There’s been a lot of focus on the Kennedy family in recent days — in large part, compliments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to drop out of the presidential race and throw his support behind former President Donald Trump. That, in turn, prompted a number of Kennedy’s siblings and other family members to loudly denounce his move and characterize it as a “betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear.”
And his sister Kerry Kennedy (formerly Mrs. Andrew Cuomo, for those playing “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” at home), drove the knife in further Sunday while visiting with former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC. As Sister Toldjah wrote earlier:
On Sunday, Kerry Kennedy appeared on Jen Psaki’s MSNBC program where the trashing of RFK Jr. turned even more grotesque. During the segment, Kerry Kennedy all but disowned her own brother over his endorsement of Trump, claiming he was engaging in a “flagrant and inexplicable effort to desecrate and trample and set fire to my father’s memory.”
In short, according to his sister, Bobby Kennedy, by endorsing Trump, has betrayed their father and desecrated, trampled, and set fire to his memory. That’s an utterly horrible thing to say about a sibling, as several of us have observed in response to the Kennedy conniptions.
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For his part, RFK Jr. has faced his siblings’ harsh criticism with equanimity, stating, when pressed about it:
“My family is – I understand that they’re troubled by my decisions. I love my family. I feel like we were raised in a milieu where we were encouraged to debate each other and debate ferociously and passionately about things and still love each other.”
One of the distinctive things about RFK Jr. is his voice, which is notably raspy. As he has explained, he suffers from a neurological condition known as spasmodic dysphonia, which developed in his 40s. Listening to Kerry Kennedy speak, there is a noticeable issue with her voice as well, leading one to wonder if the condition perhaps runs in the family.
Out of curiosity, I looked it up and found some reference to either Rose Kennedy (their grandmother) or Ethel Kennedy (their mother) also having a similar voice issue. So, that prompted me to look up Ethel, and I happened upon an interview she did with Tom Brokaw in 1988, on the 20-year anniversary of RFK Sr.’s assassination. What I found was that Ethel did not appear to have a voice issue, but I also noted something interesting in their discussion about RFK and how she spoke of him with their (then) 10 surviving children. Watch:
The clip only runs four minutes, so it’s worth the watch in full, but here was the key segment (emphasis added):
BROKAW: For all of your public visibility, just because you’re Ethel Kennedy, I mean, you’re an American folk hero in your own way, there is this really private, reserved side, isn’t there? I mean, this is not easy for you, what you’re doing right now.
KENNEDY: Uh, no. I’d rather have another baby.
BROKAW: Even at this age, you’d rather have another baby?
KENNEDY: Yes, certainly.
BROKAW: When you talk to the children, do you sometimes say, “Gee, I think that your father would think this” about a particular subject — does he come up in conversation?
KENNEDY: Of course he comes up in conversation, but I would never — as he never did. You know, Bobby I think, probably, that’s why he had such tremendous influence on the childrens’ lives — he never tried to impose his own worldview on them. He did it by example. He’d go into the Mississippi Delta and he’d see the hungry children, and he’d bring that home and say, “You know, there are a lot of kids out there” — well, I mean he never preached. But he brought us all along with his enthusiasm and his love of life and his curiosity. And he made everybody feel a part of this battle — that we’re going to do better; that America can stand for something.
What an interesting observation from the one person who likely knew him best. RFK never tried to impose his worldview on his children, but to show them by example — things that mattered to him, such as the wellbeing of children.
Certainly, none of us can speak for a man who’s been gone over 56 years now. Not even his children — though one might note that RFK Jr. was 14 when his father died, while Kerry was only 9. Not even his wife can truly say what he would have thought of his son — his namesake — bucking the party so closely associated with their family in the name of championing free speech, ending war, and fighting for children’s health.
But I do think there’s an argument to be made that he’d prefer they find a way to love one another, in spite of their differences. One suspects their mother — who’s still living at 96, by the way — might feel the same.
