roosevelt sent Joe Sr to London for different reasons. He stowed grandpa Kennedy far away from the other Washington elites, sending him off to the court of St. James and out of the way. Putting him in storage, so to speak, in a place where the president had enough allies to overcome any trouble Joe might have wanted to cause. And history has smiled broadly at that move. By keeping the isolationist financier and antisemite away from Capitol Hill, Roosevelt had a straighter path to furthering his own plans of helping stop Hitler.
Seems a similar strategy might be prudent for his grandson. If not an ambassadorship (he doesn’t deserve one any more than his grandpa did) — then the nation needs to start ignoring him. Listening to Bobby Jr’s advice is getting people sick, or worse.
We’ll never know how many additional Jewish lives were lost because men like Joseph Kennedy, Sr. barked loudly in opposition while others in the world acted to save them. (Luckily, it appears we have moved beyond the days when a Kennedy can utter antisemitic remarks and get away with it). And like his grandfather’s wrong thinking, we won’t know how much suffering and death Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s anti-vax, anti-science rants have caused. But one thing’s for sure, at the rate he’s going, Bobby’s picture is going to land in the history books right next to his grandpa’s.
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