The Rush to MAHA
Will this new voice in lobbying change Washington?
It is unspoken but widely accepted that this moment won’t last. The time will come when the noble knight will look down upon the emperor with a less than adoring expression and the two will engage in battle. The noble knight is rushing to build his army to turn the coming mutiny into a revolution. The public must be won over by the Moms Militia and any political opposition silenced with a “Children First” campaign. Time is of the essence as this moment will be short and likely never come again.
This sense of fleeting opportunity would help explain the flurry of MAHA institution building that is affecting the Washington landscape. When RFK Jr joined the Trump campaign, after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania virtually assured him of the presidency, Kennedy quickly trademarked the terms “MAHA” and “Make America Healthy Again”, setting out to build his new brand. This political support was later rewarded with the post of secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy’s first move as secretary was to cut almost a third of the staff, researchers and boards. While the purge of scientists was masked under the veil of cost-cutting within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) strategy, in essence it was based on a post-takeover corporate restructuring model (replace the deadweight old culture with the incoming generation’s ideologues). But this is not a culture shift as we saw in the last year of the COVID-19 pandemic (from virologists to epidemiologists) but a more radical move (from medical to naturopathy, from pharmaceuticals to homeopathic solutions, from scientists to Moms).
But that was only the first step. Kennedy’s goal, fervently being implemented before the party ends, is to change how Washington works, who lobbies and how food, health and agriculture are regulated. That is the MAHA revolution he hopes will outlast his tenure at the HHS.
The MAHA Institute
Starting as a virtual think tank, the MAHA Institute aims to create a new political force in Washington, one where regulators and policymakers will listen to Moms and concerned citizens rather than industry lobbyists. The launch of the MAHA Institute last month started with a parade of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, chemophobes and shamans. But it also included some cunning political insiders, funders and lawyers that sensed an opportunity. Their vision was clear and carefully scripted.
Here are some quotes from their launch conference at the Willard Hotel (the birthplace of lobbying):
“The MAHA Institute is coordinating and channeling the energy of the movement and connecting them with government.” Mark Gorton (co-president of the MAHA Institute)
“The MAHA Institute was given a mandate from MAHA Moms … while the Democrats have abdicated the issue of children’s health.” Calley Means (Special Adviser to RFK Jr)
“MAHA is taking us back to the vision of our founding fathers: a government of the people, by the people and for the people … serving the people and not corporations or Big Pharma.” Marcus Thornton (Feds for Freedom)
“The Democrats abandoned their tradition of defending the little guy. When they wake up, there will be an opportunity for MAHA to be a unifying movement around the issue of human health.” Charles Eisenstein (RFK Jr’s speech writer)
“We have been deeply betrayed by past administrations … Now we have a government that is listening to Moms.” Zen Honeycutt (Moms Across America)
The MAHA Institute’s website has just been put up in the last week and does not yet provide any information on the team, members or partners.
The architects of the MAHA Institute are playing the long game, creating a new space in Washington lobbying between existing political poles while reaching across the parties on issues everyone should agree on, like promoting children’s health. If they can temper the radical fringe elements and remove the conspiracy theorists (including RFK Jr), it would be hard for this movement to be ignored.
The MAHA Commission
Conspiracy theories become legitimate when they are adopted by a scientific establishment. Since MAHA’s claims on 5G, chemtrails and raw milk are outside of any rational remit, the goal is to create a new scientific institution to ground the MAHA claims in a type of science.
When Kennedy announced the first MAHA Commission Report into the causes of the children’s chronic disease crisis, he called for a new “gold standard” of research (ie, one led by integrity and not influenced by industry science). This first MAHA Report, mind you, had a few teething problems (it was largely written by AI, with broad unverified generalizations and citations to works that did not exist), but once enough reports get published and entered into official channels, this new MAHA science (providing crisis-driven, naturopathic solutions) will assume the anchor position for the policy process. The next MAHA Commission report, promised for September, will address the causes of the American autism crisis.
The question remains though whether anyone within the mainstream scientific community will accept and participate in this MAHA revolution?
RaMAHAzzini
The Ramazzini Institute has always operated on the fringe of scientific credibility and many of their reports, legitimized via their close ties with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, overlap with MAHA interests (against glyphosate, aspartame, ultra-processed food, chemicals…). The Ramazzini Institute identifies itself as a bastion for independent science (and hence they are starved for funding and reliant, largely on support from the US tort law industry), but many of the scientists who are members of this collegium of secret handshakes think quite highly of themselves and may be reluctant to get into bed with the scientifically-challenged Moms.
