I Watched a MAHA Video So You Don’t Have To
RFK's "Make America Healthy Again" campaign is pretty sickening
After dropping out of the presidential race, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched the so-called Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement as a partnership “with President Donald Trump to transform our nation’s food, fitness, air, water, soil and medicine.”
To find out about this, I recently watched a video with RFK and Tulsi Gabbard called “How We Plan to Make America Healthy Again.” Here’s how it went:
For the first 12 minutes of the 19-minute video, Tulsi Gabbard explained how a second Trump term would differ from the first. Before, Trump surrounded himself with “bad people” who didn’t carry out his wishes. That won’t happen this time, said Ms. Gabbard. He’s not scared of anybody now.
Then the discussion moved to why America is unhealthy. RFK blamed a long-term project by the “intelligence apparatus,” global centralized control by large corporations, and corrupt government agencies that censor information, all abetted by the Democrats. The key, he said, is to trust the American people and for government to support individual choice (along with organic food and gym memberships).
The dishonesty of MAHA and its political action committee is breathtaking—e.g., working to re-elect Trump while saying they “advocat[e] for stronger environmental regulations and enforcement to prevent habitat loss and degradation.” Did they hear about the Chevron decision by the MAGA-infested Supreme Court?
Others have correctly pointed to how the MAHA message combines faux populist fact with outright fiction, and how policies that improve access to medical care and nutritious food and reduce pollution could actually move the needle toward health. But how far can such policy reforms go?
Let’s zoom out to look at some recent pieces of the bigger puzzle of health in the US. Consider:
Climate change is unhealthy
Nearly 100 people died and 26 are still missing after climate-change-fueled Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville and other communities in western North Carolina.
Same hurricane: 11 workers, some immigrants, at a plastics factory in Tennessee were washed away in flood waters. They were later found dead or are still missing. Surviving workers say they had no evacuation instructions, in either English or Spanish, and were told not to leave the factory when the downpours started.
Speaking of worker health: Heat-related illness and deaths in the workplace are on the rise as the planet burns. In Florida, local governments are prohibited from requiring heat protections for outdoor workers.
Structural racism is unhealthy
People of color in the US disproportionately experience housing instability, food insecurity, poor healthcare access, hazardous exposures, and police violence, with profound effects on health. For example, about 100 in 100,000 Black men and boys will be killed by police during their lives.
Intergenerational transmission of trauma (e.g., from hate crimes, mass incarceration, land dispossession) is thought to lead to health effects such as hypertension, depression, and PTSD.
Not having health care is unhealthy
Since the Dobbs decision, women are fighting for their lives and health as abortion bans in half the states mean they can’t get the care they need. Texas is suing to get access to the medical records of women for criminal investigation if they cross state lines to seek legal abortion.
More than 4 million people in the US with cognitive impairment or dementia live alone—disproportionately female, Black, or Latino. Only 21 percent qualify for publicly funded programs that pay for services in the home. Some of these elders stop cooking, paying bills, shopping, communicating with others, and opening their mail, and can experience malnutrition, untreated illnesses, shutoff of utilities, and eviction.
Every major US medical association advocates for transgender youth to have access to meticulously tailored, developmentally appropriate gender-affirming care—shown to reduce depression and suicidality. Nevertheless, 24 states have enacted bans on this life-saving care, ignoring scientific evidence and codifying discrimination.
Private equity devouring life’s necessities is unhealthy
Adequate housing is essential to health. But like the monster Grendel ransacking the Mead Hall of the Danes, private equity firms are marauding through the housing market, driving up rents, housing costs, and homelessness. In the Boston area in 2022, institutional investors bought up one in five of all homes sold in the city. Large corporate landlords target black and brown communities for predatory investment, rent hikes, health violations, and evictions.
Private equity continues the marauding in health care. Steward Health Care, for example, bought struggling community hospitals, sold the land out from under them to lease it back, generating more than a billion dollars for its investors. Meanwhile, Steward failed to pay for adequate staffing, supplies, and maintenance, resulting in the deaths of at least 15 patients and the closure of hospitals that communities rely on.
Corporate fraud is unhealthy
California and four environmental groups are suing ExxonMobil for its 50-year campaign of deception to promote plastic recycling while knowing it wasn’t viable. While we dutifully put our plastic in the blue bin, only 5 percent of plastic waste in the US is actually recycled. Plastic waste breaks down into microplastics, which are now everywhere and in everything, including in us, with potential damage to our immune, reproductive, and nervous systems. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry makes over $600 billion a year selling new plastic.
The owners of Boar’s Head Provisions became fabulously wealthy from selling its liverwurst and other delicacies. Their slogan: “Compromise elsewhere.” From July to September 2024, 10 people died and more than 59 people sickened from Listeria in Boar’s Head products. In the previous two years, the company had been cited for violations including dirty machinery, flies in pickle containers, heavy meat buildup on walls, and blood in puddles on the floor. Lawsuits allege that the company established an ineffective recall process during the Listeria outbreak and failed to notify consumers of health risk
What part of the MAHA doctrine of “individual choice” (and organic food and gym memberships) would help people in these unhealthy situations?
Well, none.
And these examples are the tip of the PFAS-tainted iceberg. But they all have one thing in common: they’re not bugs but features of late-stage capitalism, on its twin pillars of white supremacy and patriarchy, operating for the benefit of the very few and disempowerment of the many—while trashing the planet.
The US left struggles to keep its head above water in the face of attacks by the right. We sometimes give short shrift to articulating—with our peoples and communities— an inspiring vision for what a people-centered society, specific to US conditions, could be. Con artists and opportunists like MAHA move into that vacuum and lie about what the left stands for.
Health is a terrain the left can and should claim–and many activists and organizations have been leading work on health justice for decades.
In a follow-up article, I plan to explore how a health justice agenda could help galvanize today’s left. I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. What do you think a “care economy” could look like? What reforms would be meaningful, both materially and politically, to help get there? What is working in mutual aid and community-building along the way?
In the comments below, put one idea, large or small, about a vision for a health-giving society. Then stay tuned for Part 2!
Salud!
Jennifer Thomas is an environmentalist and speculative fiction writer. You can read some of her stories at https://www.jenniferthomas.net