If you’re wondering why the Kennedy family is dumping all over maverick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. all you need to do is look at Joe Biden’s payroll.

Half of the Kennedys are on it.

And RFK is running against their employer.

Not only are woke Democrats concerned about Kennedy’s challenge to Biden, but they are also upset that arch enemy Donald Trump has said good things about him.

Even ordinarily mild-mannered former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III, 42, got into the act.

Now Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Kennedy was tougher on his uncle Robert than he was on Sen. Eddie Markey.

Kennedy hardly uttered a word when Markey attacked him and the Kennedy family during their 2020 debates prior to the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Markey mopped the floor with him.

Now, joining other Biden Democrats, Kennedy condemned his uncle for controversial remarks RFK Jr. made about the COVID virus being “ethnically targeted” to attack certain groups (whites and blacks) disproportionately while other people like Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews are more immune.

“My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong,” Joe Kennedy III said. “I unequivocally condemn what he said.”

Left wing Democrats accused RFK Jr.  of being a racist and anti Semite, charges he denied, before a contentious hearing before a Congressional Select Subcommittee on government promoted social media censorship last Thursday.

The anti-JFK Jr.  tone for the hearing was set in advance by Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who called the hearing “a malignant clown show.”

He said that Kennedy’s appearance was “a false flag operation” and that his political organization was “run by right wing political operatives whose objective is to take down Joe Biden.”

Falling into line, some 100 mostly woke Democratic members of the House signed a letter urging the Republican-controlled committee to cancel Kennedy’s appearance.

“This is a letter many of you signed,” Kennedy, 69, said to the Democrats on the committee.

“I’ve spent my life in this party. I’ve devoted my life to the values of this party. One hundred and two people signed this. This itself is evidence of the problem that this hearing was convened to address. This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing.”

Censorship, he said, was “antithetical and appalling” to his father RFK and his uncle JFK, both of whom were assassinated, John F. Kennedy as president in 1963 and Robert F. Kennedy as a presidential candidate in 1968.

“We need to be able to talk, and the First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech nobody likes you for,” Kennedy said.

Despite his eloquence, Democrats on the committee, like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida or Gerry Connolly of Virginia, did not want to hear it and they repeatedly sought to shut Kennedy down.

Once part of one of the most prominent political families in the country, RFK Jr. was treated by his fellow Democrats as though he had just agreed to become Donald Trump’s running mate.

Which, when you think about it, may not be a bad idea.

But it had to be heartbreaking for Kennedy to be to be attacked by members of his own family, including his brother, former Congressman Joe Kennedy II, father of the Kennedy in Belfast.

“Bobby’s comments are morally and factually wrong,” the elder Joe Kennedy said. “His remarks in no way reflect the words and actions of our father, Robert F. Kennedy.”

RFK Jr. aside, the Kennedys owe Joe Biden big time, and they support him over one of their own.

Kennedy family leadership and unity disappeared upon the death of longtime U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2009 when the family let his Senate seat slip away.

Then Gov. Deval Patrick could not find a Kennedy around — not Joe Kennedy II or widow Vicki — to appoint to fill out Kennedy’s Senate term and seek reelection.

Joe Biden runs the Kennedy family now. He made Joe Kennedy II special envoy to Northern Ireland; he appointed Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, as ambassador to Austria; he named Ted Kennedy widow Vicki Kennedy, as ambassador to Austria.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the outcast.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.