JFK Jr. lives

What if John F. Kennedy Jr. hadn't been killed in a plane crash? Would he have followed in his father's footsteps by pursuing a career in politics and perhaps even make a run for president?
 
Did he even want to go into politics? IIRC he was trying to become his own person. If he made a run for office, he could probably only have ridden his father's name for so long before people start wondering if he was really qualified for office. Of course it also depends on what he was running for as well; there's a big difference between running for Congress, the Senate or for President. Still as more revelations about his father's extramarital affairs came about, he'd probably try to distance himself from that.
 
I see it as less of a possibility if Sr. had lived. The Kennedy legacy would not have been what it is. Jack Sr. Would have had to deal with a seriously fractured Democratic party which likely would have meant he would have failed to pass the Civil Rights Act and would have likely been remembered as a do-nothing president. Perhaps his hesitation to go to Vietnam would have made him also be remembered as the President who didn't do enough to combat the spread of Communism. Also to wonder is whether or not his numerous affairs would have come into light and hurt his personal standing. In my opinion, him living would have tainted a Kennedy legacy and may have deterred Jack Jr. from getting into politics. But hey, all we can do is speculate.

What hesitation to go to Vietnam? He was the one who started upping the ante.
 

Cook

Banned
Perhaps his hesitation to go to Vietnam...

This myth really should have been killed off long ago. In Kennedy's very first speech as president he committed the US to supporting President Diem of South Vietnam; when Kennedy was sworn in, there were 900 US military advisors in South Vietnam, within two years he had boosted the US presence in the country to over 12,000. Johnson inherited Kennedy's cabinet and National Security advisors, making no changes and followed their advice completely - it is extremely unlikely that Kennedy, who was far more interested in foreign policy (particularly the spread of Communism) than Johnson (who was an entirely domestic president) would have acted differently with regard to Vietnam than LBJ did.

Anyway, this thread is about JFK Jr, not JFK Snr.
 
This myth really should have been killed off long ago. In Kennedy's very first speech as president he committed the US to supporting President Diem of South Vietnam; when Kennedy was sworn in, there were 900 US military advisors in South Vietnam, within two years he had boosted the US presence in the country to over 12,000. Johnson inherited Kennedy's cabinet and National Security advisors, making no changes and followed their advice completely - it is extremely unlikely that Kennedy, who was far more interested in foreign policy (particularly the spread of Communism) than Johnson (who was an entirely domestic president) would have acted differently with regard to Vietnam than LBJ did.

Anyway, this thread is about JFK Jr, not JFK Snr.

I think the question of Kennedy escalating Vietnam is not if, but how. Like you say, he was more interested in foreign policy.

As for JFK Jr., I have something to add. It's really dumb, but hear me out. I watched this raving conspiracy theorist who made money off of a JFK conspiracy movie (a really badly put together movie, I might add, with production values so cheap that I can't even make a good analogy). His goal was to place the blame for the assassination at Poppy Bush's feet, and then he had the gall to claim that W. Bush orchestrated the plane crash because he needed to prove his loyalty to the new world order. I'm not making any of this up. It's so stupid, I don't know why I wasted so many minutes of my life watching that trash.

As for Junior's aspirations, did he even have a desire to get into politics? From what I've read, he seemed more interested in academia.
 
Having him die in that plane crash saved a lot of lives with the safety measures that got put into place/more public notice to pilot training.
 
The question of whether JFK, Sr. would have escalated Vietnam is an interesting one--see Was Kennedy Planning to Intervene in Vietnam? for why I find the argument that he would not have, though hardly proven, more plausible than some people here do--but we are talking about JFK, Jr.

And as to the latter's political future: "Ted Kennedy believed that politics were John's destiny, and urged him to run for several offices. By the summer of 1999, Ted believed that the best chance to return a Kennedy to the White House would be for John to run for Governor of New York in 2002." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr.#Personal_life If he does that, however, I think Pataki beats him soundly, and not just because 2002 was a Republican year.
 

Cook

Banned
It's like the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams!" claim-it cannot die, ever.

Christ, I mean - who comes up with stupid shit like that? Never mind Jet fuel - I've watched structural I beams bend in a diesel fire! Somewhere out there are a bunch of modern-day cloistered monks on the internet, imagining new (and even stupider) goose barnacle stories.
 
The question of whether JFK, Sr. would have escalated Vietnam is an interesting one--see Was Kennedy Planning to Intervene in Vietnam? for why I find the argument that he would not have, though hardly proven, more plausible than some people here do--but we are talking about JFK, Jr.

And as to the latter's political future: "Ted Kennedy believed that politics were John's destiny, and urged him to run for several offices. By the summer of 1999, Ted believed that the best chance to return a Kennedy to the White House would be for John to run for Governor of New York in 2002." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr.#Personal_life If he does that, however, I think Pataki beats him soundly, and not just because 2002 was a Republican year.
I don't think he would have run for governor in 2002. I would imagine him running for a House seat in 2002 or 2004, then Senate in 2006 or 2012.
 
Christ, I mean - who comes up with stupid shit like that? Never mind Jet fuel - I've watched structural I beams bend in a diesel fire! Somewhere out there are a bunch of modern-day cloistered monks on the internet, imagining new (and even stupider) goose barnacle stories.

Jet fuel can't melt steel beams, but who knows what temperature the mind altering chemicals that make chemtrails burn at!

Mmm, think about it!
 
Let's assume he gets into the crash as happened OTL, but he recovers instead.

Then it would have to be a very different crash than what happened in 1999. What happened then was a very non-survivable spiral dive and water impact arising from spatial disorientation. To be honest, I'm not sure what greater safety measures and improvements in pilot training were put in place after it; I am aware of none. As plane crashes go, it was a pretty typical accident involving a fairly inexperienced pilot flying under VFR when the actual conditions were at best marginal for VFR due to an obscured and vaguely defined horizon. JFK Jr was not instrument rated but was flying at night in very marginal conditions over the water. The sad thing is that the whole thing could have been avoided had he used the autopilot the plane, a Piper Saratoga, was equipped with. Why he didn't isn't known and to me, that remains the enduring mystery of the whole accident.

Beyond that, I just don't see him running for office any time in the near future from 1999. He was to turn 40 in 2000 and never had expressed interest in it nor made any concrete step to do so. He was running his magazine and living his life in New York pretty removed from the day to day world of politics both in New York and in DC.
 
The sad thing is that the whole thing could have been avoided had he used the autopilot the plane, a Piper Saratoga, was equipped with. Why he didn't isn't known and to me, that remains the enduring mystery of the whole accident.
Was his aircraft so equipped? A brief Google search suggests that autopilot function is a more recent option for the Piper PA-32R.
 
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