By: Mia Holmberg Karlsson/TT
Published: Less than 40 min ago
full screen
Next
Robert F Kennedy Jr gives a speech against a Democratic bill to make more vaccines mandatory for school children. Image from January 2020.
1 of 2 Photo: Hans Pennink/AP/TT
His uncle was president and his own father a presidential candidate. Both were murdered.
Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is challenging fellow party member Joe Biden in the hope of reaching the Oval Office. But the upstart’s presidential dreams are crushed by his controversial views on vaccines.
In January 2022, Robert F Kennedy Jr stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and condemned the US response to the coronavirus by railing against totalitarianism. Jews in Nazi Germany had more freedom than Americans forced into mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns during the pandemic, he argued.
– Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did, he told an audience of flag-waving vaccine skeptics.
Blaming autism on vaccines
Today, Democrat “Bobby” Kennedy Jr. is expected to officially announce that he wants to be the next president of the United States. In doing so, he takes up the fight against a sitting president belonging to the same party, something that is described as extremely unusual.
On a daily basis, the 69-year-old is a lawyer, professor and author. As an environmental lawyer, he has fought several times against large pharmaceutical and oil companies and won high-profile cases about environmental pollution.
In recent years, the focus has increasingly fallen on Kennedy’s outbursts about vaccines and the promotion of conspiracy theories. Among other things, he has – like ex-president Donald Trump – blamed childhood vaccines for autism in children, a theory that has been repeatedly dismissed in scientific studies.
The sister supports Biden
Kennedy himself says that he is not against vaccines, writes The New York Times, but that he simply wants to make them safer.
Outside the United States, he is best known for his family ties. The father of the same name was assassinated in 1968, during his campaign to become the Democratic presidential candidate. Five years earlier, John F Kennedy’s uncle had been killed in one of the most publicized assassinations in modern history.
The Kennedy family is not entirely enthusiastic about the 69-year-old’s presidential ambitions. His sister Rory has told CNN that because of “Bobby’s” views, she supports Joe Biden instead. Likewise, his other sister Kerry has announced in a statement that she loves her brother – but does not share his views on the pandemic and vaccines.
Facts
Background: Here is the Kennedy clan
Joseph “Joe” Kennedy: 1888—1969. Patriarch and father of John, Robert and Edward, among others. Was a leading Democrat, London Ambassador and Chairman of the US Treasury. He and wife Rose Kennedy had nine children. Joe Kennedy was determined to make presidents of his sons and had great influence over their presidential and senate campaigns.
Among the sons were:
John F Kennedy: President 1961-1963. Led the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, came close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and promised that man would set foot on the moon. Shot dead in Dallas.
Robert F “Bobby” Kennedy: Senator and Attorney General. Was running for president when he was assassinated in 1968.
Edward “Ted” Kennedy: Senator since 1962. Liberal heavyweight who, after the death of his father and brothers, became the patriarch of the clan until his death in 2009.
Among the more famous living family members are:
Caroline Kennedy: Born 1957, only living child of John F Kennedy. Author and lawyer. Member of the group that nominated Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s vice-presidential candidate. Was US Ambassador to Japan 2013–2017.
John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Born 1954, son of Robert. Environmental lawyer, professor and author. Challenging Joe Biden to become the Democratic candidate in the 2024 US presidential election.
Joseph “Joe” Kennedy III: Born 1980, grandson of Robert. Former Attorney General, Member for Massachusetts in the House of Representatives 2013–2021. Seen as a rising star within the Democrats.
Christopher “Chris” Kennedy. Born 1963, son of Robert. Businessman who campaigned to become governor of the state of Illinois in the 2018 election.
Read more