This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. triggered an online explosion with a very weird defense of himself for spending time with Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone laughed, but we think this saga is revealing: It opens a window on his underappreciated appeal to disaffected young men. So we chatted with Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a New School professor who specializes in politics and culture and has dissected the Kennedy phenomenon in surprising ways. Petrzela helped us uncover the darker undercurrents driving Kennedy’s popularity and the ugly truths it reveals about our politics.

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