Politics is a dirty business, and people on Twitter can be nasty. Last night, after the State Of The Union address by President @#$%!&, the Democratic response came from a member of one of America’s greatest dynasties: Joe Kennedy III.
Reaction on social media to this Kennedy kin was less than kind, and even major news networks such as CNN were confused by the Dems’ speaker choice.
This despite the fact that Kennedy was careful to wear a shirt collar with moderate spread, steering clear of the buttondowns he sometimes wears, which his great-uncle JFK jettisoned publically for being “too Ivy League.” — CC
Talk about a comeback! A few days ago here at I-S the Kennedy clan was described in a linked article as having transformed itself from Irish immigrant success story (Dreamers!) to Camelot to trailer trash partay(!!!) animals. And now back to “one of America’s greatest dynasties”.
Note to Congressman Kennedy: it’s probably best for Kennedy men not to give speeches while standing in front of what appears to be a wrecked car… Just sayin’.
I think CNN had a good take on the Dems’ dilemma: “We can’t use any of them, who’s left?”. But a lot of the country was probably thinking, “WTH, another Kennedy?”
It’s funny that you cited to that Business Insider article, which mostly cites to alt-right demagogues like Stefan Molyneux and Jack Posobiec for the “droolgate” thing. They are going to go for any kind of weird character assassination that they can dig up, since they’re essentially clickbait machines rather than actual political pundits.
There has been a lot of recent criticism of JKIII, but more in line with what NCJack has said. The public has lost its fascination that particular dynasty. The Kennedy family has gone the same way as the Bushes and Clintons.
Non-iron looking shirts. Ghastly.
Will
America has had more tinsel aristocracies (Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, etc.) than the founding fathers would have liked.
Aside from the questionable decision to prop up another dynasty (voters loved those in 2016), the entire State of the Union stinks of monarchy. From Thomas Jefferson to Taft it was simply a letter passed along from the president to congress, until imperial president extraordinaire Wilson turned it into the spectacle it is today. Coolidge wisely reverted to letter writing, but none of his successors have proved so humble.
Democrat critics say he is just too white male. Already we have Droolgate? Are we back to “Irish need not apply?” Let us dwell on the positive instead: he is clean cut, reasonably well dressed and he doesn’t drink! What can go wrong? Aside from being another liberal apparatchik, that is.
Eric,
I’m certainly not saying American voters have an aversion to idle rich born with silver spoons in their mouths. Look at the enthusiasm for the Trumps.
Also, you need to relax. There is no danger of monarchy, not even from Trump. If you find the state of the union distasteful, don’t watch it.
If you need to signal your libertarian virtues, Trump’s attacks on the free press are a much more important issue than any of his political theater.
I commented in a previous thread about this particular Kennedy’s appearance in a Town and Country article referring to him as the next President Kennedy. I said it then and I will say it again-there will never be another Kennedy as President. Period.
History has shown that JFK, Bobby and Ted were the very definition of misogynistic pigs. And #misogynisticpig will be the new buzzword in the next few election cycles. This new Kennedy will be seen as just another example of a byproduct of the failure known as Camelot.
Package it, brand it or style it anyway you want, it’s still the same tired old crap. If the Democrats have any chance of winning back the WH, it will not be with a Kennedy on the ticket.
R.I.P. Marilyn.
GS
What is are tinsel aristocracies?
Living in the Commiewealth of KarlMarxachusetts, please no more Kennedy’s. This also goes for Bush’s and Clinton’s as well.
Jack and Bobby were OK, Teddy boy a commie and an uncharged felon. Don’t care what he wears, the last thing we need is another son of privilege moving his way up the ladder of politics!
Jim M.
Joel,
While Trump may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has been anything but idle. Whether or not one approves of his activities is an entirely separate matter.
@Sacksuit,
Non-iron shirts are preferable to must-iron shirts that haven’t been ironed. Some people think this is casual; it’s just sloppy.
Jim M.,
Calling Teddy a commie is like calling Jim M a fascist.
Jim M,
Calling Teddy a commie is like calling Jim a fascist.
Another triumph of the politicalization of Ivy Style, allowing cranks to troll. CC, please try to stick to style and culture (And remember, I’m the one who criticized you for a Kennedy article in the past). Fascist, Commie, pigs…. enough already.
@ Gavin Skon.
Non-iron shirts are preferable to must-iron shirts that haven’t been ironed. Some people think this is casual; it’s just sloppy.
Spot on. If anyone doesn’t believe hot over to FNB’s Talk Ivy. Unbelievably scruffy at times.
* If anyone doesn’t believe this hop over…
Nowadays, it’s difficult to find a must-iron shirt in a mainstream store. If you do find one, it’s pin point instead of oxford. That’s reality, folks. Now, return to your little worlds.
