Bobby Kennedy: What Might Have Been

By ROB PATTERSON

Watching the Netflix documentary Bobby Kennedy for President prompted me to engage in some speculative alternative history. But before we head down that path, let me first talk about the four-episode look at the actual historical record.

It’s a very balanced look at the man who might have been president if he hadn’t been assassinated in June of 1968 just after winning the California Democratic presidential primary. It doesn’t ignore the man’s worts – most notably his time as counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s investigation into “communist infiltration,” one of the most shameful episodes in American political history, aside from today – or that he was ambitious and calculating in his rise to power and his time as his brother John F. Kennedy’s attorney general.

Nonetheless, as Kennedy both matured and progressed, especially in the aftermath of his brother’s assassination, he locked into his idealism with a fervor that – had he not been killed – likely would have carried him into the White House. The documentary series captures that excitement in a highly palpable fashion.

It also examines the questions lingering around his killing without coming to any conclusions, and it’s doubtful that we’ll ever get any answers after all these years. Though I can conclude that we don’t know the full truth about his brother’s assassination, one can at least with RFK know that very powerful forces did not want him to become president.

Because we might well be living in a very different nation if he did get elected. And I believe that he likely would have won. In the first place, the Nixon presidency would never have happened as it did. I’ll also speculate that if Robert Kennedy’s ultimate ideals had been given a chance to be put into action, we wouldn’t be suffering though a Trump presidency and the craven policies of today’s GOP.

The Bobby Kennedy who ran for president was a true populist, unlike the rabble-rousing con of what’s called Trump’s populism (something that ticks me off every time I hear what he says described as that). As famed writer Pete Hamill notes of Kennedy, “He would never think of blaming people for their own poverty the way some of these swine today act about the poor.”

Comparing RFK and JFK with Trump in one way provides a very interesting perspective. They are all the offspring of rich men of dubious character. (All I’ve read on Joe Kennedy details a genuine son of a bitch.) Trump, as any sane and informed human must conclude, turned out to be a toxic narcissist, pathological liar, heartless bastard, emotionally immature and arguably, all told, a full-blown psychopath. Bobby Kennedy wasn’t spoiled by his privileged background. He came to see how it gave him a means to do what’s good and right.

I attribute how John, Robert and Teddy Kennedy turned out as politicians wanting to in at least some ways do good to their mother Rose and her devout Catholicism, and the Catholic tradition of service to others. For all their flaws, they still worked within and toward their ideals. That makes it much easier to forgive (if still not dismiss) their failings in other ways.

A Bobby Kennedy presidency might have steered the country away from some of the more toxic aspects of the American character – or maybe it might be better to say lack of character – that plague us today, and fostered a greater sense of shared humanity among the populace. The documentary recalls a more idealistic era, one in which I came of age and my ideals were formed. We may now be in a less idealistic and more cynical time. But that makes the ideals that RFK championed in his presidential bid more important than ever.

Populist Picks

Movie: Chappaquiddick – Yet another event that prevented a Kennedy from ever becoming president. The death of former RFK aide Mary Jo Kopechne after Ted Kennedy drove his car she was riding in off a bridge into a pond on Martha’s Vineyard ended any higher political political ambitions the senator had. Jason Clarke masterfully portrays the youngest Kennedy brother, and the film has a largely credible historical feel. But the questions unanswered then remain so even if younger generations can now learn about an incident that had faded from the current view.

TV Documentary Film: Get Me Roger Stone – Want someone to blame for Trump’s presidency? Yes, there’s more than enough blame to go around. But political operative Stone, who is entertainingly if also a bit chillingly profiled in this doc, deserves a large share of it for tapping Trump as a potential presidential candidate and his large part in getting Trump elected. Stone’s also been a major force in the increasing ugliness and sleaze factor debasing electoral politics. Quite the character, he makes a fascinating subject, as painful in other ways as this may be to watch.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2018

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