[Wallace T.]

The Kennedy family has been a plague on this country starting with the founder, Joseph Kennedy, a bootlegger, stock swindler, and Nazi sympathizer. There has been something of an alt-right and even mainstream conservative rewrite of the Kennedys. especially JFK and JFK, Jr., where the former is seen as a closet conservative due to his tax cut advocacy and reluctance to get involved in the Vietnam debacle, and the latter because he was inclined to be somewhat critical of liberal shibboleths.

[cgbg]

JFK thought he was powerful enough to take on the CIA—got in way over his head....

In the immortal words of Chucky Schumer:

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you.”

[Pelham]

A basic conservative belief in the early 1960s was need for Balanced Budgets. And based on that they opposed JFKs tax cuts. Bob Novak reported this debate at the time and it’s described in his memoir. It wasn’t a conservative policy until Reagan adopted it during the 1980 campaign.

Likewise the idea that Kennedy was eager to get out of Vietnam is nonsense. He had just instigated a coup that got Diem assassinated, not what you do when you’re trying to extricate yourself from that mess

[Bikkuri]

I would never say he was conservative, but he sure was more right than most Repub politicians now.

[Sans-Culotte]

There has been something of an alt-right and even mainstream conservative rewrite of the Kennedys. especially JFK and JFK, Jr., where the former is seen as a closet conservative due to his tax cut advocacy and reluctance to get involved in the Vietnam debacle

I don't think JFK was a closet conservative. The 'rat party in those days was simply more conservative than it later became. Back then one could be anti-communist and democrat. Now the democrats are the communists.