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Source: @avrilbradley23 on X
RFK Jr. has made statements that sound quasi-aristocratic, such as taking pride in being a Kennedy, which some people find obnoxious. For instance, Leftist, Chris Hedges, especially hates this, besides RFK Jr.’s pro-Israel stance. RFK Jr. has told a story where his father pointed out poor people in the Mississippi Delta “and said, “These are Kennedy people.” While RFK Jr.’s point is that Kennedys look out for the little guy and not the oligarchy, Chris Hedges interpreted that as treating these poor people like royal subjects. While some find this patronizing, I appreciate how RFK Jr. is honest and upfront about his privilege rather than pretending to be a man of the people. Basically, he is an elitist who sees his role as looking out for the downtrodden, though not necessarily in a condescending way.
Since Americans tend to hate hereditary privilege, there is this unhealthy fetish for the self-made striver. Since RFK Jr. didn’t have to strive, he was able to avoid the worst traits of the managerial and corporate strivers and career politicians. Thus he was able to focus on things like nature and intellectual pursuits. Being privileged grants one freedom to be a non-conformist and free thinker. The striver or self-made man has to conform to the values of elite institutions. However, obviously, plenty of old money types are rotten too.
Both JFK and RFK epitomized noblesse oblige, though they were relatively new money and certainly had their flaws. The Kennedys are the closest that America has to a hereditary aristocracy, with other political dynasties, like the Bushes and Clintons, not coming close. There is this cult of Kennedy worship among boomers, and I don’t think that JFK deserves to be deified or put on a pedestal. While the Kennedys represented a faction of the ruling class that was halfway decent, it is also that the bar is so low among America’s ruling class.
This sort of applies to Tucker Carlson, though he tries too hard to be folksy, with his man of the people schtick. Both Tucker and RFK Jr. represent better forces in politics, that is this elite noblesse oblige-based populism. There are even some comparisons to Donald Trump, as far as being a renegade from the elite. Kennedy, Trump, and Vivek Ramaswamy are similar in that they are mavericks who originated from the nouveau riche, outside the traditional WASP elite. Trump’s immigrant family arrived at roughly the same time and became wealthy at a similar time as the Kennedys.
However, Trump epitomizes much more of a mercantile or Vaishya archetype, though a 1980s version, while Vivek comes across as a new money Silicon Valley managerial striver. Though Vivek is literally a Brahmin, RFK Jr. is the most Brahmin political figure in American politics. Trump tends to respect people the most who are winners in the capitalist system. Just watch reruns of The Apprentice. However, Trump is aristocratic in how he treats his base as his subjects rather than acting as a public servant. It is just that Kennedy seems to genuinely care about people while Trump is too caught up in his own ego and uses people like pawns. While Trump has a Promethean element, he can also be a Philistine, such as eating fast food. RFK Jr. is the perfect candidate for those who are economically populist but culturally sophisticated while MAGA is more rightwing economically but culturally populist. For instance, RFK Jr. stands out in supporting the Arts.
Source: @RobertKennedyJr on X
Practically all successful political movements need some elite support or dissident elite leadership. The idea of a pure bottom-up populist movement is a cope, and very rare historically. You need people with elite connections to challenge the elite, and it is naïve to think that a total outsider can make a huge impact. I would describe RFK Jr.’s movement as a hybrid of counter-elitism in cooperation with grassroots populism. Even then, it is an uphill battle with RFK’s chances of becoming president extremely slim.
I can see how one might make the case that RFK Jr. is not radically against the US establishment, as he’s American royalty and has endorsed Obama and Hillary Clinton. If he were to have run back in 2004, as a Democrat with similar views, he would have been tolerated as this eccentric maverick. It is just that America’s political elite have become extremely authoritarian and intolerant of any dissent.
The Social Democratic paradigm, which I consider JFK and RFK of, was not populism but rather a noblesse oblige arrangement between elites and the people to prevent the rise of Fascism and Communism. Social Democracy ended with the end of the Cold War and was replaced by the neoliberal paradigm, which treats the American people as serfs. RFK Jr. is still a strong believer in democracy and the American system, so it is not like I am making some Neo-reactionary case for him. RFK Jr. is for an inclusive left-right populist movement based on compassion because he warns that darker, more fascistic forces, will take advantage of the elite screwing over the people.
