American Scandal - Chappaquiddick | The Weight of the Name | 5

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Ted Kennedy spent the rest of his life in the shadow of Chappaquiddick. The accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne effectively ended his chances at the presidency, but raised longlasting questions about whether a less powerful man would have faced far greater consequences. Peter Canellos is a veteran political journalist and editor of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. In this conversation, he examines how the Kennedy machinery closed ranks after the accident, what it meant to be the last surviving Kennedy brother, and how a man defined by his failures ultimately became what many consider the most legislatively consequential senator of the twentieth century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American Scandal. In July of 1969, a car drove off a bridge on Chappaquittic Island. The passenger, Mary Jo Capechnie, would die that night, and the driver, Senator Ted Kennedy, would not report the accident for nearly 10 hours. He was never charged with a crime. He received a two-month suspended sentence for leaving the scene, and eight months later, he was re-elected to the Senate with 62 percent of the vote. Too many, it seemed the full weight of one of America's most powerful political families was deployed to ensure the senator's career survived.

This scandal raised serious questions, not just about what really happened that night, but how it was handled and whether the outcome would have been the same for someone without Kennedy's name and influence. More than 50 years later, those questions still resonate. My guest today is Peter Canellas. He's a veteran political journalist, author, an editor of Last Lion, The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. Our conversation is next. Whether you're exploring your fascinations or discovering new ones, Ottawa has stories that will introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantic series.

Know how true the latest blockbuster movie stayed to the sci-fi story it was based on, or find unexpected reveals through an exclusive true crime podcast. However you listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating. Select any audiobook every month, plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at 899. Audible. Be fascinated. Be fascinating. I'm Leon Nafak.

What happens when OnlyFans becomes more than just a side hustle? Only Fantasy is an in-depth look at the world's newest profession and how the rules of human intimacy are being rewritten online. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge all episodes of OnlyFantasy, add free only on Audible. Peter Canellas, welcome to American Scandal. Thank you. Many look at Chapiquitic as a quintessential case of the wealthy and powerful avoiding accountability.

Ted, though, said that it haunted him for the rest of his life. How do you assess what kind of accountability was involved, if any? I think that there was serious accountability for errors in judgment that were almost certainly motivated by concern for the image and politics and how is this all going? going to look. I think that it adds up to a pretty powerful indictment of Ted Kennedy's behavior. The line that might be drawn, though, is when people say, you know, did he intentionally sacrifice this woman or sacrifice her life, did he, you know, he cared more for his own political well-being than he did for her life, I think that the evidence suggests that he believed that she was not saveable at any of these later points. You know, he did dive in to try to save her and rescue her in the car.

That is credible because he's such a good swimmer and he was somebody who spent his whole life on the ocean that it wouldn't have been some extraordinary effort of his to try to, you know, get down to the car and save her. And even if you're somebody who believes in the craven political motivation was always first and foremost in his mind. Of course, his motivation would have been to do anything to save her because once she was saved, there would be no incident. It only became a scandal and a crisis because she died, so he had every incentive to try to save her. Then he ran back to the cottage, which was a pretty long track, to try to get Markham and Gargan to come back and help him to make a second run of attempts to save Mary Jo Capechnie. They did try.

They didn't succeed. And it was then that the sort of political cover-up slash shenanigans, slash manipulations, I think, started to occur. But when we look at how the Chapquittic incident played out, how much do you think was simply the system deferring to a powerful family? How does the local law enforcement apparatus go up against the Kennedys? Oh, I mean, I think that that is almost beyond dispute that the local officials in Edgartown deferred to the Kennedys. And, you know, a lot of their concerns were sort of how to please the Kennedys rather than how to properly investigate this death

or concerned for the Capekney family, you know, at a certain point, various Kennedy aides and hangers on and other figures, you know, started dictating terms to the local officials. Dominic Arena, who was the police chief repeatedly deferred to the Kennedys. The question would be what might have been lost in that set of transit, what evidence might have been lost. And, of course, we can't know. You know, we can't know what would have been obtainable if there had been a very high-powered sort of forensic investigation that took place at that time. So, you know, how much did the

deference to the Kennedys matter? I would say it mattered much, much more in terms of public perception than it did in terms of actual forensic evidence that was lost. You bring up this entourage of operatives, advisors, and political allies that the Kennedys seem to have about them all the time. What does this machinery actually look like? In Ted's case, I guess, in particular. You know, I think it was actually much more of a loose combination of loyal hangers-on at many different rungs. So there were the gargans and the Markham's. The gargons were first cousins through Rose Kennedy, who had grown up as quasi members of the Kennedy family, but in many people's estimation sort of like second-tier members of the Kennedy family and that they were there to be sort of friends and playmates. and supporters of the Kennedy kids.

