Individuals don’t sometimes have a cause to consider the fluoride of their water, however this isn’t a typical week. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the previous impartial presidential candidate whom Donald Trump is eyeing as his well being czar, has vowed to take away the mineral from consuming water if he’s appointed to the following administration. Kennedy has stated that the chemical lowers youngsters’s IQ, regardless that research overwhelmingly present that it’s secure. Trump obviously agrees, and in his victory speech on Wednesday, he advised Kennedy to “go have a great time” engaged on public well being.
The prospect of giving Kennedy any semblance of energy over the nation’s well being is alarming, and never solely due to his preoccupation with fluoride. (And to be honest, many scientists have made severe and nuanced inquiries about fluoride.) Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no background in well being, is greatest identified for his skepticism, if not outright antagonism, towards vaccines. He additionally has an extended monitor document of championing different pseudoscientific and conspiratorial views, such because the baseless perception that antidepressants are accountable for mass shootings.
After I regarded up his full “Make America Wholesome Once more” platform, I anticipated to see wacky conspiracies. As a substitute, its objectives may have been pulled from any liberal public-health marketing campaign. MAHA’s key ambitions embrace addressing the foundation causes of power illness, enhancing the meals provide via regenerative agriculture, preserving pure habitats, eliminating company affect from authorities well being businesses, and eradicating toxins from the setting. The marketing campaign acknowledges the necessity for systemic interventions resembling growing entry to nutritious meals and prioritizing preventative well being care, initiatives touted by Democrats resembling Michelle Obama.
MAHA represents a mixture of issues from throughout the political spectrum. “The problems he’s citing in the case of well being and meals are extra recognizably left,” Rachel Meade, a political scientist at Boston College who has studied Kennedy’s politics, advised me. Blaming our well being issues on companies can also be a transfer from the left’s playbook, Meade stated. Certainly, Bernie Sanders has spent the previous yr railing towards Ozempic’s producer for making the drug so costly. Assessed solely by its objectives and never its treatments, MAHA makes a variety of sense. That’s additionally what makes it harmful.
Everybody can agree that “eradicating toxins from the setting,” one in every of MAHA’s acknowledged objectives, is a good suggestion. However not everybody agrees on what a toxin is. Fluoride is one, from Kennedy’s perspective. MAHA rightly factors out that America’s “poor eating regimen” should be addressed. However what counts as a great eating regimen? To Kennedy, it’d embrace uncooked milk, which poses severe well being dangers. Addressing “insufficient healthcare” is essential, in fact—however to Kennedy, that might entail treating COVID with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, various treatments which were confirmed to not work.
RFK Jr.’s objectives aren’t the one a part of his platform which will enchantment to greater than conspiracy-addled Trump supporters. His overarching prognosis of the nation’s well being issues is that Individuals are being misled by dangerous science and the establishments that assist it. “As soon as Individuals are getting good science and allowed to make their very own selections, they’re going to get loads more healthy,” he stated in an interview with NBC on Wednesday. This notion—that individuals ought to do their very own analysis and take their well being into their very own fingers—resonates broadly. The assumption that scientific establishments aren’t working spans the political spectrum, bringing collectively subcultures together with anti-vaxxers, seed-oil truthers, carnivore-diet fans, and wellness influencers.
Kennedy himself is politically slippery. He was a Democrat till 2023, when he campaigned for president as an impartial earlier than dropping out and endorsing Trump. His anti-vaccine beliefs are traditionally related to crunchy liberals, and his environmental views align with the left. However he matches in simply amongst Republicans, too. Many on the appropriate adopted anti-vaccine views throughout COVID. Extra pertinently, his anti-establishment angle towards well being matches neatly in Trump’s us-versus-them narrative. Kennedy, like Trump, thinks of himself as a populist; he frames public-health points when it comes to corrupt establishments duping on a regular basis individuals, no matter their get together. The bipartisan alliance fashioned round opposition to mainstream public well being has created an odd new faction that counts Kennedy amongst its figureheads. A technique to consider it, as my colleague Elaine Godfrey has written, is “woo-woo meets MAGA.”
MAHA appeals to this group—and will maybe broaden it. “Anti-establishment populism that has features of each left and proper is a outstanding narrative in various media areas,” Meade stated. Kennedy’s skepticism about well being resonates amongst followers of influencers resembling Russell Model and Joe Rogan, who regularly entertain health-related conspiracies; Kennedy himself has been on their podcasts. Like Kennedy, lots of them are disaffected former Democrats whose politics may be arduous to pin down: Though Rogan endorsed Trump, he has referred to as himself a “bleeding-heart liberal.”
It’s nonetheless attainable that Kennedy won’t get a outstanding job within the Trump administration. His wariness of companies doesn’t jibe with Trump’s embrace of them, and Trump has already made clear that environmental issues gained’t be a precedence: “Bobby, avoid the liquid gold,” he stated in his victory speech, referring to grease. Kennedy’s historical past of weird habits—together with dumping a bear corpse in Central Park—could give some in Trump’s inside circle pause.
Even when Kennedy by no means joins the Trump administration, his concepts will proceed to have broad enchantment. America has seen what occurs when individuals lose belief in public-health establishments. Pandemics drag on as a result of individuals are afraid to get vaccinated. Measles outbreaks return to varsities. Folks drink bleach. And possibly quickly, Individuals will not be consuming fluoridated water.