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Collaborating With the MAHA Movement Is a Terrible Idea

Some pundits are pushing a strategic alliance with parts of RFK Jr.’s base. Here’s why they’re wrong.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives on stage at the inaugural Make America Healthy Again summit, November 12, 2025, in Washington, DC.

We’ve now had a year and a half to see what the “Make America Health Again” movement has wrought. Under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we’ve seen a full-scale attack on vaccination in the United States and the decimation of agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, among many others. American public health and biomedical research are in free fall—and it’s all hazardous to your well-being. And MAHA and MAGA, despite bumps in the road, are partners in an authoritarian mission to put American health and lives under the thumb of Donald Trump and his henchmen hiding in the shadows, from Russell Vought to Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Oz.

Yet, despite the people hurt by the administration’s policies, there are always others ready to make excuses for people in power. At the beginning of President Trump’s term, there were those who were in the mode of “wait, hear me out, RFK Jr. has some good ideas on what is wrong with health in America.” This logic depended on cherry-picking a few items on the MAHA agenda—on processed food or pharmaceutical advertising, for instance—while downplaying the very real dangers RFK Jr. posed overall. While these people may have seen themselves as bridge-builders to the new administration, they were really just offering up their own personal and professional credibility to people who didn’t give a damn what they thought. I still can’t fathom why they would do so.

All these months later, those voices have largely gone silent. Apparently, playing footsie with RFK Jr. is not what it used to be. However, what has persisted are those commentators who want to partake in another game of “just pick the cyclospora out of your salad.”

This time, rather than seeingm RFK Jr. as a possible partner, these individuals are seeking to separate MAHA supporters from those who lead the movement. Their pitch: The rank and file of MAHA are not all anti-vaxxers. They have real concerns about pesticides, ultra-processed foods, and the failure of the American healthcare system. You cannot lump them in with RFK Jr. and his ilk—these regular MAHA folks are real people we can work with.

The first problem with this argument is........

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