a pox on all our houses: rfk jr. and the anti-medicine movement

In a classic move of our newly regressive times, a public health menace is being put in charge of managing public health and the next pandemic.

As is expected of a narcissistic movement obsessed with power and wealth, but also with a deep inferiority complex and a pathological desire to be respected, the second Trump administration is all about one word: revenge. He's the charismatic leader of a party that behaves more like a cult, and he's here to settle scores, exactly like he said he was planning to do throughout his campaign.

And one of the biggest scores he wants to settle is with the pandemic that cost him an otherwise almost certain reelection. Enter RFK Jr. and the anti-medicine movement which on the surface, preaches good habits, healthy food, and getting more sunshine and exercise, but in reality, sells pseudoscientific diets, fear-mongering about proven and highly effective public health measures, and a rosy picture of a diseased and very unhealthy human past.

There are only a handful of people not only less qualified but also more dangerous to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and the NIH than RFK Jr. I'm not just talking about the very literal brain worms, the massive freezer full of roadkill, and the barbecued mystery animals on top of other assorted animal cruelty, or the sexual assault allegations that are basically required of a senior Trump nominee. If this was all, he'd be just another highly unqualified nepo baby failing upwards.

No, few public figures have done more to undermine public health and safety than the septuagenarian on enough gear and maybe HGH to make bodybuilders pop a brow in concern. He is, effectively, an aristocratic version version of The Liver King, and about as educated about health and medicine. And he is directly responsible for the deaths of 83 children and the sickening of thousands more after convincing the authorities of Samoa that measles vaccines are dangerous.

That's how he capped off his very long career of anti-vaccination activism; with little coffins that didn't need to be buried. His follow up act was just as evil, as he enlisted several prominent Black groups and helped convince them that the COVID vaccines are engineered to harm and kill Black boys, getting them to oppose vaccination and help prolong the pandemic, increasing its kill and disability count among some of the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups in America.

He also claimed that COVID was engineered specifically to spare Jews, which raises the question of how the hell I got it twice and who checked the shoddy work on the virus' gene editing. And his solution to the still ongoing opioid crisis? Expand the very abusive and sadistic troubled teen industry, which famously brutalizes children, to adults. That's right. If you have a problem with opiates, RFK Jr. wants to put you in an equivalent of a chain gang on a farm, but with even fewer rules and no oversight.

how to very literally weaponize nostalgia

So, the plan for you is to eat less junk food (good), exercise more (also good), get all your steps in (still good), random unproven supplements (not good), no more fluoride in your water (bad), and as few vaccines as possible, ideally none (really bad). That's how he intends to make America healthy again.

Now, this is where I'd normally try a snarky quip about weaponized nostalgia, but by bringing back measles, chicken pox, mumps, polio, and whooping cough, he's more or less pushing for what is effectively biological warfare against his fellow Americans and then, the rest of the world.

This attitude has been the goal of the anti-vaccination movement from the invention of vaccines. Its adherents went from portraying all vaccines as unnatural and defying God's will, to interfering with the forces of evolution, to straight up racist eugenics, to conspiracy theories spread by wine moms, and which, after COVID, began advocating for public mass executions of doctors who vaccinate their patients.

They are also very likely to be germ theory denialists, and ascribe to some version of the so-called terrain theory of disease. Which is basically the technobabble version of the four humors from the Dark Ages, but at least people in the Dark Ages had the very valid defense of not knowing any better.

If you're still imagining that the anti-vaccination movement is mostly hippies in SoCal, the Bay Area, or the Pacific Northwest, and consists of stay at home moms who wear Birkenstocks year round, posting about being not your typical mom while dropping off their precious Indigo child at the Montessori academy, you need to rapidly update your stereotypes.

Today, thanks to QAnon, it's filled with very angry militia types and far right extremists foaming at the mouth about imaginary conspiracies targeting them, while demanding big show trials and retribution for those imaginary crimes against them. Forget Apple, Spruce, and Teeva, their kids are named Trigger, Remington, and Caliber, and January 6th is a holiday in their household.

And RFK Jr. is constantly egging them on, with broadcasts in which he blames Lyme disease, influenza A of the Spanish Flu fame, AIDS, and HIV on vaccine experiments while casting more shade on COVID boosters.

