New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg tried to piece together why so many people appear drawn to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Her answer: “Terrified Parents, New Age Health Nuts, [and] MAGA Exiles.”
“While there are still some progressive figures in Kennedy’s orbit, his campaign has an increasingly right-wing vibe,” Goldberg wrote in a column published Thursday. Goldberg referenced Kennedy’s support for border security, his willingness to go on Fox News, and a vice presidential pick who “was never all that left-wing.” Equally at the heart of Kennedy’s appeal to cross-partisan voters, Goldberg insisted, is an element of esoteric New Ageism focused on “alternative health.”
“Some strains of New Age wellness culture — with its distrust of mainstream expertise, moralistic view of health and weakness for quackery — have long intersected with right-wing politics,” Goldberg wrote, noting in parentheses that Alex Jones’s empire was built on health supplements. “The connection between alternative medicine and conservatism grew significantly stronger during the pandemic, as the center of gravity in the anti-vaccine movement moved rightward, while longtime right-wingers grew increasingly mistrustful of Big Pharma, and with it, Big Food.”
But if Americans are serious about their health, conventional drug-based medicine would become the “alternative” to adequate sunlight, physical movement, and eating free of forever chemicals. Yet somehow she links lifestyles aimed at keeping us out of the doctor’s office with New Age paganism and the fringes of American politics. Never mind that nearly every religion on the planet places significant value on physical health.
