The movement that helped make Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the secretary of health and human services converged politically with right-wing populism only in the last few years, but in spirit the holistic, outsider critique of modern medicine had a lot in common with MAGA populism long before the “MAHA” neologism came along.
Like populism, the MAHA movement spoke to widely shared frustrations with a medical establishment that didn’t seem to have answers to persistent problems and left people who felt failed by the system feeling unheard and disdained.
But like populism’s critique of insider politics, the outsider critique of the medical establishment has always struggled to offer an alternative vision that’s rigorous rather than credulous. And like MAGA populism, MAHA now finds itself in a complicated marriage with a Republican Party that still retains its pre-Trump orientation toward business interests, drug companies and Big Food.
R.F.K. Jr. entered office promising to address two great challenges in American public health, the spread of obesity and the resilience of chronic illness, and in an ideal world an outsider’s critique would have a lot to offer on both fronts.
The roots of the American weight problem are endlessly debated, with car culture and suburbia offered as non-dietary explanations for why we’re fatter than the Europeans. The anti-corporate critique of how we grow and make and sell our food nonetheless has a certain plausibility, and the MAHA impulse to push Americans away from chemicals and processed foods seems like an experiment worth trying.
Meanwhile, chronic illness, and especially the lengthening list of ailments that lack a clear causal explanation, is a zone where the medical establishment has largely failed, and a new approach with new eyes, new studies and new data would be entirely welcome.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post Will MAHA Change America? appeared first on New York Times.