So there are loyalists like that within the family. There also were the sort of practical aides that were part of Kennedy's Senate office and drivers and other figures like that that were quite loyal to him, sort of body men on the ground as the way some people would describe it. But then there were people like Burke Marshall

who was involved. They were very high-powered academics and scholars and former Justice Department officials who were offering advice as kind of members of the larger Kennedy establishment. And I do not think that Ted Kennedy, especially traumatized after the election and everything, was able to plug in, take over, manage everything, get everything going. I think it happened sort of organically and perhaps even a little bit haphazardly,

but there were a lot of people involved in there was a lot of intense thinking and strategizing that went on about how to preserve Kennedy's career and how to put Kennedy in the best light. I mean, among the strategic moves that I think stand out a little in the past is in Kennedy's speech, his sort of apology speech talking about this, he focuses very heavily on Mary Joe's honor. You know, he starts talking like there was nothing that happened that night that would cause any question to Mary Joe Kepekne's honor as though she were somehow the focus of attention in this. But it sends out sort of the subtle message that if you're looking at this as Ted Kennedy behaving in a loose way, way and cheating on his wife that you're maligning the memory of Mary Joe Capechnie. They also staged the cervical collar that Kennedy was wearing and his whole appearance at the

funeral designed to make it look like he was very seriously injured in this crash. I think it's easy to believe that he would have been shaken up, that he would have been sort of mentally traumatized and all of that. But I think they went out of their way to make it seem like he had, you know, suffered physically and that he was as much a victim as a perpetrator in this case. In the book that we did last lion, The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, we revealed a very shocking kind of thing, which is that Joan Kennedy was in the early stages of pregnancy at that time and had had a series of miscarriages and was trying very hard to maintain bed rest and to preserve the pregnancy. But Ted prevailed on her to come with him to marry Joe Kopeckney's funeral in

West Virginia up in the mountains and everything. And, you know, you can imagine Joan Kennedy's situation. You know, here's her husband's been in this perhaps career-ending accident and it's with a young woman in his car and the drinking and all this kind of stuff. And where was she and what was she doing and all that? So Ted clearly needed her at his side to show her loyal support to him that, you know, she backed him in every way. So he insisted that she go to the funeral and fly in this tiny plane to mountainous West Virginia for this funeral. And she suffered a miscarriage. And she has just recently passed away, but she had always thought that Ted was sort of putting his career over their family at that moment. So there was a lot to lay at Kennedy's doorstep from Chappaquittic, a lot of questionable behavior.

At the end of the day, was it brutal or murderous or, you know, casting this woman aside for his ambitions, it doesn't really add up that way, in my opinion. It adds up as a person showing poor judgment on a lot of different levels. Now, this incident happened at a time when there was perhaps an unspoken agreement between the press and politicians, that politicians' personal life was perhaps off limits. That has obviously changed, as we fast forward to today. What do you think the outcome would have been if this incident happened more recently? I think that it's quite possible to imagine that if it happened in a later era when there were more of these like tabloid type TV shows and things like that going on, that it would have ended Kennedy's career, just the repetition and the mass scrutiny of his judgment and his errors and those kinds of things.

I think, you know, it would not have withstood that kind of massive critical scrutiny. On the other hand, there were no shortage of people blaming Kennedy for this and there was no shortage of effort on the part of. The Nixon sort of central command to try to draw attention to Kennedy's lapses. They viewed Kennedy as a real threat to Nixon in the 1972 presidential election and were quite happy to see him sideline and certainly wanted him to be sidelined. So it wasn't like this flew under the radar screen for anybody. I mean, I think the implications of this were quite visible to the American public. I think Ted himself also, you know, suffered in some ways in comparison to his dead brothers. He was the one of the flawed human being sitting in the middle when they had become these sainted figures by then.

