In a proper world, Robert F Kennedy Jr. would be a family money kook in East Hampton trying to sell encapsulated swordfish liver and talking about how Incans invented Wi-Fi. But online wellness cults, and the legitimacy of his early career work as an environmental lawyer, and the familial belief that being a Kennedy means you should be in charge of people, have been rocket fuel in the heart of a deeply troubled man. As head of the HHS he has broken with a century of progress in reducing child mortality and profound human suffering because he’s the drum major for the anti-vaccine movement. Mock him for his workouts in jeans—and his abysmal form on squats—if you want, but his legacy will be clear: dead kids whose families trusted him because of his last name. He is a fine avatar for the Trump administration’s embrace of raw celebrity power and detachment from objective reality.
From another well-heeled zip code comes featherweight Zillenial flaneur Jack Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline (a supporting player in Love Story played capably by Meryl Streep’s daughter Grace Gummer), grandson of JFK, primary candidate for New York’s 12th Congressional district, and cringe meme made flesh. He’s a Yale and Harvard grad (obviously) with work experience that doesn’t extend much further than a brief stint at Vogue and a cameo on Blue Bloods. He couldn’t even help himself during a Times profile by Maureen Dowd in which he tip-toed around Gaza—as potent an issue as exists with voters under 30—took a couple shots at his uncle RFK Jr., and paddle boarded. Rep. Jerry Nadler, the man Schlossberg is running to replace, dismissed Schlossberg’s candidacy and his total lack of a public service record. Good. One imagines a future in which this young man comes to his senses, climbs the ladder at Paul Weiss, cuts some checks to TFA and the Whitney, and calls it a life of service.
What is the point? The Kennedy name is there—that’s all you really need to know. And that alone is meant to handwave all the other questions about what precisely the Democratic Party is and should be. The implication has, for decades, been the possession of that name makes everything else immaterial. A Kennedy doesn’t have to prove his credentials.
