From Kennedy’s Name to Kennedy’s Shame

There’s a Yiddish word you should have in your vocabulary: Chutzpah. It’s fun to say, even if sometimes you have to spit it out after you say it. In English, “audacity” is close, and “hubris” is perfect if you’re a little pretentious. So just think of RFK, Jr.

He recently offered to support Kamala Harris if she promised him a seat in his cabinet, suggesting he believes she will win the presidency. But after she declined, Kennedy announced his support for Trump and Vance.

Even though his own presidential campaign came to nothing, Kennedy nevertheless considered himself a major asset. It was audacious to begin with, but worse, it was a disgrace to the Kennedy name.

His siblings all insisted that he be ignored—an insult to their father and family—and they didn’t hesitate to call him deranged and in need of help. Instead, he found a home, after announcing his support for the Republican ticket. But when he joined the party, Donald Trump hesitated a bit.

A pro-Trump Catholic newsletter reported: “Pressed by hostile media, both Trump and Vance said they would not seek a federal abortion ban.”

Of course, it is unlikely that the US House of Representatives or Senate will approve such a ban in the near future. This is a strange loophole, which takes into account not “your position” but “your limits.”

Robert Kennedy’s siblings aren’t very close. His brother Max released a statement: “I am heartbroken by my brother Bobby’s support for Donald Trump. I often think about my father and how he might have viewed the politics of our time. I don’t know what he would have thought of TikTok or AI, but one thing is for sure: he would have despised Donald Trump.”

“Yet my brother now supports Trump. To swear allegiance to Trump, a man who has shown no adherence to our family’s values, is inconceivable to me.

“Worse, it’s sordid. Earlier this month, as Harris surged in the polls, my brother offered his support in exchange for a position in her future administration. He received no response.

“He has now offered the same deal to Trump. This is an attempt to seize power, a strategic attempt to gain importance. It is the opposite of what my father admired: the altruistic spirit that reigns in the United States of America.

“Let me go through the file.

“My father was an anti-racist who joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in common cause and forged a powerful bond with African Americans everywhere he went in 1968. Donald Trump is a lifelong racist whose entire career has been shaped by his dislike of people of different skin color.

“My father believed in expanding legal immigration because he came from a family of immigrants and knew how much talent and drive hard-working families bring if we open our doors to them.

“Donald Trump is stirring up hatred toward immigrants, falsely portraying them as criminals and drug addicts. My father believed in the rule of law, as a prosecutor and as attorney general of the United States… My father believed in bringing Americans together.”

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as press secretary to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

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