But Massachusetts continued to love the Kennedys. And Massachusetts, I think, had felt that the Jack Kennedy presidency had brought, you know, tremendous new cachet and attention to Massachusetts. I think there was just a tremendous respect and regard. It was an era when Catholic families in Massachusetts would have a picture of Jack Kennedy on their dining room wall. I mean, they revered Kennedy. and he had been the first Catholic president, you know, all these things. So there was an underlying loyalty to the Kennedys that Ted could draw on in that situation. And by tailoring his appeals to his Massachusetts constituents, his hometown people, he established a very low bar for himself to survive. It was, you know, I will do what my constituents want, but he's asking the friendliest possible audience to judge his behavior rather than speak to the nation at large. And I think that helped him to survive. That helped him to get over the Chappaquitic stain.

But the Chappaquitic stain, I think, effectively killed his national opportunities. Ultimately, Chappaquitic is a tale of political survival, I guess, if we take Ted's point of view. But it's interesting that he brought up Mary Jo's honor as something that he really wanted to hit home in his speech. Because it does seem that a sexual scandal will often end a career faster than a financial scandal. or abuse of power. We have certain evidence of that, Gary Hart, Anthony Wiener, Bill Clinton, but politicians who are caught lying to Congress or obstructing justice often survive and sometimes even thrive. What is the difference in these improprieties? Well, I think a lot of it is changing times. You had referred a little bit before to the era when the media looked the other way

when politicians were often drinking and carousing and engaging in affairs. And that certainly was the case with Jack Kennedy. It was an era when all politicians tried to present themselves as role models for the average American family. So they're always standing there with their perfectly turned out wives and children that were all men at that era, you know, almost all men, and trying to sort of model a kind of 1950s ideal of the American family. And then we approached that earlier. You're talking about Gary Hart and the Bill Clinton era and things like that. When everything swung completely in the other direction and cynicism about politics to cold. And it was almost like presumed that these ideal images that they were sort of presenting were all fakes and that they were all

having affairs and carousing behind the scenes and things like that. And in some ways, you were exposing sort of the hypocrisy of the whole system when people were writing and discussing politicians' extramarital dalliances. But there's no question that Kennedy would have feared the perception that he and Mary Jo were having a sexual relationship. It certainly violated people's sense of what a proper family man should be doing with his time on a July evening in 1969. Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Ottawa has all the stories that will introduce you to your most fascinating self.

Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy-romanticy series. Become your friend group's sci-fi expert on the latest blockbuster book-to-screen adaptation. Or find unexpected reveals through the same. the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating. All in one easy app, with plans now starting at 899, you'll get access to over 900,000 audiobooks and podcasts,

including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases, and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month, plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at 899. Audible. Be fascinated.

Be fascinating. I'm Leon Nefak, best known as the co-creator of slow burn and fiasco. I had, of course, heard of Onlyfans. But always with a distant and quiet skepticism, a silent judgment, you might say. Who is actually using this platform? Um, I am.

Hi, I'm OnlyFans creator and comedian Gracie Canaan. I work from home now. I'm on OnlyFans. And in case, you guys don't know what OnlyFans is, ask your husband. My journalistic curiosity got the best of me when I found out that my own sister had started at OnlyFans account. I'm not his sister, just to clarify.

It turns out a lot of what I thought I knew about OnlyFans was wrong. I felt like I wasted 3.5 years for something that wasn't real. What happens when connection comes with a price tag? Listen to OnlyFantasy wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge all episodes of OnlyFantasy ad free right now only on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app or on Apple Podcasts. So let's go back a little bit to the beginning of the Kennedy dynasty. The Kennedy family, as we know it, began with Joe Sr.

