The most unique aspect of Bobby Kennedy’s run for the Presidency in 1968 was his determination to find new things to say most every campaign stop. He simply was not wired to go robot with the same messaging over and over again. He recognized the attention he was getting as an opportunity to impact the national discussion, come what may to aspirations for high office. It was more than a campaign, it was a chance to press ideas and change thinking.
With the incessant discord of Vietnam, the civil rights movement and poverty as his canvas, Kennedy mixed and matched such disparate themes as unity and patriotism with the civic obligation of protest, love of one’s country with challenging its laws, and the greatness of America’s destiny with the price other countries were paying for its influence. The candidate seemed to sweat every paragraph, and beat himself up when he thought points were redundant.
That RFK’s quest for original thoughts and ideas on the campaign trail made him so singular probably speaks to the inertia of our politics, and the stagnation of our discourse. Certainly the principle crises of his day reflected reliance on tired tropes meant more to manipulate fear than challenge civic spirit. But, above all, and most to the point, RFK understood what the body politic most required when he told a University of Kansas audience in March of 68’ that:
….we as a people, are strong enough, we are brave enough to be told the truth of where we stand. This country needs honesty and candor in its political life and from the President of the United States.
Those words were prescient, and responding to them with lip service and half-measures in the years since only added acuteness to the condition they addressed. Now we suffer from the misguided belief by millions who confuse abruptness with candor, and rudeness with honesty. They believe in their champion only because of his tone, with no concern for his lack of substance. And even as his clothes fall off and the circular destructiveness of his lies are laid bare, they stick with him because twenty plus years of propaganda has convinced them there is no other option.
Barack Obama, the long sought heir to RFK’s oratory legacy, who spent eight years raising the White House bully pulpit’s game after replacing a man all out to form complete sentences, emerged from relative seclusion yesterday to become the sorely missing counterweight to Trumpist nihilism. Coming the day after one of The Donald’s ugly monologues in Montana, Obama’s words were like the fresh clear water swirling in the bowl after a clogged toilet is finally plunged.
Unlike his successor, Obama understands words should be thought through before spoken, cheapened if repeated too often. Shifting gears from abstractions he has hinted with in some previous public appearances to direct references, the former President took aim and did not mince words, attacking Trumpism in all its forms. How “hard can it be” to give Nazis what for, Obama wondered. And making sure “3000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane” seems the minimum a functioning government should attend to, said Obama, referring to Puert Rico’s misery (it bears noting that Trump seems unable to refer to the island’s residents as “Americans”… shameful.)
Like RFK’s quest for moral redemption 50 years ago, the Obama brand exists off the menu of partisan red meat, but after a long absence, it tasted pretty good. Yet and still, a former President declaring his replacement is not conducting himself in a normal manner and ushering in “dangerous times” has to be a wake up call for anybody still intent on ignoring the burning fire. Punctuating these dark days, the ever hopeful 44th POTUS made no promises, and created few soaring images. Two months hence we “have a chance” to “restore some semblance of sanity to our politics.” Obama telling it like it is…candor, if you will.
The principle threat of a Trump Presidency, aside from the obvious existential danger created by hourly incompetence, was always the drastic reduction of standards associated with the White House, notably the demeaning of the office’s platform to inform public discussion. Of course, Trump has delivered in spades on that concern. The promise of two full months of his clinical narcissism, while surely enhancing “sane” messaging by Democrats also portends a level of division this nation hasn’t seen since RFK’s tragic primary bid.
Simpleton that I am, the “two camps” approach to making sense of things has always appealed to me. That is, for example, there are those who love the ocean and those who seek out the mountains, those given to math and sciences or those preferring history and literature, romantics vs. realists, etc. Now it’s as simple as candidates with a respect and at least the desire to articulate a vision, or the emerging clones of Trumpian nihilism , condemning any effort at thoughtful speaking as progressive hijinx, snowflake obfuscation meant to deceive and enhance the fortunes of “them”.
How ironic that RFK’s accurate diagnosis of our intrinsic appetite for truth was repackaged as a relentless multimedia narrative that succeeded in convincing millions to cheer on a pathological liar. But November beckons, and yesterday the man many more millions embrace as a living embodiment of promises RFK declared we were capable of keeping 50 years ago, appears ready to try his best to counter the slogging pestilence created by demons Kennedy also assured us we surely harbored. The stakes couldn’t be higher. BC