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By Frank Bruni
Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer who was on the staff of The Times for more than 25 years.
The hubris. The narcissism. The convenient and fraudulent anti-elitism. The out-of-his-mind theories presented as out-of-the-box thinking.
Many of us have noted how these fetching traits and tics connect Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in some ways Trump with better manners, fewer lawyers and discernible pecs.
But we underplay another commonality. Like Trump when he made his 2016 presidential bid, Kennedy has zero experience — none at all — in elected office, a fact made comically clear in his interview last summer with the New Yorker editor David Remnick, who did focus on Kennedy’s lack of preparation for the presidency, asking the candidate about his credentials.
“I’ve been around government and studying government since I was a little boy,” Kennedy said, not so subtly stressing his bloodline — he’s a septuagenarian nepo baby — and casting proximity as seasoning. It’s not. I’ve been “around” many physicians in my life. You do not want me performing your appendectomy.
Kennedy added that he has attended most of the Democratic Party’s conventions since 1960, that he has visited every country in Latin America and that he “began writing about foreign policy” as a teenager. I began writing about movies as an adolescent. You do not want me directing another “Manchurian Candidate” remake.
I bring this up for three reasons. One, Kennedy exemplifies the degree to which family connections can act as distraction and shield, protecting someone from a kind of scrutiny that a person without a storied surname would receive. Two, his announcement of his running mate last week underscored his utterly cavalier attitude about experience. Three, he’s not going away. Recent developments, including that running-mate announcement, are reminders that he really could be a spoiler in this election.
Although Kennedy is officially on the 2024 ballot only in Utah so far, his campaign this week said that he’d collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in four additional states — including, God help me, my home state, North Carolina, which President Biden’s re-election campaign has been eyeing with at least a sliver of hope. Kennedy’s naming of a running mate makes him potentially eligible for the ballot in states that require a two-person ticket, and that running mate — the fantastically wealthy tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan — promises to be the kind of cash spigot and fund-raiser that’s hugely helpful to signature collection.
Her riches are her credential, though perhaps — I don’t know — she wrote a paper about vice presidents in the fifth grade. Defending her in an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, Kennedy led with this: “I’m guessing she probably has a higher I.Q. than almost anybody who I’ve seen in public life today.”
I won’t press to see the results of an actual intelligence test, but I will recall Trump’s boast, just before his 2017 inauguration, that “we have by far the highest I.Q. of any cabinet ever assembled.” And I’ll observe that one of the contenders Shanahan beat out to become Kennedy’s running mate was the quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whom Kennedy has proudly identified as a regular confidant and consultant. A man who sees Rodgers as a plausible vice president is a profoundly and dangerously unserious person.
I understand the impulse to open government to people who aren’t mired in conventional thinking, who aren’t bound by party loyalties, who promise truly fresh perspectives, who can inspire us by surprising us. I support it — within reason.
But while a steep learning curve is fine for a House member and perhaps a senator, the White House is no school. Trump demonstrated that by turning it into a kindergarten. And while Kennedy may be educated in some ways, he lacks the crucial lessons in leadership and accountability that we should not just desire but demand in someone seeking the American presidency.
He also lacks so much as a scintilla of humility, a failing that the rest of us could spend the next four years paying for.
All the righteous attention to the Trump-branded Bible pre-empted rightful attention to a Trump-branded fragrance, Victory 47. But in the Dean’s Report newsletter, Dean Obeidallah defined the scent’s market: “That cologne apparently is for the man who wants to smell like a cross between cheeseburgers and victimhood.” (Thanks to Stephen L. Mathewson of Albuquerque, N.M., for spotting this.)
In The Washington Post, Carolyn Hax turned philosophical: “Every life has some element of frustration, loneliness, rejection, mistreatment, misunderstanding, raw deals, disappointment, disaster and dream-crushing. And after that comes Tuesday.” (Bob Rappaport, Arlington, Va.)
Also in The Post, George F. Will skewered the MAGA darlings Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno, Republican candidates in U.S. Senate races in Arizona and Ohio: “The new breed of anti-conservative Republicans think persuasion, and the patience of politics, is for ‘squishes,’ a favorite epithet of proudly loutish Trumpkins, who, like Lake and Moreno, seem to think the lungs are the location of wisdom.” (Jim Gray, Phoenix) Will also wrote that Lake “has the sheen of Limoges porcelain, and the manners of Al Capone.” (Michael Greason, Toronto, and Amy Helfman, Cambridge, Mass., among others)
And Amy Nicholson reviewed “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” taking a charitable tack: “Part of the film’s charm is that the humans are often flummoxed; they tend to know where the creatures are headed, but rarely why or what they can do to help, a relatable frustration for anyone who has ever dragged their pet to the vet and gotten a diagnosis of stress.” She also endorsed the palette chosen by Adam Wingard, the movie’s director: “Let James Cameron give his ‘Avatar’ organisms biological plausibility. Wingard just wants to tint one monster hot pink, another one gold and another the opalescent shimmer of a 12-year-old’s first bottle of nail polish.” (Melissa France, Flemington, N.J.)