He was a financier, a dealmaker, extraordinary, and a man who understood power in a very transactional way. How much of what the Kennedy children eventually became was shaped by their father? Well, I have a view of their father that sort of runs a little bit counter to some of the depictions in these Kennedy movies and these Kennedy TV shows, you know, the common view of him is that he was ruthless. He was a man who made hundreds of millions of dollars in sometimes legally questionable activities, including liquor, bootlegging areas like that. But then he went to Hollywood and financed movies. And there was always a hint of something slightly disruptible about the way that he was

aggressively making money. However, I think he was an ideal. person, and he also was a sort of emotionally attuned person. When you go back and read his letters, which have been collected in a book that one of his granddaughters pulled together, his letters to his children, it quickly becomes apparent that he was the nurturing parent of the two. It was Rose Kennedy that was sort of more austere and more of a threatening figure to the children. Joe Kennedy was loving and warm and, you know, always rushing home when one of his kids was sick. He especially took on the job of mentoring the sons, which was almost certainly a sexist double standard, but a little bit of an agreement between him and Rose that Rose could be the sort of dominant

parent for the girls, but he was going to be the dominant parent for the boys. And the boys really looked up to him. There was no hint of any sort of rebellion or resentment. They trusted him. Now, in his own career, you know, he was a man of tremendous ambition. And, you know, wealth was just in his mind sort of a stepping stone to greater power. And he famously had his own career sort of truncated by expressing concerns about World War II and about whether the United States should really be involved before Pearl Harbor in the war in Europe and suggestions that he was sympathetic in some ways to the Germans or at least deferential to German power. and he then realized being a very shrewd person that after World War II and after everything,

that that would be a fatal obstacle to his own career. So he set about making sure that his son, Jack, the eldest son to survive the war, there had been an older brother Joe Jr. who died during the war. But he said about making sure that Jack would be able to stand on his own two feet and not be too tainted by him. And the way he did it was encouraging Jack to make his academic thesis at Harvard. about appeasement and the evils of appeasement. And, you know, he called it Why England Slept. It was about people who were doing what his own father was accused of doing.

So I think that truly the Kennedys believed that that would be a way of sort of laundering the Kennedy name, showing that Jack was different from the old man. Hearing that JFK's senior thesis was pretty much dictated by his father, leads me to wonder how much stage managing happened in the family. What was it like to grow up? inside the Kennedy family. There was a tremendous amount of stage management, but there's no evidence that the sons resented it,

as I had said before. It's like the father was sort of a master orchestrator, and there were a few, like, sarcastic quips that Jack Kennedy made when he was president that suggested, you know, he wanted his father to get off his back a little bit, but it was more made in humor and almost for political reasons

to try to sort of establish himself as his own man. I think they very much revered their father, and their father was very much pulling the strings. That goes double and triple with Ted, because when you're the youngest child and you feel sort of overshadowed by your brothers, as he certainly did, he rely on your father's good opinion very heavily.

And so in 1962, when Ted Kennedy wanted to run for the Senate from Massachusetts, Jack and Bobby Kennedy did not want him to run. They felt like it was too many Kennedys. It would look like a power grab. There was a very big. big suggestion that Ted really wasn't worthy. He really didn't deserve it. He hadn't earned it. He hadn't done a lot of things. And it was Joe Kennedy who stuck by Ted and insisted that Ted should run. I think if Joe were not still in the game during that period, so just around the time that he had started having strokes, I think that Jack and Bobby would have absolutely forbidden Ted from running in 1962. But their father was adamant. Their father saw real potential in Ted. Their father believed in Ted. Their father

wanted Ted to go into the Senate in 1962. I also think the father was probably wise enough to recognize that Ted Kennedy had some personality advantages over his brothers. Now, their personas have changed so much over time and in memory and because of the assassinations. And Ted himself has played a role in sort of molding the Kennedy myth and mystique. But Ted had much, much more of a common touch than Jack or Bobby Kennedy had. Jack Kennedy was very much a sort of look but don't touch kind of politician, an intellectual, a performer, but not somebody who was a gladhander, not somebody who had, you know, close, intimate friends, not somebody who was able to make a connection to people in all walks of life. Ted Kennedy could, and he attributed it to

some of his time in the army where he was kind of a grunt in the army. He had to, you know, bunk with guys who had no money and who had no prominent name to support them. And I think you can see throughout Ted's career that he genuinely did have a clear sense of what other people in the country were going through and what people of lower means and no means had. And Jack and Bobby did not have that same sort of instinctive feel for people. As you reminded us, Ted was the youngest of nine, and by most accounts, no one had especially high hopes for him. But one by one, the man ahead of him in promise. and age, Joe Jr. and Jack, Bobby, they each died in tragic fashion. And every time the next Kennedy stepped up, what was it like for Ted to finally inherit the entirety of the mantle?

