At 32, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was already a member of the United States House of Representatives. At the identical age, Robert F. Kennedy was an advisor to the president and Ted Kennedy was a senator. At 32, John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, higher generally known as Jack, is a profitable content material creator. JFK’s solely grandson has greater than 1.5 million followers on TikTok and Instagram and a YouTube present, Test Drive, during which he dissects present occasions with irreverent humor, from Donald Trump’s tariffs to Sydney Sweeney’s controversial marketing campaign for the clothes model American Eagle.
Schlossberg’s movies by no means go unnoticed and sometimes provoke confusion. One day he’s taking ballet courses or skateboarding whereas reciting verses by Lord Byron, and the following he’s criticizing Ryan Murphy for making a tv collection about his uncle, the late John F. Kennedy Jr., with out consulting his household. He virtually at all times assaults Trump or his personal cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the controversial anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist whom the U.S. president appointed as Secretary of Health.
But it’s not all criticism and reproaches. He just lately praised Spanish King Felipe VI’s type. “I spent a summer time in Spain once I was in eighth grade and traveled all around the nation. I’ve very fond recollections, and sure, I feel the king of Spain seems to be extremely good,” Schlossberg stated in a video name with EL PAÍS from his Chevy van, parked someplace in Massachusetts, the birthplace of the Kennedys.
His intention is to inject some lightness and humor right into a severe second in U.S. politics. But since Trump’s victory within the 2024 elections, his criticism of the administration has grown in depth. A number of weeks in the past, for instance, he dressed up as Melania Trump — full with a blond wig and international accent — and recorded himself studying the pacifist letter the primary woman despatched to Vladimir Putin in the course of the Russian-American summit in Alaska.
“The media’s first response to the letter was, ‘Oh, the primary woman is taken with Ukrainian youngsters.’ That confirmed that lots of people hadn’t learn it. She doesn’t say the phrase Ukraine at any level. I placed on a wig and this silly voice so individuals might learn her phrases,” he explains. “My imitation was possibly humorous, possibly stunning, however in the long run, it pressured individuals to have a look at what she had stated and think about whether or not or not it was a good suggestion to ship that letter.”
Schlossberg shaved his head this summer time. Although he’s gotten rid of his shock of darkish, Kennedy-esque hair, he retains the athletic determine, the outlined jawline, the eloquence, and the intercourse enchantment of the boys in his household. His parody of Melania Trump went viral on social media. The picture of JFK’s cross-dressing grandson additionally caught the eye of the mainstream media. The pro-Trump press tries to painting him as loopy and sometimes compares him to Edith Bouvier — an eccentric cousin of his grandmother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — who lived out her remaining years in a ramshackle home within the Hamptons. The liberal press additionally doesn’t fairly perceive him.
He doesn’t care if the general public is offended or if some think about him a freak. He says it’s intentional, a strategy to attain a youthful viewers, a era that will get bored simply and is at all times on the lookout for somewhat humor. And what does his household take into consideration the content material he shares on social media? “Ummm… I’m not going to talk for my household. But I might say that among the funniest issues I’ve achieved have been with them by my aspect,” he replies.
The inheritor to America’s most well-known political dynasty maintains that the Jack individuals see on TikTok and Instagram is a persona. So who’s the true Jack? “I’ve been referred to as a foolish goose and an edgelord, so I assume I’m someplace in between,” he notes. “Everything I do on social media has one function: to attract consideration to the intense points my nation is dealing with with the Trump administration.”
At shut quarters, when he’s not recording one in every of his madcap movies, Schlossberg speaks critically. The battle in Ukraine is a matter near his coronary heart. His father’s household is Jewish and Ukrainian, initially from the town of Poltava, thought-about the religious heart of that nation. He doesn’t imagine Trump will finish the battle. “I don’t imagine something Trump says. He lies to the American individuals on daily basis from the Oval Office. Rather than listening to what he says, it’s important to have a look at what he’s achieved thus far. His assembly with Zelenskiy on the White House earlier this 12 months was one of the horrifying issues I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, he treats Putin the precise reverse.”
Schlossberg was raised Catholic by his mom, but in addition within the Jewish traditions of his father. He is overtly in opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the siege being imposed on the Palestinian individuals. “I don’t help Israel’s navy coverage. I feel what’s occurring is totally appalling. It bothers me that Judaism is one way or the other concerned in one thing like this. And I’m pissed off that my nation hasn’t made it clear the place it stands,” he says. “Antisemitism is on the rise within the United States, and I take my Jewish delight very critically. That stated, the photographs and stories we’re listening to from Gaza are distressing.”
The son of diplomat Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (Barack Obama’s ambassador to Japan and Joe Biden’s ambassador to Australia) and the distinguished artist and designer Edwin Arthur Schlossberg, Jack grew up in a household residence on the Upper East Side, New York’s most elite neighborhood. He attended the Collegiate School, the oldest personal faculty within the United States, the identical faculty the place his uncle John-John Kennedy was a scholar. He spent his childhood and teenage summers between Martha’s Vineyard and his household’s residence in Hyannis Port, Cape Cod. He studied historical past at Yale and earned a doctorate in jurisprudence and an MBA from Harvard.
