Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary is notable — and not just because he’s a conspiracy theorist. America has seen health conspiracies fester on the right for years, especially amidst the polarization of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing fallout. The right’s embrace of R.F.K. and his “Make America Healthy Again” platform exemplifies an important element of the Republican Party’s strategy: purity signaling.
It’s no secret that Trump has a loyal white Evangelical base, who tend to have strong attachments to ideas of morality and purity. For decades, the right has pandered to these voters in its positions on abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, and rights for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. Opponents of their positions are painted as impure and immoral. The right also applies this tactic in its efforts to push anti-immigration rhetoric and policies, portraying immigrants as dangerous, morally reprehensible criminals.
The MAHA movement may seem like a ridiculous, nonsensical addition to the party’s platform, but its inclusion in contemporary conservative ideology makes complete sense. Whether the right is crusading to ban food dyes, abortions, or the right to express one’s gender identity, the end goal is the same: the entrenchment of the conservative moral code in law.
R.F.K. and the alternative-wellness-right’s claims about the dangers of vaccines and processed food are focused on the purity of what we consume. In claiming that vaccines cause autism, SSRIs are addictive, and food dyes are responsible for ADHD in children, R.F.K. and his supporters assert that modern medicine and diets are contaminating our minds and bodies.
MAHA promises to purify our minds and bodies and thereby purify our spirits.
The pursuit of making America healthy again is a quest for morality. Culturally, we associate health with virtuosity. The term “healthism” was coined in 1980 by Robert Crawford to refer to the idea that it is an individual’s personal responsibility to be healthy. America blames individuals for their struggles with weight, mental illness, and disability, interpreting these health problems as a moral failing. It’s not surprising that a party so strongly attracted to themes of mortality and virtuosity would place health on their agenda, too.
Not only is MAHA an attempt to make America more virtuous by way of fixing our health, it’s an attempt to make the Republican Party more virtuous. While it’s easy to argue that restricting minorities’ rights in an effort to achieve the conservative moral agenda is wrong, it’s harder to argue that a party wanting to make Americans healthier is evil.
And R.F.K. is right about how we are not healthy. Obesity, addiction, and mental illness are major public health issues in our country. Trump’s executive order establishing the MAHA commission states, “We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease” — an admirable goal. If we didn’t know better, it might seem like MAHA is a good thing. This assumption gives the Republican Party something to point to in proving their party’s virtuosity.
Further, the alternative-wellness community’s embrace of traditional family values has solidified the link between purity and wellness. We’ve all seen it: the homesteaders or “tradwives” that claim they’re happiest growing their own food and embracing a woman’s role as a homemaker. These women love R.F.K., but I’d argue it’s not just his shared hatred of seed oils that’s behind this. Rather, there is a shared value system between members of the alternative-wellness community, Evangelical conservatives, and the so-called politicians they elect.
MAHA is just the latest piece of the Republican Party’s moral agenda. It simply extends the quest to restore purity and family values (i.e. traditional gender roles) already driving the party’s policies on culture war issues. This extension is a strategic one: mobilize the base with purity talk and attract the uninformed voter with “health” talk. Win-win.
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