I think it's unimaginable pressure is what it adds up to. You know, not only, if you think about that period just before the Chappaquitic incident after his brother Robert was assassinated, He realizes that he suddenly is the head of the family. Old Joe is still alive but is greatly disabled by a stroke. And what has been bequeath to him is, first of all, the sense of grief from all of these losses. And it wasn't just Jack and Bobby. It was their sister Kathleen, who was like sort of a second mother to Ted. She died in a plane crash.

There was a sister, Rosemary, who had a sort of botched lobotomy procedure and ended up severely impaired. I think that, you know, as the youngest child, you have this heightened sense of all of your older siblings, and, you know, one by one, they were sidelined or killed. And I think he felt this tremendous burden to sort of live the life that they were denied and to try to, you know, achieve some of the things that they had wanted to achieve, almost doing it sort of in their name and in their, in their memory. If you combine that, though, with the tremendous expectations that went along with a Kennedy name, after Jack Kennedy's assassination, it's almost kind of intolerable to think about it because it wasn't just grieving for the brothers and worrying about the brothers and wanting to follow in the brothers' footsteps. It was essentially inheriting this giant infrastructure of thousands of people around the country that identified with the Kennedy political establishment or the Kennedy political message,

because many of them were academics and intellectuals and not actual sort of footworkers in politics. And, you know, they had believed after Jack Kennedy had died that Bobby Kennedy was next in line, that Bobby would become president, that all of them would then return to their roles, sort of reconstituting the new frontier in a Robert Kennedy presidency, probably beginning in 1969. And after Robert was assassinated, those expectations of all these high-powered people centered on Ted. Now, Ted was not a great intellect. Ted was not somebody who enjoyed talking to, you know, poets and artists and tenured professors in the way that Jack Kennedy did. But, you know, here's this awesome responsibility, this tremendous sense of grief, this tremendous sense of legacy, and this tremendous sense of responsibility to thousands of people who he probably couldn't even relate to. And this expectation that it was the presidency or nothing, you know, they all were expecting to go right back into the White House and Ted was going to be their. their vehicle. So your book on Ted Kennedy says that he might have been the most legislatively

consequential senator of the 20th century. I wonder if you could make that case. What did he achieve? Senator Kennedy was at the center of four of the most consequential legislative initiatives, really, of the second half of the 20th century. He was a co-sponsor and a key sponsor of the Immigration Act that has dramatically changed the racial and religious texture of America. He was the Democratic pointman for years on the Senate Judiciary Committee and memorably led the charge against Robert Bork and was really the Democratic point man on justice issues. We all know that he was also the leading senator on health care and that he referred to universal health care coverage as being the cause of his life.

There were other points in his career when he was the leading human rights advocate in foreign policy, instrumental in areas like Northern Ireland, but also, you know, trekking to Bangladesh to call attention to sort of forgotten genocide in the 1970s. So across a very impressively wide area of policy, Kennedy functioned as the Democratic point man. he also, because of the Kennedy money, the Kennedy prestige, the Kennedy name, he attracted the greatest talent to his Senate office. So even bills that other senators were credited with or pushed through, for example, the Americans with Disabilities Act that Tom Harkin had played a lead role in, these bills were largely crafted and refined through Kennedy's office. And I think that he developed sort of ability to kind of set the national agenda, even if he himself were not the Democratic leader,

and even if there were other senators whose names were sort of more prominently put on the bill. So I would say, you know, really from the 1970s until the first decade of the new millennium, Senator Kennedy was the driving force behind most of the policy changes in America. I'm wondering if you could speculate with me. Do you think it's at all possible that his frustrated presidential ambitions turned him into a very effective senator? Yes, I think that he became more effective as he abandoned his ambitions. You know, it was really around 1988 that he sort of sunk into him that he would never be president. And I think it was a tremendous relief because it allowed him to concentrate on doing what he did best. Building coalitions, again, there are so many, misperceptions of Ted Kennedy that are out there. One of them is that he was such a bitter partisan that people must have hated him, but actually not true. He had many close friends among Republicans, and he was very, very dedicated to the nuts and bolts of legislating, which meant building