In 2023, he handed the New York State bar examination on his first strive, one thing only a few aspiring legal professionals obtain. He scored within the prime 1% with a 332. With that resume and his household’s connections, he might be a profitable lawyer at a big New York agency or a rising political hopeful in Washington. “Politics is what pursuits me. Who is aware of, possibly sooner or later…” he says. “Two years in the past, I used to be in a library, buried in books. If you had informed me two years in the past that I used to be going to be a social media sensation, I might have stated you have been loopy. I don’t know what the longer term holds.” He doesn’t really feel underneath strain to enter politics. “But I genuinely care about my nation as a result of my household fought and died for a greater nation. Everything to me is politics. That’s how I see the world.”
That the grandson of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the primary tv president in historical past, spends all day on the web doesn’t appear so far-fetched. “My grandfather used tv successfully and took benefit of recent media to speak with the American individuals. I feel he’d be on each social community in the present day, though he in all probability wouldn’t know how one can use a mobile phone. I don’t know…” he displays.
His campaign in opposition to Trump started throughout Biden’s 2024 presidential marketing campaign. He supported the Democratic president and Kamala Harris’ eventual run. After Trump’s victory, he realized he needed to go additional to seize the eye of younger individuals. “I’ve to confess that in relation to a humorousness, Democrats don’t take dangers. It’s not straightforward to make issues humorous. In reality, it’s tough,” he acknowledges. He believes the Democratic Party wants a greater social media technique to make sure individuals perceive why it’s essential to proceed defending important progressive beliefs similar to reproductive freedom, marriage equality, and immigrant rights.
Last week, for instance, he took benefit of the Labor Day celebrations within the United States to make a video during which he identified that the Trump administration is stripping staff of their rights (the president issued an government order in May to eradicate union protections for tons of of 1000’s of public workers, citing nationwide safety considerations). That identical day, he revealed one other video denouncing the truth that Americans eat 26 million chickens on daily basis and that 9 billion of those birds are killed every year.
In addition to his TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube posts, Schlossberg could be very lively on the X community. Many progressive customers have fled Elon Musk’s platform, bored with the unfold of hoaxes, insults, and far-right extremist slogans. He disagrees. “You can’t go away the positioning the place they’re spreading info. You can’t go away since you don’t wish to hear what they’re saying. Everything the opposite aspect says is to win votes, so it’s essential to concentrate and be there.”
For generations, Americans have handled the Kennedys with indulgence and reverence, a wealthy, compelling, highly effective, and tragic saga. There’s a sure nostalgia for JFK’s presidency. Americans usually examine that period to the legendary kingdom of Camelot. Ryan Murphy is making ready a collection about John-John Kennedy, and CNN is airing a documentary concerning the late president’s son, who died in a aircraft crash in 1999. “Now that some are questioning and attacking our progressive historical past, it’s solely pure for individuals to look again,” Schlossberg displays.
Trump appears decided to finish this indulgence towards the dynasty. He has seized management of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington to, as he places it, “change woke artwork to patriotic artwork,” and has threatened so as to add his title to the establishment and switch the Kennedy Center’s opera firm into the Melania Trump Opera House. The president has additionally destroyed the long-lasting rose backyard Jacqueline Kennedy created within the West Wing of the White House in 1961 and ordered the declassification of 1000’s of paperwork and recordsdata about JFK. Schlossberg describes this newest transfer as “an enormous distraction tactic, a disgusting factor.” “I don’t declare to know what’s happening in his head. But I’ve seen that he’s obsessive about my grandparents and with padding over their names,” he says. “Trump tries to undermine the heroes of our previous with the intention to elevate himself, however I feel that in the long run he achieves the other.”
Schlossberg says there’s a rising concern within the United States of talking out in opposition to Trump. “Last 12 months, I adopted the presidential marketing campaign for Vogue journal. At the time, Prada was sending me purses, manufacturers have been giving me garments… As quickly as Trump gained, everybody took a step again,” he remembers. “We’ve seen how he operates. He continuously threatens CEOs, and everybody throughout the nation is searching for their very own pursuits. Nobody needs to take dangers.”
At instances, he resembles his uncle, John Kennedy Jr., the charismatic and engaging editor who revolutionized the media panorama of the Nineteen Nineties with George journal. He, although, doesn’t see any bodily resemblance to his mom’s brother. “I feel I’m rather a lot like my father. My uncle is a hero to me, somebody I look as much as and bear in mind from my childhood. I miss him on a regular basis. He was a media genius. I feel I’ve rather a lot to be taught from him… But I’d prefer to say that I’m a lot stronger than my uncle. I’m in higher form than he was,” he says along with his distinctive humorousness.
Now he needs to journey throughout the southern United States in his Chevy pickup truck to go to among the locations hardest-hit by the Republican administration’s cuts. “I’m undoubtedly very afraid of Trump, too,” he admits. “But I don’t need that concern to cease me. I don’t wish to be silent.”
Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get extra English-language information protection from EL PAÍS USA Edition
