Just a quick reminder that Junior's mother,

[no_hypocrisy]

Ethel Kennedy, right before she died, called Joe Biden in the WH, to apologize for her son. She knew and was ashamed.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. The entire Kennedy family is embarrassed by this idiot

[Tetrachloride]

13. its ok. they are only embarrassed. not sorry.

no real action against Junior.

[summer_in_TX]

15. No real action...

unless you count numerous members of the family endorsing Joe Biden en masse,

five family members denouncing RFK Jr's decision to endorse Trump,

Caroline Kennedy calling for the Senate to reject his nomination, calling him a predator who led siblings and cousins into drug abuse, addiction, and death, lacking any relevant experience and having nutty ideas.

The people who knew him best did their best to stop him.

[Tetrachloride]

16. "do or do not-- there is no try"

endorsements are not much because junior is winning

[travelingthrulife]

21. what were they supposed to do?

[twodogsbarking]

2. I don't blame her. Sometimes crappy mothers have great kids.

[liberalla]

7. And sometimes great mothers have crappy kids.

No one formula applies to all circumstances...

[AllyCat]

14. I think you have this reversed.

Jr is definitely the crappy kid, unless a point has just flown past me.

[twodogsbarking]

20. Jr is the crappy kid but I don't blame the mother. Nor would I give credit to a crappy mother who had a great child.

Probably the exception in either case. Be a good mother not a mother****er.

[PatSeg]

3. I didn't know that

From what I read recently, RFK Jr. was a screwup from childhood, though it could have been caused by his father's death. Meanwhile, it appears that Ethel was far from an ideal mother and the children were often unsupervised.

[Feel Good Inc]

6. Ethel was left a widow of 11 kids.

She clearly struggled coping with that responsibility and was very distant throughout most their lives if you're to believe the many biographies that have been released over the years.

I know her and RFK Jr. had a very complicated relationship and she was not very nice to him when he was younger. But he also had a lot of issues that strained things as well.

It does seem the children reconciled with their mother over the years and all, including Jr., were close to her in her later years.

[PatSeg]

11. I can only imagine what it was like for

Ethel to be left with 10 children and pregnant with the 11th. Meanwhile, it is hard to know who or what to believe without first hand knowledge, though it sounds like a very chaotic household. I wonder what it would have been like if Bobby Kennedy had lived.

Edit to add: Welcome to DU!

[MadameButterfly]

30. i can't imagine one minute being a shoe-in for president

following the popularity of his brother--truly life n Camelot. Both the personal and public meaning of this moment is hard to even fathom.
And having it destroyed so completely and brutally in one instant.

It would mess up most people. Wife and son. RFKJr. was already difficult but I think he would have pulled through had his father lived. Ethel would have been a great first lady and mom. Our nation never recovered from the tragedy. I was nine, and I haven't recovered. No wonder that the family at the center of it didn't. Especially the son who had problems and already didn't measure up to the expectations of a Kennedy. He needed his dad to get him through.

[PatSeg]

32. You are probably right

That was such a rough time for America and the Kennedys lost so many people. Poor Rose buried far too many children.

I don't know what kind of father Bobby Kennedy was, but if he lived, I believe he could have held the family together better.

[TNNurse]

23. Though he was not a public person

who died violently, I also lost my father as a child. You cannot really believe that is an excuse for his behavior.

[PatSeg]

26. No, actually I don't

Though I believe it could have contributed. Meanwhile, his mother seemed to have little control over the children and the family appeared to be very dysfunctional.

Of course, I don't know what is wrong with RFK Jr., but clearly he has been very strange throughout his life, not a man you would want to give any power to.

[MadameButterfly]

31. It's not just one thing. Losing a parent is big

but at what age and what kind of support system is there after?
When you live in Camelot (even before RFK ran for president) and Dad is about to become leader of the free world, that's another factor.
RFK Jr. did have some problems before the assassination, we don't really know that nature of them, but he may not have had the skills his other siblings had to rebound.
Being a Kennedy has it's advantages but also a lot of pressure.
Once drugs entered the picture, of course everything gets worse.

We are all responsible for ourselves regardless of the circumstances and I'm not saying he isn't. His response to his situation is tragic and cruel.
But to say we know what it was like for him glosses over a lot we just don't know.

