In December of 2021, the pollster Jeremy Zogby began designing a national survey to capture the radical changes that he believed were under way in American life nearly two years into the pandemic. Zogby, who is an avid reader of the psychologist Carl Jung, was especially curious about the kinds of people that Americans considered "heroic," and he came up with a list of archetypes. There was the spiritual leader, the Pope; the female entrepreneur, Oprah; the rogue pundit, Tucker Carlson; and the philanthropist-scientist, Bill Gates. Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as the presumptive Presidential nominees of the major parties, were also included. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of John F. Kennedy and a prominent opponent of vaccine mandates, struck Zogby as the quintes sential COVID protester. When the results of the poll came back, Zogby was shocked to find that Kennedy topped the list. "What it told me was that the name still meant something in the political landscape," he said.
Zogby flew out to California, where Kennedy lives with his third wife, the actor Cheryl Hines. At the time, leaders in the anti-vaccine movement were encouraging Kennedy, who has long expressed the widely refuted belief that vaccinating children can cause autism, to consider a Presidential bid. Kennedy was skeptical. "I thought about it a little, but I just didn't want to run if I couldn't win," he said. "I knew that Cheryl would never go for it."
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GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”