coalitions working closely with people who disagreed even fundamentally on many of the issues that he cared about, but finding that one thread of agreement that could lead to a deal. And I think even the people who would criticize Senator Kennedy would say that, that sometimes he wanted a deal more than he should have. There are some people who criticized him for collaborating with George W. Bush on No Child Left Behind. But I think Kennedy had a keen sense that once you established a sort of legislative framework to move an issue forward, it was sort of permanently on the map. It was sort of an innate sense of politics that if you build it, eventually they will come. And that was certainly his approach to health care and his approach to

civil rights, it was his approach to immigration in other areas, believing that, you know, the long arc of history will turn in his direction, that is to say, the liberal direction. Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Ottawa has all the stories that will introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantic series. Become your friend group's sci-fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to screen adaptation, or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating.

All in one easy app, with plans now starting at 899, you'll get access to over 900,000 audiobooks and podcasts, including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases, and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month, plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at 899. Audible. Be fascinated. Be fascinating.

I'm Leon Nefok, best known as the co-creator of Slow Burn and Fiasco. I had, of course, heard of Onlyfans. But always with a distant and quiet skepticism, a silent judgment, you might say. Who is actually using this platform? Um, I am. Hi, I'm OnlyFans creator and comedian, Gracie Canaan.

I work from home now. I'm on OnlyFans. and in case you guys don't know what OnlyFans is, ask your husband. My journalistic curiosity got the best of me when I found out that my own sister had started an OnlyFans account. I'm not his sister, just to clarify. It turns out a lot of what I thought I knew about OnlyFans was wrong. I felt like I wasted 3.5 years for something that wasn't real.

What happens when connection comes with a price tag? Listen to OnlyFantasy wherever you get your podcasts. or binge all episodes of Only Fantasy ad free right now, only on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app or on Apple Podcasts. The Kennedy Dynasty seems to have lost some of its robust luster.

There are still Kennedy descendants in public life, but the overall gravitational pull has faded. Why do you think that is? And what does it tell us about what sustains a dynasty and what ends one? Well, the Kennedys were different from some of the other political dynasties we have. I think one of the reasons we have a lot

political dynasties now is simply fundraising. You talk about the Bush dynasty. You know, the reason that members of the Bush family would have a leg up on other politicians was because of the massive fundraising list that George and Barbara Bush Sr. had developed over, you know, decades and decades of climbing to the White House. And those lists were more important in the era when there were real strict limits on campaign contributions because you needed to get smallish contributions from thousands and thousands of people to be able to finance a campaign. But in the Bush dynasty, you know, each member of the Bush dynasty had a slightly different political persona, including their views on issues compared to other members of the Bush dynasty. It was seen as

sort of like it was like an evolving kind of political team, whereas the Kennedys always stood for the same things. You know, when they ran, they stood for a certain kind of American can do optimism, idealism, you know, we can conquer our problems, and we can conquer our problems usually through legislation and government action. So it was combining this sort of outsider charisma of the leader who's going to step forward and blaze a new path combined with what we might have seen as New Deal-style liberalism, which is, you know, we're going to use government programs to try to advance social progress. And that's what the Kennedy brand was. And whether you're, you were, you know, Joe Kennedy the third or Joe Kennedy the second or Ted Kennedy or Kathleen

Kennedy Townsend. That's what you represented when you stood before the voters. Now, what has happened to tarnish that and change that over time is there has been more skepticism, perhaps, about the New Deal style liberalism. That has changed, you know, in a way that has not advantaged the Kennedys over time. Also, that sort of charismatic leader persona has been tainted because of what we know about some of the, you know, now more obvious sexism of the JFK era. And, you know, we no longer think of a sort of attractive white man kind of as the model of what politics should be with the, you know, shock of hair and all that sort of, that sort of Kennedy masculine persona. notably the Kennedy charisma never attached to the women in the Kennedy family. It was always a male-dominated charisma.