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Oxymoron alert.
He drove one of his wives, I believe the third, to suicide by his womanizing, and this was not all that long ago. Some noblesse oblige.
this may well be the biggest steaming pile of shit, ever published on unz and that’s saying something. starkers sycophantic ass licking of this repulsive turd is nauseating at best. poor little bobby was so destitute he had to fly on the lolita express to visit his mommy in the hospital.
another narcissist super freak kennedy, that had to stick his dick in any orifice that he could find and then chronicle his many conquests in his “black book”, with a star rating for all of his many sexual dalliances. the rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.
well jeffery epstein had a black book as well and stupid little bobby, is now a complete israeli asset. thank you bobby, for your service to zionism, it must suck to be be such a phony piece of shit, you end up serving the people that killed your father and uncle, well at least you learned your place.
so here’s the list of candidates we are offered: joe biden, donald trump, and bobby jr. what do they all have in common? they all starred in the epstein follies, i’m ready for my close up, mr. epstein.
Well ya gotta admit “noblesse oblige” is at least a modest step in the right direction from the other American robber baron tradition, “noblesse f*cks you in the ass.”
For all their other faults, the old Puritans embodied this spirit in colonial America’s earliest days. Their belief was that once you had secured your family’s welfare, your responsibility was service to the community, not the mindless pursuit of ever greater wealth. This contrasts vividly with their opponents in the old south, the descendants of the Cavalier refugees from the Commonwealth of England who settled in Virginia. How they schemed, and, sadly, ultimately succeeded in turning the entire nation into a plantation, is capably delineated in the article “Southern values revived – How a brutal strain of conservative American aristocrats have come to rule America” at https://www.salon.com/2012/07/01/southern_values_revived/
The obvious problem is his voice, Joe Biden could argue him under the table by just being loud and interruptive. Haaaahhhhgh…..kkkk…!
CIA bot hat trick on this thread, their 3 canned slurs, voice, suicide, horndog. Marlowe should have gone for the superfecta with stoner.
The revolutionary thing about Kennedy is his open acknowledgement of CIA criminality. Decapitate the CIA impunity regime and you’re done, the path to amelioration is wide open.
His direct public incitement of Izzie genocide is beyond disappointing but he appears to be an open-minded guy. So I love him because CIA fuckin hates him.
as if there is a difference between the cia and mossad. they allow little bobby to name the cia, because he doesn’t name mossad. they got him by the short hairs. wake up and smell the false dichotomy. both the cia and mossad killed the kennedy’s (to answer mick jagger’s question).
now their careless compromised puppet, will be able to point the finger of blame solely, at a few dead cia “bad apples”, totally covering up israel’s role in this, as well as their complete take over of our government.
me thinks, it is you who smells like a mossad bot. to call the kennedy’s horn dogs, is a well documented description of their clueless and careless behavior and not at all a slur. and if you don’t believe me ask marilyn monroe, oh wait a minute she ended dead, just yet another coincidence, nothing to see here….
happy birthday mr. president…….
Kennedy is anti-war, anti-militarist, and pro-health freedom. He opposes the corporate domination and corruption of America which both political parties support. He’s not perfect but he is the only game in town.
the only problem is that israel appears to be the only game in town. how can you support israel and be anti-war?
Notsofast, don’t be a dickhead. We both know there’s no daylight between the crime families, they’re Siamese twins, Chang and Eng and his parasitic limey twin. Destroy any of the Langley, London, or Tel Aviv crime families, CIA, Mossad, and MI-6, and the others are crippled. CIA can make more material fall off the truck, but without Izzie art students to blow up skyscrapers, they’ll fuck it up like they fucked it up on their first try in 93, and get busted by somebody smart like Emad Salem.
What do you care if they’re horndogs, what are you, a feminist? Take back the night!
