Americans don’t typically have a reason to think about the fluoride in their water, but this is not a typical week. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate whom Donald Trump is eyeing as his health czar, has vowed to remove the mineral from drinking water if he is appointed to the next administration. Kennedy has said that the chemical lowers children’s IQ, even though studies overwhelmingly show that it is safe. Trump apparently agrees, and in his victory speech on Wednesday, he told Kennedy to “go have a good time” working on public health.
The prospect of giving Kennedy any semblance of power over the nation’s health is alarming, and not only because of his preoccupation with fluoride. (And to be fair, many scientists have made serious and nuanced inquiries about fluoride.) Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no background in health, is best known for his skepticism, if not outright antagonism, toward vaccines. He also has a long track record of championing other pseudoscientific and conspiratorial views, such as the baseless belief that antidepressants are responsible for mass shootings.
When I looked up his full “Make America Healthy Again” platform, I expected to see wacky conspiracies. Instead, its goals could have been pulled from any liberal public-health campaign. MAHA’s key ambitions include addressing the root causes of chronic disease, improving the food supply through regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats, eliminating corporate influence from government health agencies, and removing toxins from the environment. The campaign acknowledges the need for systemic interventions such as increasing access to nutritious food and prioritizing preventative health care, initiatives touted by Democrats such as Michelle Obama.
MAHA represents a mix of concerns from across the political spectrum. “The issues he’s bringing up when it comes to health and food are more recognizably left,” Rachel Meade, a political scientist at Boston University who has studied Kennedy’s politics, told me. Blaming our health problems on corporations is also a move from the left’s playbook, Meade said. Indeed, Bernie Sanders has spent the past year railing against Ozempic’s manufacturer for making the drug so expensive. Assessed only by its goals and not its remedies, MAHA makes a lot of sense. That’s also what makes it dangerous.
Everyone can agree that “removing toxins from the environment,” one of MAHA’s stated goals, is a good idea. But not everyone agrees on what a toxin is. Fluoride is one, from Kennedy’s perspective. MAHA rightly points out that America’s “poor diet” must be addressed. But what counts as a good diet? To Kennedy, it might include raw milk, which poses serious health risks. Addressing “inadequate healthcare” is crucial, of course—but to Kennedy, that could entail treating COVID with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, alternative remedies that have been proven not to work.
RFK Jr.’s goals aren’t the only part of his platform that may appeal to more than conspiracy-addled Trump supporters. His overarching diagnosis of the nation’s health problems is that Americans are being misled by bad science and the institutions that support it. “Once Americans are getting good science and allowed to make their own choices, they’re going to get a lot healthier,” he said in an interview with NBC on Wednesday. This notion—that people should do their own research and take their health into their own hands—resonates widely. The belief that scientific institutions aren’t working spans the political spectrum, bringing together subcultures including anti-vaxxers, seed-oil truthers, carnivore-diet enthusiasts, and wellness influencers.
Kennedy himself is politically slippery. He was a Democrat until 2023, when he campaigned for president as an independent before dropping out and endorsing Trump. His anti-vaccine beliefs are historically associated with crunchy liberals, and his environmental views align with the left. But he fits in easily among Republicans, too. Many on the right adopted anti-vaccine views during COVID. More pertinently, his anti-establishment attitude toward health fits neatly in Trump’s us-versus-them narrative. Kennedy, like Trump, thinks of himself as a populist; he frames public-health issues in terms of corrupt institutions duping everyday people, regardless of their party. The bipartisan alliance formed around opposition to mainstream public health has created a strange new faction that counts Kennedy among its figureheads. One way to think of it, as my colleague Elaine Godfrey has written, is “woo-woo meets MAGA.”
MAHA appeals to this group—and could perhaps expand it. “Anti-establishment populism that has aspects of both left and right is a prominent narrative in alternative media spaces,” Meade said. Kennedy’s skepticism about health resonates among followers of influencers such as Russell Brand and Joe Rogan, who frequently entertain health-related conspiracies; Kennedy himself has been on their podcasts. Like Kennedy, many of them are disaffected former Democrats whose politics can be hard to pin down: Although Rogan endorsed Trump, he has called himself a “bleeding-heart liberal.”
It’s still possible that Kennedy might not get a prominent job in the Trump administration. His wariness of corporations doesn’t jibe with Trump’s embrace of them, and Trump has already made clear that environmental concerns won’t be a priority: “Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold,” he said in his victory speech, referring to oil. Kennedy’s history of bizarre behavior—including dumping a bear corpse in Central Park—may give some in Trump’s inner circle pause.
Even if Kennedy never joins the Trump administration, his ideas will continue to have broad appeal. America has seen what happens when people lose trust in public-health institutions. Pandemics drag on because people are afraid to get vaccinated. Measles outbreaks return to schools. People drink bleach. And maybe soon, Americans will no longer be drinking fluoridated water.
About the Author
Yasmin Tayag is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
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