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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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Biden has been enlisting the Kennedy family to disavow one of their own and prop up himself as the ultimate and only possible candidate for Democrats recently, to the point where Bobby Jr.’s own brother has rejected him and has said on record that he will to the best of his ability attempt to persuade his sibling to drop out of the race. This does seem pretty harsh, especially with Biden saying he will to the best of his ability attempt to attain Bobby Sr.’s dreams in his continued Presidency—essentially a shot at Bobby Jr.—given the fact that not only does the President of the United States not believe that Bobby Jr. can fulfill his own father’s hopes, but the entire Kennedy family doesn’t, and rather they believe a probable dementia-sufferer has a safer chance of doing that.

It does seem to me that Bobby Jr. might be the last one in the family to at least hope for a fulfillment of Camelot, given the rejection of such a concept by the rest of the family, to the point where King Arthur has been succeeded by the court fool after all these years of the seat being vacant. Biden as coming from the same stock (Black Irish “Catholic”) and the same era is basically an imposter adopted by the Kennedy’s, yet they would rather have him instead of their own flesh-and-blood, given their total allegiance to the modern Democratic Party (which Biden probably doesn’t really understand himself, given the fact that he, along with all the other Kennedy’s of old, would have had a probable heart attack if they were able to see where everything else is now back then—even with all of Jack Kennedy’s lapsed Catholicism and infidelity, I doubt he would have been such a phony to host pride parades at the White House).

Which raises the question: what was the ultimate act of treachery by Bobby Jr.? There’s a lot of possibilities, and as far as I know he’s the only one in the family to doubt the government-approved stories of how his family members were killed, and as Bobby Jr. would probably pardon Sirhan Sirhan (and maybe Oswald) if he ever wins, that would probably be a huge instance of disrespect in their eyes.

Biden has been enlisting the Kennedy family to disavow one of their own and prop up himself as the ultimate and only possible candidate for Democrats recently, to the point where Bobby Jr.’s own brother has rejected him and has said on record that he will to the best of his ability attempt to persuade his sibling to drop out of the race.

...Why is this news?

Family ties aren't all that strong anywhere, and they certainly aren't that strong in any political dynasty anywhere on either side of the aisle. RFK Jr. is a pretty fringe dude, he has a roughly zero percent chance of actually winning the presidency, and a much higher percent chance of acting as a spoiler against the Democrats.

There is no concievable world where his own family don't prefer Biden to him.

Also, how does "black irish" apply to either biden or the kennedy family?

Family ties aren't all that strong anywhere

This would be news in any country outside the WEIRD west, where family ties tend to be a lot stronger than political ideologies!

I think it's still true everywhere but in cities even in the WEIRD west.

Once you enter the halls of power family ties are, pfft. So much smoke and mirrors. This is not a modern or simply European phenomenon either. History is replete with brothers killing brothers over power. Just to rattle some off from a cursory google search, there was Edward and George Plantagenet, Garcia and Ferdinand Sánchez, the amusingly named War of the Three Sanchos, Atahualpa and Huascar Capac, Harold and Tostig Godwinson, the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Gao Yan and Gao Yin, Gao Zhan and Gao Bainian, really just the whole history of Chinese Imperial Families is just endless repetition of "and then he ordered the deaths of his brothers, nephews, cousins, and their entire families", Cambyses and Smerdis, Caracalla and Geta, hell Mehmed II actually legalized royal fratricide in the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed III killed nineteen of his brothers. Shah Jahan had his eldest brother Khusrau Mirza killed, Ashoka the Great killed all of his brothers, Shaka Zulu (yes that Shaka) was killed by two of his brothers, etc. etc.

Endorsing another candidate instead of simply murdering your brother is practically a warm and loving embrace.