While I agree another Kennedy president is unlikely for the foreseeable future, perhaps JKIII will have a chance since he looks more like Conan O’Brien than any other Kennedy.
Agree that non-iron is better than not ironed. But he really should have been taught how to knot a proper four-in-hand.
What an inspiring State of the Union address by our President! Finally, we have someone in the White HOuse after eight long years that sees our great country as exceptional! With the economy expanding and $$ going once again into people’s pockets, history has shown that during economic expansion comes better taste in dress; look at the postwar ’40s to mid ’60s…the height of the Ivy look. The new America should give rise to a more prevalent appreciation to our way of dress.
I think I’ll stick to style in this comment; the politics seems to get people rather stirred up. Count me among those who prefer an ironed, must-iron shirt, unless one is doing yard-work or walking on the beach, in which case ironing is arguably unnecessary as is tucking the shirt in. I have a few non-iron shirts and don’t find them to be as comfortable. I was at a meeting earlier this week at which a presenter was wearing an un-ironed OCBD, collar unbuttoned and curled up, with a tie. In his defense he is about to be a first time papa, and his wife is due to give birth any minute, so he has some reason to be distracted.
Unfortunately, fashion is about politics. It has been thru the centuries as it is how the aristocracy rules the masses. There have been previous threads here about how JFK was advised to change or tone down his clothing because it made him appear elitist and did not appeal to his base.
This new Kennedy dressed as he did during his speech because his stylist, his handler, and his publicist told him how to sell the brand to his base. A non-ironed shirt say “I am Joe Average, not Joe Kennedy. I am just like you middle America heterosexual male. I don’t iron my shirts either.” He also didn’t wear a suit coat because that appears elitist to the base. Frankly I am surprised they didn’t have him his roll up his sleeves to reflect the content of his speech.
Like it or not this is the world we have created-the visual is more important than the message.
If you need further proof of the politics of fashion look at Weegee’s now iconic photograph “The Critic”. A million words
In one photograph.
https://agnautacouture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/543d21dbc8757e4d01ba3e589026969a.jpg
Some are calling him JoeKIII. Others JoeKIV. His dad, the former US Rep who resigned after reports of wife abuse, his grand uncle, killed in WW2, and old Joe, his great granddad, the smartest of them all. I suppose some would not count the grand uncle, not being in the direct lineage.
Since youth wants to know these things and I plan on stopping at Walgreens tonight where they sell very good memory pills OTC, I am told.
Old JoeK was Sr. The great uncle was JoeK Jr. Our subject’s father was JoeK2. Our subject is JoeK3. According to the Geneologist blog, Schmidt.com, Sr. and Jr. should revert to 1 and 2 upon death. However here Sr died 25 years after Jr and JoeK2 was born 17 years before JoeK Sr died. Hence our subject is JoeK3.
I missed hearing a few “er ah, er ah’s”
I will refrain from any political comments.
I must ask the question that comes to mind with every photograph of the Kennedy highlighted here: when did men forget how to tie their necktie properly? I am quite appalled that so few men can produce anything resembling a decent four-in-hand knot, let alone being able to make a dimple. Has this become an abandoned art?
Henry,
Trump has done little other than promote his celebrity since the 80’s. He “works” in the sense that the Kardashians or the Hiltons work. He’s a run of the mill heiress.
@WhiskeyDent and others: I always thought that, for serious occasions (business, court appearances, etc.) a button-down pinpoint was the perfect “middle ground” between canonical Trad OCBDs and point-collar broadcloths? Plus, after they’re laundered a bit, they can have a beautiful, soft feel to them. And they’re certainly cooler than a true OCBD for summer wear.
Another President Kennedy?
Why not…but i hope that a new Kennedy bring back the democratic party on moderate side.
If it must be another ultra liberal…hell,not!
Moderate Democrats no longer exist.
whiskeydent,
Some of us have discovered that pinpoint oxford is a refined version of the plain ol’ oxford cloth that we grew up with. Might I suggest that you give it a try.
Vern Trotter,
On the contrary, most Democrats are moderates.
Joel, if Trump were little more than an “heiress,” as you so inelegantly put it, then why aren’t his siblings, who presumably received just as much money from Dear Old Dad when he passed on, also billionaires? The fact of the matter is that he is phenomenally talented at earning money—far more so than you or I or anyone else reading this site—and he worked hard at it, for decades.
It seems that Joel is in the “Trump can do no right” camp. There are many in the “Trump can do no wrong camp.” I find myself in that sparsely-populated nether region where he can do both.
Mr. Trotter’s assessment of Democrats is sound. The issue, Thrifty Trad, is that the political center has veered radically to the left in the past several decades, such that what was once so far left that it wasn’t even on the political radar, e.g., support for same-sex pseudo-marriage, is now “moderate.”