In a FOIA of email exchanges from a group of anti-GMO, anti-glyphosate activist scientists, several emails referred to MAHA heroines like Zen Honeycutt and Stephanie Seneff as “very dangerous” “loons” that must be avoided at all costs.
Will some of them now change their positions, suck it up and beg for a plum agency posting? It would challenge the integrity of even the most hardcore Ramazzinian. They might agree with the MAHA Moms on issues like glyphosate and aspartame (for different reasons), but then they would have to silently listen to the conspiracy theories on chemtrails, 5G and vaccines.
So while “activist science” is a step away from credible science, I suspect that most of the Ramazzini crowd is not yet ready to embrace “redneck science”.
MAHA Action
Del Bigtree set up MAHA Action, a lobbying body that describes itself as “a non-partisan 501(c)4 that is dedicated to advocacy and activism to help make America healthy again”. Their goal is to “track, advocate and influence” MAHA-related bills going through the policy process. They offer kits to empower activists to campaign, write letters, run podcasts and share MAHA Action content. The goal is the same old strategy, but now at a higher level, to groom an army of MAH-Moms to occupy Washington.
Del Bigtree is a hardened opportunist in the anti-vax movement and is claiming to be the cofounder of the MAHA movement. While Del has always worn shoes two sizes too big, selling his snake-oil a bit too forcefully, he is leaving his footprint on the MAHA movement and will likely continue to expand his circus tent. Del’s “Official” MAHA Podcast ensures the more bizarre health claims remain front and center. If the movement continues to endorse full-out conspiracy theories, then Bigtree might just become its heir apparent.
MAHA Films
Jeff Hays has been a long-time documenter of the naturopaths, anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO activists (see his list of “Revealed” documentaries on cancer, GMOs, vaccines…). Hays has been chronicling and promoting the conspiracy theorists for decades, and even produced a film based on RFK Jr’s book criticizing Anthony Fauci. It should then come as no surprise that Hays paid RFK Jr $100,000 to use the MAHA brand name.
Two months after Kennedy was confirmed as the Health and Human Services Department Secretary, MAHA Films released Toxic Nation, produced and directed by Jeff Hays. The film covers every MAHA issue, including chemtrails, 5G, processed food, seed oils and vaccines, taking each outrageous claim as fact (with a continuous stream of emotional music).
The promotion of the film claims: "MAHA Films: Toxic Nation is the only documentary officially licensed by RFK JR.'s MAHA Brand to boldly expose what’s been lurking in the shadows..." Perhaps that is because only Jeff Hays would pay RFK Jr $100,000 to use the term “MAHA”. And perhaps only RFK Jr would register the MAHA trademark and charge someone $100,000 for four letters... Grifter.
At the end of MAHA Films: Toxic Nation, Hays announced that three more MAHA films would soon be released (including one on food and farming). While I don’t expect to see Hays making a speech at the Academy Awards any time soon, he now has a captive, growing audience to keep pumping out his fearmongering slop.
Why the Rush?
In three short months, MAHA has moved from a slogan to a political force, having created a think tank, a scientific body, a lobbying action organization, an official podcast and film/communications organization. But the mad dash has been careless, unfiltered and often worthy of satire. The MAHA Action website has unfinished pages, the AI generated MAHA Report was laughable, their films lacking in cinematography and fact-checking and the MAHA Institute was launched without any real structure in place or a communications team / website.
MAHA activists won’t be able to change the institutions in the short window of opportunity they have. Calley Means, in MAHA Films: Toxic Nation, stated there are maybe only 75 true MAHA believers working within the 60,000 strong HHS workforce. With a decade of resistance expected, the alternative of building new MAHA institutions seems more attractive.
Perhaps the level of urgency is based on the past history of many MAHA actors’ campaigns. They have grown used to losing and have developed a reflex to benefit and advance their cause with each defeat. At a 2019 Truth about Cancer event, Del Bigtree observed how the difficulties for the anti-vax movement (with regulatory restrictions, scientific attacks and social media “cancellations”) has advanced the cause considerably. “Even bad news is good news!”
The question is whether these forces can professionalize in the coming years to become legitimate actors in the policy debates and no longer a small fringe group gathering outside of government offices. To snatch a real victory from another jaw of defeat, MAHA will need to do a lot more than the impressive achievements they have recently made.
When the day comes that the noble knight must fall on his sword, and everyone knows it will come, would he have been able to plant deep enough roots for the planned revolution? Or will Washington just shrug and get back to business?