More than half a century after his father sought the White House to end a calamitous war in Vietnam and to salve the country’s racial strife, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a presidential campaign on Wednesday built on re-litigating Covid-19 shutdowns and shaking Americans’ faith in science. Mr. Kennedy, a California resident, traveled to Boston, once the citadel of his family’s power, to declare that he would challenge President Biden for the Democratic nomination in a long-shot bid for the White House. Appearing at the Park Plaza Hotel — a favorite fund-raising venue of his uncle Ted Kennedy’s — he sought to wrap himself in the Kennedy political luster at an event saturated, in words and images, with reminiscences of his father as well as another uncle, President John F. Kennedy. In a rambling speech lasting nearly two hours, Mr. Kennedy, 69, evoked his father’s 1968 campaign and death, and spoke at length about his career as an environmental lawyer. He also aimed criticisms at the pharmaceutical industry, big social media companies that he accused of censorship, Mr. Biden’s commitment to the war in Ukraine and former President Donald J. Trump’s “lockdown” of the country early in the pandemic.

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