All of this is why the only doctors willing to sign on to his nomination are those who've had their licenses suspended, revoked, or are doctors in the same way as Dr. Pepper is a medical professional. Which makes sense, because actual, practicing doctors for RFK Jr. as the head of American public health are the functional equivalents of slugs for salt, vampires for sunshine, or — for you gamers and fellow sci-fi nerds — placing Nurgle in change of the Officio Medicae of the Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40K, and giving said chaos god of death, decay, and pestilence free reign. (Graphics in the article may be related.)

the pale horse trots to washington

And yet, despite everything laid out here — which only barely scratches the surface, by the way — and enough red flags to equip every soldier in the Chinese army with at least two during military excursuses, the nomination is still his to lose.

With the Senate controlled by Republicans — who are currently acting not like elected representatives in a co-equal branch of government, with power to exercise their own judgment and check executive power — but as property of Musk, Trump, and Various Questionable Associates, Inc., and J.D. Vance ready to pull up his pants and jump off the couch to break any tie, all it takes are some strategically timed angry tweets from regressive shock jocks.

With the administration's one and only priority being to break government until it will obeys its will, RFK Jr. will be pushed through not because he's qualified or because a member of Trump's inner circle really believes in him and is ready to cash in all of their political power chips on moving him along, but because the installation of a nominee, no matter how questionable, is seen as a must to bring Congress to heel. The worse the nominee and the more painful the fight, the better.

You should have exactly zero confidence in GOP senators doing the right thing, and it seems that Democrats are in no rush to stop this. They don't have the votes and the numbers. And even if they did, some of them are out of touch and simply do not care, others are still haplessly whimpering about rules and norms, and others still seem to be borrowing the attitude of H.L. Mencken that if the American people voted for this, they're going to get everything they voted for, good and hard.

People and their children will fall sick and die. The medical advice they'll receive won't be reliable as government agencies they used to trust are taken over by snake oil and supplement grifters. When a new pandemic hits, officials will once again be caught off guard and be way more interested in hiding data and downplaying the toll than trying to deal with the crisis. And whatever good the wellness influencers will do in terms of promoting nutrition and exercise is going to be eclipsed by the bad from delayed and abandoned vaccinations, and ideological cuts in medical research funding.

Does anyone actually deserve this? No. Did anyone explicitly vote for this? Maybe, but they almost certainly make a tiny minority of the electorate. Should we still feel sorry for those whose lives will be sacrificed at RFK Jr's altar of arrogance? Absolutely. But we also need to be clear that these are the consequences of taking elections lightly, that despite what the millionaires on TV tell us, this is not a game of red vs. blue. The choice of who you put in power is often life or death. If not for you, then for someone else, directly or by proxy.

I know that in the United States, we're highly encouraged to say that we're apolitical, cynics who say that it doesn't matter who's in charge, that all politicians are equally corrupt, and that no matter who wins the election, things will almost certainly stay the same. Even big name political content creators also do a version of this, disparaging both parties, negging their audience to vote in a way that shocks the system.

What's the worst that can happen? they asked. It's just going to be same shit on a different day. Both sides are equally bad, and if the whole government comes to a halt because they can't figure anything out, well, what good has the government done for you anyway?

So far, this has been true for a certain group of voters: white, suburban, upper middle class men and women, usually over 40 or thereabouts. (Which, incidentally fits closely with the demographics of COVID lockdown protestors, and a little looser with those of the J6 rioters who are now back on the streets and committing new crimes, including crimes against children and getting into shootouts with law enforcement.) Our entire system is based around these people's comfort and minimal disruption to their lives at any cost, even to the nation's detriment over the long term.

For them, there were no consequences to electoral tantrums or burying their heads in the sand when it came to current events. It was enough to just get angry at the price of eggs and gas, and vote for whatever party didn't hold the White House. Someone else had to face those costs, usually the very elderly, ethnic minorities, and the poor.

And having vaccine schedules and medical research controlled by a man who doesn't believe in modern medicine and thinks vaccines are evil is one of the things for which the American public ostensibly voted when the Pod did not, in fact, save America as was advertised since the Trump 1.0 days.

So, the darker thinking goes, until these Karens and Kevins feel their choices on their own hides, see the consequences with their own eyes, and can't just escape them by demanding to see the manager, they will never understand why it's time to stop being the stereotypical 2 kewl for skewl cynics and start paying attention.

Maybe if they have no interest in democracy, the rule of law, electoral reform, justice, empathy, or progress in any form — just eggs, gas, and interest rates — then maybe they'll at least develop an interest in competence and scientific comprehension when they're getting sicker and the childhood diseases of old come roaring back while gas, eggs, and interest rates keep soaring, along with insurance costs.