America’s worst nepo baby! JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg is lazy, preening and so very stupid. He deserves every inch of this total humiliation: BETHANY MANDEL

A snarky play on the Serenity Prayer goes, ‘God, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.’

After Tuesday’s election results in New York’s 12th Congressional Democratic primary race, it could just as easily be, ‘God, grant me the confidence of a Kennedy.’

The votes are still being tabulated in the crowded contest to succeed the retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler, but with the media calling the race for state assemblyman Micah Lasher, the verdict on Jack Schlossberg is already clear.

The John F Kennedy grandson, who surely launched his primary bid on the assumption that one of the most famous names in American politics would be enough to propel him to victory, is ranking in a distant third.

Schlossberg leaned so heavily into his genetic inheritance that he ran as Jack Kennedy Schlossberg, placing the family name on the ballot and making it the central argument for his candidacy.

That decision made a great deal of sense, as it’s been successfully followed by countless Kennedy relatives for two generations. For all of his aunts, uncles and cousins, being Kennedy was not a biographical fact but a credential in and of itself.

After all, Schlossberg was once hired as political correspondent for Vogue, despite having no serious journalists credentials or – for that matter – publishing anything of any significance. The article announcing his role was promoted with a picture of Jack laying across photocopied images of his own face!

Indeed, Schlossberg has spent a lifetime learning that the name opens doors, generates media attention and confers an aura of significance before the bearer had done anything significant themselves.

Schlossberg leaned so heavily into his genetic inheritance that he ran as Jack Kennedy Schlossberg

Schlossberg is the son of former US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy (pictured with Schlossberg in May 2026) and grandson of former President John F Kennedy

But what he seemed not to understand is that America has changed. And he, to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 vice presidential debate to GOP nominee Dan Quayle, ‘is no Jack Kennedy.’

Schlossberg likely expected to receive the typical soft-glove treatment when he was profiled by the New York Times at the start of his congressional campaign. Instead, the paper produced an article so devastating that it effectively became his political obituary.

The detail that dominated the article’s coverage was almost too perfect to invent.

According to the Times, campaign staff had organized the donor calls, media outreach, scheduling and organizational machinery necessary for a successful launch day, only for Schlossberg to announce that he needed a nap and disappear.

He approached politics the way a trust-fund kid approaches an internship arranged by his father.

All of the subsequent media coverage, and there was a great deal because being a Kennedy does at least attract attention, only reinforced that perception.

His campaign was characterized by extraordinary staff turnover, internal dysfunction, confusion about roles and responsibilities and a candidate who often appeared more interested in playing politics than in doing the work required to succeed.

One former staffer compared the operation to a dollar-store bouquet, attractive from a distance but lacking any roots beneath the surface. Another described a workplace so chaotic that people were not always entirely sure whether they still worked there.

The Times didn’t uncover a scandal, but it posed a more damaging question: Is this person actually serious?

Answer: no.

Rather than positioning himself as a steward of the Kennedy legacy or using his voice on social media to educate younger Americans about his family’s history, Schlossberg spent years cultivating an online persona that was so erratic it bordered on parody.

His social media feeds boasted a cascade of strange videos, internet trolling, attention-seeking stunts and increasingly bizarre attempts at political commentary. He obsessively attacked his cousin Robert F Kennedy Jr, and also revealed that he kept a skeleton dressed in JFK’s clothes.

Schlossberg entered the race for New York’s 12th Congressional District assuming that one of the most famous names in American politics would be enough to propel him into office

Schlossberg – to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 vice presidential debate to GOP nominee Dan Quayle: ‘Is no Jack Kennedy’

Far creepier were his January 2025 comments to his combined 1.7 million social media followers about Usha Vance, asking whether she had more ‘sex appeal’ than his iconic grandmother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. He also claimed that he both loved and was having a son with America’s second lady.

Schlossberg confused attention with respect and spent all of his time trying to gain the former without considering he had to also earn the latter. Schlossberg wasn’t functioning as a thought leader; he is just a clown.

The irony is that New York’s 12th District should have been fertile ground for exactly the kind of candidate Schlossberg imagined himself to be. It is among the wealthiest and most educated congressional districts in the country, filled with voters who appreciate pedigree, elite credentials and family connections.

Schlossberg, who benefits from a trust fund worth tens of millions of dollars, rightfully assumed that these were his people, but even they weren’t impressed.

In his concession speech, Schlossberg invoked perhaps the most famous words ever spoken by his grandfather: ‘All of us ask not what our country can do,’ Schlossberg says, ‘but what we can do to help our city.’ He left the stage, pumping his fist.

But what can Jack Schlossberg do that is independent of being Jack Kennedy Schlossberg?

Even the cousin whom Schlossberg appears to despise, Robert F Kennedy Jr, spent decades building a public profile and influencing national debates before ever entering government.

If Jack Schlossberg truly loves the Kennedy name – and there is every reason to believe that he does – the best thing he can do is spend a few years becoming something other than an heir.

The country does not need another influencer.