The only people who have come close to being aristocrats in the United States have been the descendants of the New England colonists. Their names have filled the Social Register, and the Kennedys would not have qualified. Nor would any Jews.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, these descendants gravitated to the Episcopal Church. Episcopalians are the one religious group rated as having higher average IQs than Ashkenazi Jews.
The WASP elite stopped participating in government in the 1960s and were never a strong force after the first fifty years of the United States — which makes sense given America’s egalitarian ethos.
Henry Adams (1838-1918) was a prototypical WASP.
From Wikipedia: “Considered a prominent Anglo-Saxonist of the nineteenth century, Adams has been portrayed by modern historians as anxious about the immigration of the era into the United States, particularly from Eastern Europe. More starkly put, Adams also wrote of his belief that ‘the dark races are gaining on us.’
“He considered the U.S. Constitution as belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race and as an expression of ‘Germanic freedom’ … Adams was nevertheless highly critical of the English. He referred to them as a ‘besotted race’ from whom nothing good could come and ‘wanted nothing so much as to wipe England off the earth.’
“Adams’s attitude towards Jews has been described as one of loathing. John Hay said that when Adams ‘saw Vesuvius reddening, he searched for a Jew stoking the fire.’ Adams wrote, ‘I detest the Jews, and everything connected with them, and I live only and solely with the hope of seeing their demise with all their accursed Judaism. I want to see all the lenders at interest taken out and executed.’
“To one friend, he wrote, ‘Bombard New York. I know no place that would be more improved by it. The chief population is Jew, and the rest is German Jew’.” – Wikipedia: Henry Adams.
The author of the Wikipedia article tries to soften Adams’s anti-Jewish sentiments by saying that Adams occasionally praised some Jew or other, or by saying that by “Jew” he meant “banker”, but that is nonsense.
Today, the WASPs maintain a low profile. I would say the WASPs have given up on America. They are spending the last of their bounty and will disappear along with the rest of the white race.
Kennedy is not a populist. He has said he will do what he thinks is right regardless of what the people who vote for him think or want.
As for Kennedy inviting “lucky supporters” to engage with him in falconry, I won’t bother to comment, other than to say such vulgar displays are typical of nouveau riche arrivistes.
His support for Israel is just talk. Removing our troops from the Middle East and defanging the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus would be poison to Israel.
i wish i could believe that, but this is not 5d chess, it’s 2d checkers, he fell into the lolita fly trap and got his dick caught in his fly.
trump as well, they were both personal friends with jeffery epstein and “members” of his mile high club. as for biden and his son hunter (who was dumb enough to make his own videos of smoking crack, with underaged tai whores), it doesn’t take much imagination to see him sniffing up jailbait at jeffery’s mansion in new york, concidering he used to shower with his daughter.
they are all owned and this is why they are the only choices offered for selection. this is three card monte and which ever card you flip over you will see the star of david, unfortunately.
The Kennedys were wannabe aristocrats. Trump realizes he’s a nevergonnabean aristocrat. Joe Kennedy was more mercantile, grasping, and cunning than Fred Trump. Jack Kennedy combined his father’s crude realism with an aristocratic veneer. Bobby had that realism but not so much polish and found himself playing a saint or prophet. Teddy wasn’t much of anything. He didn’t have the cunning or the aristocratic or idealistic veneer and seemed to live just to satisfy his cruder instincts.
And the next generations? They’re in a kind of limbo. The country doesn’t have an aristocracy anymore (if it ever did) and it doesn’t want one. Even Kennedys have to work for a living. But they usually work for non-profits or the government, somewhat like the remaining Roosevelts. They like to think it’s because of social concern and noblesse oblige, but it’s because that’s become the family business.
Gore Vidal, another wannabe aristocrat, said that with the Kennedys (his relatives by marriage) aristocracy had become celebrity. That’s where the Kennedys and the Trumps are now. But the Kennedys’ celebrity has been fading for years. They’re not so different now from other political/celebrity families, like the Bushes, Obamas, Clintons, Bidens, Pelosis, and Trumps, except that they have less power than the others.