Over the Line: Georgia Rep. Collins Posts Tasteless Tweet Mocking RFK Jr. Over Family’s Assassinations

Georgia Rep. Mike Collins (R) is a prolific tweeter who sometimes makes posts that get liberals all in a tizzy, especially ones that depict the border crisis or police taking down pro-Hamas college encampments. Most recently, he’s taking flak for posting a video of Ole Miss counterprotesters who were chanting at a black female anti-Israel demonstrator. It turned out that one of the young men depicted appeared to be making racist gestures toward the woman.

I’d like to give Collins the benefit of the doubt on this one; it’s entirely possible that he was just honoring the young patriots who refused to allow anti-American zealots to take over their campus. I don’t condone racist behavior, but when I wrote about it, I certainly did not know about this one guy in a large crowd who was doing that. He’s been booted out of his fraternity for his antics.

See:

Don’t Try This in SEC Country: Ole Miss Students Wreck Pro-Hamas Protest, Chant ‘We Want Trump!’

So, let’s posit that perhaps he didn’t know about the racist kid. But how could one possibly explain this disturbing and somewhat cruel post that Collins fired off Wednesday?

Collins was apparently referring to the admission by Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that he suffered health issues from a worm that entered his brain and ate part of it before dying over a decade ago. Granted, it’s a strange story—but did it deserve that kind of response?

RFK Jr.’s father, Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 in Los Angeles while on the campaign trail, and his uncle, then-president JFK, was killed in 1963 in Dallas. These were tragic, history-making events, ones that brutally affected many people’s lives and changed the course of our country. 

Not, therefore, the kind of stuff to be joking about. Making fun of someone over their murdered father should be absolutely off-limits in a civilized society. And while I’m no Kennedy family apologist, I don’t think it’s ok; I always thought the name “Dead Kennedys” was a depraved name for a punk band. Do people think just because the Kennedys are famous that they don’t mourn their slain relatives?

Collins will certainly take a lot of heat over this one—in fact, he already is—and it’s easy to see why. How it will affect his career is unclear, but it’s hard to argue that it will help.

My colleague Jennifer O’Connell wrote about another politician who recently got over her skis by not thinking about how something might play to the world:

I’m no shrinking violet and am quite ok with heated political rhetoric, but Collins’ tweet crosses the line. He should delete this one and take the L post-haste. And maybe next time, he should count to thirty before hitting submit.