In the same vein, compared to current Democrats, Bill Clinton sounds pretty right wing on some issues, and JFK sounds like a veritable John Bircher.
Fabianism has been appallingly successful.
Henry Contestwinner,
Ah yes, support for that dang same-sex marriage is such a lefty position. Just like miscegenation, integration, abolitionism: pure evil wickedness. So sad that our political system has adopted these unfortunate positions.
Robb Hageman,
You don’t know your history very well. Those time periods had the highest levels of taxation at the upper tax brackets in this country’s history. Trump isn’t fighting for the average Joe, he’s fighting for Goldman Sachs, that’s why he stuffed his cabinet full of em.
SNC, marriage has a distinct purpose: to make families that will create, and raise, the next generation. We can play word games all we want, but same-sex couplings cannot create new lives. This simple biological fact is a significantreason why even though some societies accept same-sex relationships, they have never licensed same-sex pseudo-marriage—until now, and only in the insane West.
One might argue that if procreation is central to marriage, then those who cannot or will not have children should not marry, but such an argument is specious. More often than not, we can’t know who is unable to have children; even if we do, such a condition is not necessarily permanent. Also, people change their minds: someone who does not want children at the time of marriage may decide later to have children after all. Even if childlessness is permanent, a man-woman dyad retains the marital form.
However, all this overlooks something much deeper: marriage is a transcendent institution. It is a mystery. It is a man and a woman becoming one flesh. Marriage—real marriage—is beneficial to society by promoting domestic happiness and reducing promiscuity. There is much, much more to it than just procreation.
Marriage aside, let’s see who’s in favor of what: the Democrats were the party of slavery; the Democrats opposed integration far more than Republicans ever did; and the anti-abolitionists—the Democrats—were the ones who favored anti-miscegenation laws. The Democrats were wrong on slavery, wrong on miscegenation, and wrong on integration. Democrats decided the Dred Scott case, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, opposed the XIII-XV Amendments, engaged in lynchings, imposed poll taxes, passed Jim Crow laws, and fought against Civil Rights laws. It was a Democrat who assasinated Lincoln. It was a Democrat who founded the KKK. Democrats didn’t elect a black to Congress until 1935—eight decades after the end of the Civil War. As Obama put it, they were “on the wrong side of history.”
Now, who is it that’s far more likely to favor same-sex pseudo-marriage? While it’s a mainstream position now, it started with the Democrats. Just as other misguided Democrat policies had their day in the sun, so too does same-sex pseudo-marriage, and just like those other Democrat mistakes, it, too, shall pass.
Oops! Sorry about the math mistake. Just tired, I guess. Christian, when are you going to add a preview feature for comments?
An OpEd in the Washington Post this week by Ed Rogers, longtime political consultant, sums up the Democrat party these days: ” The Democrats are controlled by interest groups including public sector unions, trial lawyers, entertainment elites, hedge-fund billionaires and assorted left wing grievance groups.”
As far as Goldman Sachs, every recent administration, at least back to Clinton’s, has always had a few.
Henry
A Democratic President, LBJ, was personally responsible for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
@Mr. Korn
I did not realize all this time that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an executive order. In fact, it could not have been passed without Republicans. Incidentally, there are quite a few quotes accredited to LBJ that would lead me to believe that the man did not exactly feel that black people were on par with white people.
Not a good man. Just my opinion.
Cheers,
Will
LBJ was the worst racist we have ever had in the White House. Easy to search; really shocking are the events cited. He was even worse than Woodrow Wilson, another Democrat, who iniatiated racial segregation in the federal government and in the US military.
There is growing evidence that LBJ was involved in the murder of President Kennedy and another 10 or so political enemies and also his own sister; we can realize he was a truly evil man!
Initiated. The memory is the second thing to go. Or maybe it is the keyboard.
Lots of quotes of LBJ using the “N” word:
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#Attributed
A recording of LBJ saying the “N” word:
https://youtu.be/r1rIDmDWSms
I note, Mr. Korn, that you did not dispute any of the facts I presented. Even if LBJ’s involvement in the passage of Civil Rights legislation had not been for craven political purposes, he would have been an outlier in the overall anti-black position of the Democrats, a position that continues to this day. If Democrats were pro-black, then they would pass legislation that enabled them to succeed, that encouraged responsibility and participation in the work force and in society, rather than the laws they actually have passed, which serve to keep black on the welfare state plantation, unfree and working for their Democrat overlords.
A new poll in Massachusetts for Joseph P Kennedy III, age 38, for US Senate recently. He will beat sitting Senator Ed Markey in the Democrat primary if he runs.