And I think it has kind of expired, but we should take note of the fact that it did survive for far longer than the average political dynasty. And it survived as a purposeful model. Now, as we're talking, right, Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy's grandson is running for Congress in New York and is trying to sort of reboot the dynasty in a new way by being completely addicted to social media communicating in memes and in posts that are meaningful to a much younger generation and perhaps perplexing to people who remember the old Kennedy dynasty. But it's an impressive kind of reboot attempt. You know, it's like trying to remake the movie, but with a younger star who's much, much more attuned to the way that Gen Z is communicating and believing. I also, I also,

I also think that there's room for the Kennedys in the Democratic Party or the Kennedy kind of leadership in the Democratic Party because the Democrats need a charismatic figure to bridge their own internal divides. You know, if you look at the party as being divided in some ways between the left that is now embodied by Bernie Sanders and AOC, who are, you know, believers in single payer, believers in very sharp efforts to curb fossil fuels, believers in a very, very robust social safety net. That left has always been there. And then there's also been the sort of civil rights oriented side of the Democratic Party that the party is about promoting acceptance and social change and promotion of new communities and tolerance. And to sort of bridge those two sides, you need to have a kind of charismatic centrist, centrist at least within the Democratic Party, not centrist in the larger scheme of politics, but a sort of mainstream liberal leader. You think about Jack Kennedy, if you think about Bill Clinton, if you think about Barack Obama,

somebody like that who can personify the goal of a more robust social safety network and the goal of greater tolerance, but do so in a way that is relatable to people and understandable to people and feels like it has a kind of human rationality to it and isn't just an ideological stance. Now, political dynasties seem to me as a uniquely un-American, thing. The founders put a nobility clause in the Constitution that prohibits the federal government from granting any titles of nobility, and yet these families seem to accrue power, wealth, and political influence all the same. What do you think about dynasties in America? Well, there are lots of different cuts of that question. I mean, when Donald Trump took over the

Republican Party in 2016, it was interesting that the Republicans who were most committed to sort of keeping him in line to sort of curbing what many people saw as his excesses were the dynastical Republicans, you know, the Mitt Romney types, who came from their own, you know, long tenure of sort of family service and who reacted negatively to Trump as sort of a disruptor of the politics as usual. Now, some people would look at that and say, that's a public service. It actually is helpful, you know, among the system of checks and balances in our politics to have some dynastical politicians who have a kind of longer view or deeper association with politics and more of a commitment to the system, that's one way to look at it. You could also say that there's a kind of logic to it, right?

If you love the politics of the father and the father is getting into his dotage and his daughter, think of the Cheney's running and she has exactly the same politics as her father and is inheriting his supporters and all that, there's a certain logic to one each of order. It's not just about money or about fame or, you know, name recognition. You know, Trump himself could become a dynasty, right? You know, we're talking about J.D. Vance as a potential inheritor to Trump, but you certainly have many members of the Trump family, including in his grandchildren's generation, who are showing interest in public life, who have become influencers online and who are ready to make, you know, that baby step into politics after their granddad leaves the scene. And so, you know, we may be talking about dynasties in a totally different way when the Trump era continues for decades and decades. Peter Canellas, thank you so much for talking with me today on American Scandal. Thank you. That was my conversation with journalist and author Peter Canellas. He edited the book Last Lion, The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy.

From Audible Originals and Ayrship, this is episode five of our series on the Chappaquit incident for American Scandal. In our next series, in the mid-1980s, two decorated New York police detectives began leading double lives as hitmen for the mom. Betraying their oaths of service, they would pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars before their shocking crimes were finally exposed. Follow American Scandal on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American Scandal, ad-free, by joining Audible. And to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming

to a theater near you, go to not that Lindsaygram.com. That's not that Lindsaygram.com. American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. This episode was produced by John Reed, senior producer Andy Beckerman. Managing producer and audio editor for this episode, Emily Burke. Music by Thrum. Sound designed by Gabriel Gould.

Executive producer for Airship is William Simpson. Executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of Creative Development at Ottawa, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals, North America, Marshall Louis, Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.