In The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch honored the six construction workers, all immigrants from Latin America, killed in the Baltimore bridge collapse: “They were doing a backbreaking job at a wretched hour, one many other Americans simply can’t or won’t do — all so their neighbors could drive safely to their warm, comfortable office cubicles in the dawn’s early light.” (Alan Stamm, Birmingham, Mich.)
In The Hartford Courant, Dom Amore celebrated the basketball star Paige Bueckers’s characteristically dazzling play in the final minute and a half of the University of Connecticut’s win over Syracuse University in the women’s college basketball tournament, noting that Bueckers “took over and saved the day in her own way, which is every way imaginable.” (Elayne Cree, Simsbury, Conn.)
In The Athletic, Matthew Futterman probed the rooting section for the tennis player Danielle Collins at the recent Miami Open: “And then there’s Quincy, her poodle mix who came with her for the tournament and has been keeping her on an even keel in a service dog kind of way. ‘Mr. Q.’ she calls him. She’s been sticking ‘Mr. Q.’ in doggy day care during her matches and has some videos of him watching her play. Quincy is apparently very confused by it all, she said. He sees his mom. He sees a ball. He seems not to understand why he is not there and involved.” (Joaquín Viñas, Miami)
In The Times, A.O. Scott mulled the allure of allusions: “If our brains are foundries, they are also warehouses, crammed full of clichés, advertising slogans, movie catchphrases, song lyrics, garbled proverbs and jokes we heard on the playground at recess in third grade. Also great works of literature. There are those who sift through this profusion with the fanatical care of mushroom hunters, collecting only the most palatable and succulent specimens. Others crash through the thickets, words latching onto us like burrs on a sweater. If we tried to remove them, the whole garment — our consciousness, in this unruly metaphor — might come unraveled.” (Saritha Prabhu, Clarksville, Tenn.)
Also in The Times, Jess Bidgood observed that before a recent abortion ruling with potentially huge political consequences, Florida “seemed like it would basically sit this election out, like a retiree with a cocktail watching pickleball from the sidelines.” (Tom Brandt, Minneapolis, and Bettina Hansel, Athens, N.Y., among others)
In The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik pondered our love of spectator sports: “There are passions that have to be private to be felt, and others that have to be communal to be real.” (Rich Moche, Brookline, Mass.)
And in The Guardian, Arwa Mahdawi sketched a pastime of sorts to which I can very much relate: “One of my favorite things to do in my middle age is lie on the sofa eating crisps while Googling low-effort ways to optimize my life.” (Tom Powell, Vestavia Hills, Ala.)
To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.
I’m accustomed to “where’s Regan?” emails from faithful newsletter readers when I haven’t given you news about or a picture of her for a month or more. But a few of you recently sent me new variations on that theme, prompted by my mention of my recent two-week trip to New Zealand: Who took care of Regan?
As if I might just dump her at a random boarding facility before flying into the night.
You know me better! Queen Regan stayed in her own home, by which I mean our home. Queen Regan slept in one of her own beds or on the bed where her dog sitter — she had one and then another, both of whom she already knew — also slumbered. She went to her doggy day care three times weekly, per usual. Also, per usual, she occasionally met up with her best dog buddy, Indie, who lives four doors down, for a woodland walk.
Her dog sitters honored her routine because they’re lovely humans and, when it comes to my furry beloved, I’m an anxious and irredeemable control freak.
I’m deeply ashamed to report that I didn’t leave them a short note about Regan care. I didn’t leave them a medium-size note. I left them the “Ulysses” of dog-care Google docs, detailing Regan’s relationship with her treats, cataloging where various supplements and emergency medicines are stored, mapping her sleeping habits, charting her moods. Then, so that they’d never have to dig up these operating instructions, I left printouts in multiple places around the house.
I often scoff at the helicopter parents all around me, then I find ways to hover over my dog even when I’m oceans away. Even when I’m on the opposite side of the Equator.
Love is generous and love is kind and love is all those gooey virtues and verities that are spelled out in swirling fonts on Hallmark cards and sung about in ballads on Easy Listening channels. Love is also meddling and invasive and paranoid, and it leads an otherwise sensible man to worry that the deletion or compression of just a few details in his epic dog-care manual might result in an unconscionable twinge of canine discomfort.
When I returned, Regan hurled herself at me, squealed ecstatically and took a perch on my bed to watch me unpack (or, probably, to make sure I unpacked and would be staying put for a while). That’s what she’s doing in the picture above, and maybe she’d be that happy and grateful to have me back even if I weren’t so attentive to her needs, so obsessive about her welfare.
But I’m not taking any chances.
Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book "The Age of Grievance" and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter. Instagram • Threads • @FrankBruni • Facebook
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