For the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s Senate confirmation process was a line in the sand. Even the Democrats‘ most prominent anti-corporate crusaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—generally admired among the group for their antagonism toward Big Pharma and Big Ag—went into full attack mode on the Health and Human Services nominee during the hearings.
“Never voting for a Democrat again,” was a common refrain from scores of online health and wellness influencers, who generally post about the dangers of microplastics and the benefits of back-to-the-land living. “Green MAGA” is now really a thing.
But even as RFK Jr. takes the reins at HHS, his movement is approaching an uncomfortable reckoning. Enacting an agenda to stop the dominance of ultra-processed foods, get toxins out of supply chains, make school lunches nutritious, and stand up for small organic farmers at the expense of Big Ag will be a tall order with only support from a Republican Party that is still deeply wedded to big corporate interests and established rural politics.
While it’s understandable for Democrats to reject the new HHS secretary’s more conspiratorial views, populists and progressives in the party should recognize this very rare chance to work with his movement to achieve some wins on health, environment, and corporate power that could have potentially transformative impacts in the coming years. The RFK Jr. crowd should quietly welcome Democrats’ help.
While the ascent of Kennedy to be secretary of Health and Human Services in a second Trump term would have sounded utterly outlandish just a year ago, the power that his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement has now amassed within the Republican Party was just as improbable.
Consider that organic food enthusiasts and anti-GMO campaigners had their own ball on Trump’s inauguration day. MAGA Sen. Ron Johnson (WI) recently led a Congressional event on holistic health. Tucker Carlson was brought to tears talking about the need for conservatives to embrace love of nature. And Vice President JD Vance proclaimed his concern about microplastics in the food system.
All this is enough to think that Republicans may pass an agenda on environmental health concerns. That is, until you look at the party’s actual policy and personnel decisions of late. It’s not just that Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency squad is eliminating key health and environmental watchdogs. It’s also that Trump is letting the foxes guard the henhouse. His top EPA appointees include a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos and a major chemical industry lobbyist. He appointed a lobbyist for junk food and seed oil companies to be Chief of Staff at the Department of Agriculture. And there’s evidence that Trump appointed RFK Jr. to HHS in order to “go wild on health” while keeping him away from agriculture and issues of clean air and water.
So, what should the growing MAHA movement do? Don’t just double-down on partisanship. Take a page out of the president’s playbook and break political orthodoxies.
It will take a lot of political muscle, from both sides of the spectrum, to dislodge generations of vested interests in industrial food, corporate agriculture, and farm subsidies. The political winds will eventually shift. And—given that it’s historically been Democrats leading on many of MAHA’s core issues—the movement should be well positioned to continue the reforms if the opposition takes the House of Representatives in two years or the presidency changes hands in four.
While Democrats in Congress have largely focused on RFK Jr.’s controversial views on public health and vaccinations, the party should see his ascent as a path to break the partisan stalemate on the role of government. For example, many in the MAHA movement lament how the United States permits scores of pesticides and consumer product additives that are banned in Europe. While this concern goes against the GOP’s bedrock opposition to government regulation, Republicans have demonstrated over the past decade that they’re willing to abandon long-held economic positions when the political winds shift—whether that’s on free trade agreements, industrial policy, the Child Tax Credit, Medicare and Social Security privatization, or other issues.
MAHA should call in its chips. There’s a case to be made that Kennedy—who reached double digits in some 2024 polls—got Trump over the finish line in key swing states. Today, substantial slices of the president’s base—from homeschooling moms to Joe Rogan bros—adhere to MAHA’s views on agriculture and many environmental issues.
If the movement wants to be successful, then it should seek to be so big, so broad, and so robust that every presidential candidate in the next 20 years has to champion causes like healthy food and removing toxic chemicals from supply chains. This will require playing ball with the opposition party, which is currently in no place to enforce ideological purity tests.
Democrats should make a play for all green-minded voters—even those wearing red hats.
Tim Ryan is a former 10-term Member of the US House of Representatives from Ohio.
Justin Talbot Zorn is senior adviser at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a former senior congressional staffer.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
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