Most people who have taken the path he has taken would not have had the opportunies to act out with impunity, or ever been given the power he now wields. I expect there are lots of people who have crashed and burned, unable to overcome tragedies. We never hear from those people.

[AllaN01Bear]

4. ""

what they all said. must have really hurt her

[BoRaGard]

5. The kid took a wrong turn and developed sicko republicon "values"

and the world is worse for it....

[Warpy]

8. I worked a few seasons in Hyannis and got to see that family in action

and I have to say most of the kids were decent for rich kids.

But

I think RFK Sr is waiting for his namesae with a rolled up newspaper.

His mum is probably waiting with a frying pan.

I'd like to hug them and remind them parents are never guaranteed great kids, any more than anyone was ever guaranteed great parents.

Junior really needs to be impeached for negligence and gross incompetence, He is not a medical professional in any way and his knowledge seems to have stopped with old issues of "Prevention."

Most government departments can mange a Dunning-Kruger afflicted head honcho. In fact, most do, careerists just do an end run around his incompetence and keep things going

Unfortunately, Kennedy is in one of those departments where some degree of competence, or at least a knowledge base that allows bad bosses some contact with reality is necessary. Kennedy lacks those and is doing real damage.

He's got to go.

[FadedMullet]

9. Your comments here are interesting and well stated. Thanks. (Old issues of "Prevention" - funny stuff).

[OldBaldy1701E]

22. "Junior really needs to be impeached for negligence and gross incompetence..."

No, he needs to be locked up for multiple charges of attempted murder.

[bmichaelh]

10. From Simpsons: Robert F Quimby Jr

[mountain grammy]

12. I gave RFK Jr the benefit of the doubt because of the murder of his father and how he found out

but I'm past that now. He's damaged beyond repair. He should never ever be in a position of power. His own mother knew it, we all know it.

[mikenash54]

17. wow did not know that

class all the way.

[NJCher]

18. there are people who are damaged from the word go

Nancy Spungen, for example.

There's this book I read a long time ago about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. You may remember them as punk rockers. I am not in the habit of reading such books, but I recall being attracted to this one because it is a topic of interest to me: people who get all the bad genes (or encounter insurmountable adversity at a very young age). They're a human mess. Well, that was Nancy, according to her mother in her book And I Don't Want to Live this Life.

She describes Nancy as being a screamer and a crier well into childhood. i won't belabor her long history of antisocial behavior, but it's everything from being a prostitute to threatening to kill a babysitter with scissors and something similar with her child psychiatrist. Violent behavior toward her sister. She was murdered.

I think Kennedy could be one of them. He has so much wrong with him. All those creepy, horrible instances to which he never should have exposed to children.

Trump himself is a masterpiece of bad genes and unfortunate incidents in childhood.

[NJCher]

19. One more

Reading about Epstein, I’ve learned Prince Andrew may be another.

He has a biographer who has a video on YouTube about it.

[FakeNoose]

25. Chump's childhood was a mess also

It's well known that his parents didn't try very hard to discipline him, teachers couldn't do anything so they expelled him. In high school Chump's parents sent him off to military boarding school for 4 years. He had very few friends, and his brother Freddy died of alcoholism after failing at 2 careers.

Chump's malignant narcissism may have been inbred, but his anti-social tendencies could have been corrected early, with understanding and loving parents. But that was not to be, and now look what's happening in this country as a result.

[RainCaster]

24. Junior has done more damage than his family has done good

He is bent on destruction. Pure and simple. In his short time in office he has managed to undo all the good things the rest of his family has done for decades.

[dalton99a]

27. He should have been aborted.

[ShazzieB]

28. Let's not bring abortion into this, please.

Last edited Fri Sep 12, 2025, 10:38 AM - Edit history (1)

There's no way to predict what someone's personality will be prenatally, and nurture has at least as much to do with that as nature.

I'm about as pro choice as a person can be, but the idea of terminating a pregnancy based on an assumption/prediction/guess that the fetus will grow up to be an "undesirable" person sounds like something out of a bad eugenics nightmare to me.

[czarjak]

29. A Kennedy Republican?

Total Sell-Out!