Op-Ed: As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Endangers Lives, Joe Kennedy III Builds Resistance In The Deep South

As one member of the Kennedy family enacts policy changes that will result in a new wave of disease and death while simultaneously ushering in “the dismantling of the entire framework of evidence-based prevention” in American medicine, another is in the deep south, working to develop a network of grassroots resistance to the bevy of ills brought on by folks like his kin and similar-minded buffoons in the Trump administration.

Recently, The New York Times reported on Joe Kennedy III, the former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts and grandson of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and his work with The Groundwork Project, a nonprofit organization that has him active in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.

States that, as reporter Robert Draper notes, “have received little attention from left-leaning organizations.” 

It was only a few short years ago that Kennedy was a rising star in the Democratic Party until he decided in September 2019 to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and two great uncles by making a bid for the U.S. Senate. Ultimately, his competition in the Democratic primary, Senator Edward J. Markey, shook off concerns about his age by packaging himself as a progressive in the style of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and a year later, Kennedy was bested in the race by Markey by 11 points and became the first one in the Kennedy family to lose a senatorial campaign.

“Losing sucks,” Kennedy said of the loss. “But I made the decision to try to build something that keeps you engaged and energized. And if something comes up, perhaps you take it, but you’re not sitting around waiting for that to happen.”

It is a lesson that not only many other famous losing Democrats should follow, but given the state of our country and the Republican Party’s efforts to gerrymander their way to rigging the next midterm elections in their favor, Democrats in office oughta heed, too.

Especially when Kennedy, during a three-day visit to the Mississippi Delta, is highlighting how our most vulnerable are being failed by their repressive, conservative-led governments across the South.

“People living here have been receiving boil-water notices for two years now,” Kennedy said. “We should be banging the drums on this every day.”

We all should be doing that, but for those of us who recall what happened in Flint, we are not shocked when national Democratic leadership – including the head Negro in charge at the peak of the crisis – or national media ignore the plight of poor Black folks.

Still, I agree with Kennedy that it is time for the Democratic Party writ large to stop ignoring its problems in the South.

Without that meaningful opposition, as Kennedy explained in the profile, these deep red states subsequently become breeding grounds for various right-wing initiatives, such as the evisceration of the Clean Air Act in West Virginia, legislation in Mississippi that banned abortions after 15 weeks that was later exploited by this corrupt, conservative run Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The same can be said of many of the racist, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-labor, anti-LBGTQ, anti-anybody not white, straight, male, Christian, and only into missionary sex laws that have been passed in my home state of Texas.

“The only way to change the power structures in those states is to organize people,” Kennedy explained. “That’s not a short fix. But what else can you do?”

I suppose the alternative is to continue ignoring people in the South the way many national Democratic leaders have, but that is a fool’s move.

In fairness, I did read some months ago that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and party strategists were reportedly “thinking outside the box, looking for political lottery tickets in places like Alaska, Mississippi, and Texas.”

Per the New York Times again,  earlier this Spring, Schumer had “told associates that he sees an intriguing opportunity in Mississippi, which has the largest percentage of Black residents of any state.”

One of those possible senatorial candidates mentioned was Scott Colom, a district attorney who was appointed by President Joe Biden to a federal judgeship — only to be blocked by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a racist clown.

For the unfamiliar, back when she was running against former Congressman and former Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy, in a Senate runoff, she drew controversy for joking about lynchings in public.

Two years later, when Espy challenged her again, I wrote a piece entitled “Why So Little Attention For The Black Man Running For Senate in Mississippi?”

The answer is similar to the reason why Joe Kennedy III is down there in the deep south using his famous name to garner money and attention towards a worthy cause, and why the white progressives who claim to care so much about preserving democracy, though never go too far from familiar terrain in seeking votes, are not.

I know this because I have written similar articles about other Black politicians seeking statewide office across the South with no real national support or media attention.

But then many of these same people complain about a depressed and disengaged electorate.

After all, has Mississippi not had a high Black population this entire time? Why not invest there and in neighboring states with similar demographics if it is indeed as cheap as some party organizers are now claiming?

What Trump and co. are doing to the masses nationwide is not unlike what these southern governors have been doing to Black folks, Latinos, and poor white folks this entire time.

While speaking at an event in Indianola, Mississippi, Kennedy said: “I think Mississippi has so much to teach our nation about resilience, never losing focus, and not giving up when your government is actively working against you.”

Indeed, and that could be a winning message for Democrats in the South and across the country if made.

It can’t just be an out-of-office congressman with a famous last name making the case, though.

That can only go so far without real support.

Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, I Finally Bought Some Jordans, was published last March.

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