Bobby Kennedy, Liberal Patriot

A role model for our times.

Authors’ note: As many Democrats get swept up in Mamdani-mania, exulting over a New York City mayoral candidate who has endorsed every terrible slogan from “defund the police” to “globalize the intifada,” it’s appropriate to pause and ponder the possibility of a strikingly different politics.

This week, we published a 106-page deep dive into the political worldview of Robert F. Kennedy. It’s a sad commentary about the times we’re living in that we must quickly clarify that we’re talking about the legendary U.S. Senator, not his son, Donald Trump’s conspiracy-minded Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Readers of this Substack will appreciate the report’s title, “Bobby Kennedy, Liberal Patriot.” The subtitle makes clear ours is not just an historical academic analysis; we hope to explain exactly “What RFK’s Approach Could Teach Political Leaders Today.”

We think there is an enormous amount to learn.

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Senator Robert F. Kennedy speaks at a rally during his campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1968. (Photo: Rowland Scherman/Getty Images)

Today, we live in a country deeply divided by politics, race, and, increasingly, social class. Neither political party has been able to command a durable majority. Partisan actors are polarized and deeply dislike—sometimes detest—those on the opposite side of the aisle. Many people do not want their children to marry someone from the opposing political party. In many ways, it feels as though the country is being torn apart.

Paradoxically, at the same time, public opinion polling shows that rank-and-file voters have broad areas of agreement on policies and values. For instance, Americans overwhelmingly agree that equality of opportunity is better than equal outcomes; that America is not perfect, but it is good to be proud of the country; that immigration is beneficial, but border security is critical; and that we need more and better policing rather than an effort to defund law enforcement.

Is it possible to imagine a different politics, one that draws on the best ideas of those who identify as liberals and those who identify as conservatives to build a broad coalition of support?

During a similarly divisive time, in 1968, one politician did just that. In the spring of that year, the nation was racially divided and racked by turmoil—rioting, assassination, and anti-war protests. Yet Robert F. Kennedy, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, was able to win the enthusiastic support of not only black and Hispanic Americans but also working-class white voters, some of whom had supported the segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace for president in the 1964 primaries. RFK helped forge social cohesion among alienated groups at a time of deep antagonism.

Kennedy was able to build bridges across divides in part because he did not fit into a neat ideological box. He cobbled together liberal positions such as opposition to war, support of civil rights, fighting poverty, and asking the wealthy to pay more taxes with more conservative views on the Cold War, crime, welfare, family, faith, and the draft (from which he opposed deferments for privileged college students). Kennedy was at once hailed by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. as a “tribune of the underclass” and posthumously lauded by Ronald Reagan at a White House ceremony. He emphasized responsibilities alongside rights and, said Bill Clinton, “saw the world not in terms of right and left but right and wrong.”

His disparate views struck some as incoherent and opportunistic. In 1967, a well-known Jules Feiffer cartoon contrasted a “Good Bobby,” who had liberal views on civil rights and civil liberties, with a “Bad Bobby,” who had more conservative positions on those issues. During the 1968 campaign, The New York Times suggested RFK was abandoning his New York liberalism in a story headlined, “Kennedy: Meet the Conservative.” But his new synthesis of views was in fact stitched together by a consistent commitment to American patriotism and American values.

His brother John’s single most famous sentiment, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” was never far from RFK’s thinking. Tellingly, the day his martyred brother was buried, RFK sent a letter to his son Joe and, in that moment of unbearable grief, emphasized the importance of patriotism:

Remember all the things that Jack started—be kind to others that are less fortunate than we—and love our country.

Love to you,

Daddy.

In a December 1967 address to the Citizens Union in New York City, RFK spoke of the central importance of American identity: “All of us, from the wealthiest to the young children that I have seen in this country, in this year, bloated by starvation—we all share one precious possession, and that is the name American.” (Emphasis in original.)

In Kennedy’s view, all Americans enjoyed common rights and needed to live up to a common set of obligations.

His strong support for civil rights and opposition to discrimination came from the idea that all Americans deserve equal treatment under the values of the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Kennedy opposed racial preferences for the same reason. Because all Americans had equal rights, no one deserved special treatment. Kennedy recognized, as he told one reporter, that given the passage of civil rights legislation, “poverty is closer to the root of the problem than color.”

By the same token, his tough-on-crime approach came from the idea that all Americans, whatever their race or ethnicity, should be held to the same standard of behavior. He also believed that to sustain a strong American community, people could not live in fear of one another.

His belief in the dignity of work and criticisms of welfare reflected the deeply American commitment to the value of a hard day’s work. RFK argued, “Work is a mundane and unglamorous word. Yet, it is, in a real sense, the meaning of what the country is all about.”

