RFK Jr. Can't Make You Healthy Again

(This is a white pill)

"We need RFK Jr."

"RFK Jr. will fix this!”

"Save us, RFK. Jr.”

Confident proclamations like these have flooded social media over the last several months. Many Americans are convinced that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a descendant of one of the most famous (and powerful) families in American history, is coming to rescue the masses from chronic diseases and the toxins that are contributing to them.

The power of this belief is at times reality-defying. Trump recently appointed a seed oil industry insider to be chief of staff at the USDA. This runs contrary to MAHA and RFK Jr.’s condemnations of seed oils as harmful to human health. The new appointee, Kailee Buller, also previously worked at the USDA following employment at a snack food trade group and the Corn Refiners Association. Her employment history is a textbook example of the "revolving door.” In one unfortunate social media exchange, I saw that some Trump supporters think this appointment is irrelevant. After all, she will answer to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he will keep her in line.

The problem? For one, he hasn't been confirmed and faces an uphill battle to get there. More importantly, the USDA is not under the purview of Health and Human Services (HHS), the department he would run.

Despite MAHA’s high hopes, this seed oil industry appointment is not the only issue with the narrative that ‘RFK Jr. and Donald Trump will make us healthy again.’ Many of the problems are practical in scope.

Rotten to the core

I originally wrote this piece with a laundry list of extensive examples demonstrating how deeply corrupted health agencies and both state and federal legislatures are (I decided to scrap it for the sake of brevity and because many people are already well aware). Regardless, examples abound. Agricultural companies enjoy subsidies for crops used heavily in processed foods. The EPA has asserted that glyphosate poses no harm to human health. It’s clear to most people that the food and health systems are a sinking ship.

This is unlikely to change despite Trump’s rhetorical support for MAHA or RFK Jr.’s commitment to altering course.

For one, in addition to his seed oil insider appointment, Trump hired a corporate lobbyist to be his chief of staff. Susie Wiles' most recent employer, Ballard Partners, has lobbied for tobacco and US sugar interests. Ballard also previously listed a Pfizer logo under a scrolling display of clients on their website (I can no longer locate it, but a screenshot can be found in a video I made in November).

Before that, Wiles served as co-chair for Mercury, another lobbying firm. During her tenure, Mercury represented multiple food conglomerations that use many of the ingredients and chemicals MAHA wants to ban. Further, her official lobbying profile with the US Senate shows extensive relationships with “SI Group Client Services.” This vaguely named company produces chemicals used in agriculture, personal care products, and food packaging (not very MAHA) among many other industrial materials.

Even if RFK Jr. is confirmed, there is little he can do to fundamentally alter the realities of the system, which are seeping into the second Trump administration. RFK Jr. may achieve some significant wins, such as influencing dietary guidelines, which HHS and USDA set jointly. But support for this crusade—and by extension, the Trump administration that seeks to place him in power—comes with disconcerting sacrifices on many fronts. From the new technocratic Stargate project (which advertises AI mRNA cancer vaccines in direct violation of many MAHA enthusiasts’ values) to severe encroachments on civil liberties, the new regime is further escalating authoritarianism.

Make yourself great again

As much as widespread corruption and corporatism help drive chronic illness, there is a deeper, more existential issue: people’s apparent dependence on government agencies and bureaucrats to take charge of their health.

After generations of the growth of the federal government (and its insidious relationships with the agriculture, food, and drug industries), it should be clear that it is inadvisable to trust the government to protect your health and well-being. It's worth noting that much of the federal government’s purview over food and drugs grew immensely as a result of concerns about the quality of the food and drug supply. This occurred during the Progressive era at the start of the 20th century. We still ended up here.

While many are hopeful that RFK Jr. can shake up the current paradigm, they are caught in the same mentality that helped it get so bad in the first place. The perception of RFK Jr. as a savior or crusader for individuals’ health is tinged with a dependent, nanny-state mentality that leads individuals away from their own agency.

It's understandable that after decades of corruption, exploitation, propaganda, and the widespread incidence of chronic disease, people want someone to make it all better. They desire a hero to make them and the country healthy again. But it is this reliance on authority figures that led to such a compromised system in the first place. Such trust in government comes at the expense of individual agency.

Further, the MAHA movement is predicated, at least in part, on using government to ban products and substances. Implementing this agenda would lead to an expansion of the same foundational authority that contributed to the problems in the first place. This is a dangerous precedent.

Even if RFK Jr. is confirmed and proves himself pure, incorruptible, and able to challenge the entire system, this is no guarantee that 1) powerful interests won't adapt to evade his decrees, regulations, and bans or 2) other corrupted parties won't later retake the government—armed with the new expansive powers he has seized with presumably good intentions.

Some may interpret these observations as a black-pilled argument that there is no point in trying to make a change. But such interpretations only reveal how dependent the population's consciousness has become on government and political "solutions." I would admittedly prefer RFK Jr. to, say, a pharmaceutical executive, as in Trump's previous term. But I believe the best he could do in the position is raise awareness and educate people (much as Ron Paul's biggest achievement in Congress was using it as a platform to advocate for ideas).

As with so many of the problems political institutions and authority figures have caused, true solutions lie in creating new paradigms outside the system that created them.

You don't need the government to ban products and ingredients to start making healthier choices in your life (and thus signal to corporations selling toxic products that they are no longer desired). You don't need a politician to centrally plan the food industry to educate yourself on the worst foods and drugs in the supply and choose not to consume them (the conversation about addiction to junk foods and other substances and the role chronic stress plays both in said addiction and chronic illness at large is a dense topic for a different article). RFK Jr. can't make you lead a less sedentary lifestyle or choose what you put in and on your body—at least not without supremely authoritarian measures.

Understanding the reality of the system is not a black pill. It is an ultimate white pill to break through programmed beliefs about how government and authority work. It is powerful and positive to return the virtues of self-ownership and personal responsibility to the people—not “we the people,” a euphemism for government, but individuals and communities from the bottom up.