What 'Make America Healthy Again' gets wrong

It recognizes real problems, but its solutions are crazy

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One of the worst things that Donald Trump has done as president is put Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in charge of healthcare policy.

Kennedy is someone who believes a lot of crazy and obviously incorrect things, such as “vaccines cause autism”, “HIV does not exist”, and “chemtrails are real”. And as head of the Health and Human Services department, he has the power to act on these false beliefs in a way that will cause people to die.

But it’s also important to realize that Kennedy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. He’s the leader of a group of people who collectively rally to the slogan “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA). This broader group is a weird coalition of vaccine conspiracy theorists, crunchy California moms, the bros on your Facebook feed slowly killing themselves with a carnivore diet, and people who have been let down by the American healthcare system but are confused about who to blame.

In many ways MAHA is one of the worst consequences of educational polarization. As Republicans have gradually become the party of the less educated and of people suspicious of any elite expertise, most of the people with seriously crazy views about healthcare have sorted themselves into the Republican Party.

When this sort of crankishness was distributed evenly across the political spectrum, it was easy for both parties to ignore it. But since MAHA became concentrated in the GOP and found a way to voice its demands in a way that resonates with the party’s populism, it has been able to have real influence. Trump acknowledged this influence when he gave the HHS job to Kennedy.

But another thing that’s worth emphasizing is that what makes MAHA so potent is that it hides its crankishness behind a fairly innocuous and accurate coating. Americans really are extremely unhealthy and government policy in this area really has failed them. It just mostly hasn’t been for the reasons that MAHA says, and taking polio vaccines away from kids is not going to make things any better.

If you visit the “Make America Healthy Again” government webpage, the first thing you will see are some statistics about how many Americans have chronic diseases or health complaints such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, chronic kidney disease, or high blood pressure.

These things are true but they’re not caused by polio vaccines!

These statistics are not made up: Americans are, compared to the citizens of other wealthy countries, pretty unhealthy. The U.S. obesity rate is twice that of peer nations, as is its rate of adults with diabetes, asthma, and chronic kidney disease. The United States has also mostly not been experiencing the same long-term decline in the percentage of people with high blood pressure that other wealthy nations have.

The reasons for these statistics are complicated but hardly unknown. If you read the literature on why U.S. health outcomes tend to be so bad, then the answers are fairly straightforward. The U.S. tolerates a lot more poverty than comparable nations, it invests comparatively little of its healthcare dollar into preventative care, its citizens have an unusually sedentary lifestyle and eat unusually bad diets, and many of its residents lack health insurance.

The traditional response of American conservatives to having these things pointed out to them is to start raving about how the only alternative is state-provided healthcare which is a form of socialism and hence evil. Dare to suggest that maybe unhealthy ingredients ought to be better regulated or that Americans at least ought to be given more information about them and you’re called a nanny state-loving hater of freedom.

By refusing to engage in this discussion or countenance giving the state a greater role in healthcare and nutrition, conservatives helped to create the chronic disease crisis to which MAHA is a response. And rather than taking responsibility for the real problems - which might involve taking actions harmful to the profits of large corporations - they’re now cheering on Kennedy’s clown show.

MAHA is at heart a giant bait and switch. Kennedy talks a lot about obesity and diabetes and then pivots to why he wants to end polio vaccinations. The problems that he is highlighting are real enough to get people to listen, but his proposed solutions make no sense at all - unless you are already primed by years of Fox News to reject mainstream medical science and believe that Covid vaccines are actually just a trick to get microchips inside all of us so that Bill Gates can remotely control our body temperature.

And as MAHA moves the Overton window further towards Crazytown, it’s already making a difference. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, always a trailblazer when it comes to shitting on other people to advance his own career, has just announced that Florida intends to become the first state in the nation to stop requiring kids to have vaccines to attend school. Others will soon follow.

Ultimately, MAHA is another symptom of a failing society, one incapable of rational deliberation, an accurate assessment of cause and effect, or keeping precious children alive. With each passing day, I become less and less sure that its slide into the abyss can be prevented.

Thanks for reading America Explained! This is our 300th post, wow! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support me as I work on the next 300. A reminder that if you’re a student or an educator, just drop me a line and I’ll give you a free full subscription. But I can only offer that service if at least some people pay, so if you’re someone in a position to do so, I really appreciate it.