Joe Kennedy

The unthinkable happened on Tuesday night: a Kennedy lost an election in Massachusetts for the very first time. Thirty-nine-year-old Rep. Joe Kennedy, III, the only prominent member of his storied family’s fifth generation, lost his primary bid for his state’s Senate seat. He was bested by incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, 74, who has held it since John Kerry resigned to become Secretary of State in 2012. Together with his 36 previous years in the House of Representatives, Markey has served in Washington longer than his freckled opponent has been alive. Given Massachusetts’s solidly blue politics, Markey will certainly win reelection in November, leaving him in the Senate until he is an octogenarian, while young Joe will be consigned to political oblivion as of January.

‘Dear Ellie and James,’ said Rep. Joe Kennedy in his remarks to the House of Representatives as he voted to impeach Donald Trump, ‘this is a moment you'll read about in your history books.’ Kennedy's children will leave school in less than 20 years. Is 9/11 in the ‘history’ books? The young Kennedy — a handsome but slightly goofy looking man — was struggling and straining to convey gravitas. He closed his eyes. He paaaaaaaused. His pitch rose up at the beginning of a sentence and went down as he finished it. Frankly, it was a farcical display of posturing; a botched performance that made Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man look like Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.