His eventual opposition to the Vietnam War stemmed in part from the sense that the war’s execution violated fundamental American values of decency. At the same time, he strongly opposed the college draft deferment because it tended to exempt a more privileged segment of the population from living up to its patriotic duty to serve the country in times of war.

Finally, his commitment to fighting poverty and economic inequality was rooted in a patriotic phrase he often employed: that it was unacceptable to allow people to live in destitution and degrading circumstances “in the United States of America.”

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Of course, the United States has changed a great deal since RFK’s 1968 campaign. Demographics have shifted. New public policy challenges have arisen. Attitudes have moved on a number of issues. At the same time, many of the enduring values Kennedy championed reach across dimensions of time. Public opinion research suggests rank-and-file voters continue to strongly believe in the need to respect the law, the value of hard work, the importance of treating all people equally irrespective of race, and a commitment to a reflective (rather than knee-jerk) American patriotism.

As in Kennedy’s time, these issues have special resonance with working-class (noncollege-educated) voters, who still constitute a majority of Americans, and key constituencies in swing states. Could the Democratic Party’s recommitment to American values produce a “patriotism dividend” that facilitates liberal reforms, as it did under Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy? Or could the Republican Party’s embrace of these issues solidify its growing multiethnic, working-class coalition?

Most importantly, could a modern figure who champions RFK’s approach bring people together and help unite the country? In 2025, the centennial of RFK’s birth, our project seeks to answer that question.

How could a political party wishing to build a durable majority adapt Kennedy’s liberal patriotism to do so and boost social cohesion in America in the years to come?

We can imagine liberal patriotism playing out in a variety of arenas, including how America deals with the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. In a series of subsequent reports, we will outline four ideas in the domestic arena. To tee those up, we begin here by laying out some questions those reports will address.

Teaching Schoolchildren a Reflective Patriotism. Kennedy embraced a deep patriotism that also acknowledged American missteps. At a time when the extreme left is pushing the idea that America’s “true founding” was the year enslaved black people were first brought to America (1619) and that racism is the defining feature of American society today, while the extreme right is seeking to erase an honest teaching of American history that might make white students feel uncomfortable, what is the best way to teach young schoolchildren through history, literature, and civic education a reflective patriotism that instills a love of the country’s best liberal democratic values? RFK’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, as Maryland’s lieutenant governor, spearheaded a policy that all students must complete a community service requirement before graduation. How could political parties build on this idea to meet public needs and encourage public spiritedness in the next generation?

Civil Rights Without Racial Preferences. As attorney general, RFK fought racial segregationists and pushed for a Civil Rights Act that treated all Americans as individuals rather than members of racial groups. He also believed the same nondiscrimination principle should apply to white people. How can policies in education, employment, and government contracting be structured to uplift all Americans, especially those who have faced discrimination, without resorting to new racial preference policies that divide Americans? How can social mobility policies be shaped to implicitly recognize that some groups of Americans have faced discrimination without resorting to the disease as cure? Can diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that have embraced race-essentialist thinking be completely overhauled to advance Americans of all races who have faced disadvantage? Could such policies be designed to garner broad public support?

Combating Lawlessness: Crime, Illegal Immigration, and Campus Disorder. In 1968, Kennedy ran as a candidate who was at once deeply compassionate toward the plight of black Americans and insistent on maintaining law and order in the face of urban rioting. Today, many Americans express deep concerns about widespread lawlessness, whether it be street crime, illegal immigration, or disorder created by college activists who disrupt education for other students. How can a political party best strike Kennedy’s liberal patriotic balance, which comes down hard on police or border patrol officers who treat individuals abusively because of their race but also avoids the left-wing instinct to apply a double standard and excuse lawless behavior merely because the perpetrators are people of color?

Honoring the Dignity of Work. Kennedy honored the dignity of work, which meant siding with poorly treated farmworkers led by Cesar Chavez on the one hand and championing jobs programs over welfare programs that foster dependency on the other hand. What are the best policies today that can honor hard work, ensure that someone who works 40 hours a week can make ends meet, and help people develop the skills that will make them employable in the private sector? What are the best ways to maximize the number of Americans who can enjoy the pride of a hard day’s work and feel they are contributing to society?

At a time of national division some 57 years ago, Robert Kennedy attracted disparate groups of voters who were otherwise at each other’s throats. Today, as we have just come through a set of elections in which many Americans expressed dissatisfaction with their choices, RFK’s example points to something more inspiring: a politics that tamps down, rather than sows, racial division; that seeks to treat all Americans with dignity; that crosses political ideologies to seize on the best ideas; and that can instill a deep pride in country. It will be fascinating to watch in the years to come which set of political leaders, if any, will seek to take up his mantle.

This is an adapted excerpt from the new AEI report, “Bobby Kennedy, Liberal Patriot: What RFK’s Approach Could Teach Political Leaders Today,” by Richard Kahlenberg and Ruy Teixeira.