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Can RFK Jr rebuild the American body? He is the high priest of purity culture

Ripped like America. @RobertKennedyJr/Twitter


November 13, 2024   5 mins

Donald Trump has long sought to portray himself as some sort of aristocrat, and now, a deeply divided American electorate has given him the chance for the greatest grift of all. King Trump’s Camelot is within his grasp, and the Lord in Waiting will be Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nephew of the great Jack, son of the great Robert, who has recently gained his own notoriety as the Harvard-educated anti-vaxxer with spray-tanned abs and a dead worm lodged in his brain. The 70-year-old reformed cocaine dealer and heroin addict is not so much dangling the prospect of Kennedy glitz returning to the White House, as he is on his knees, begging to be the Drug Czar, and make America safe for polio.

Within 24 hours of Trump’s landslide victory, while the Dow soared on the so-called Trump Trade, anticipation of a Kennedy health coup sent pharmaceutical markets into a doom loop. Covid MRNA vaccine providers Pfizer and Moderna were both down around 2% while BioNTech was 2.5% lower.

RFK Jr has promised to bring MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) to MAGA. Putting all venal political ambition to one side, the ex-environmental lawyer is an odd appurtenance to Trump, who gorges upon McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish and has phenylalanine on tap (aka, Diet Coke). RFK Jr blithely ignores such failings, along with the bothersome fact that during his previous tenure in the Oval Office, the Trump EPA ascended the heights of toxic chemical de-regulation by halting bans on a triumvirate of virulent chemicals. Not to mention Trump’s brilliant McDonald’s drive-thru stunt, in which he secured his victory in America’s electoral college by pretending to be CEO of the fryolator — chief villain of the MAHA universe.

Yet despite their dietary differences, Trump has promised to let Kennedy “go wild on food”.  “The key that President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies which are HHS and its subagencies: CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and also USDA,” Kennedy rasped in a post-election video posted by Newsmax reporter Alex Salvi. That’s a lot of initials, a lot of agencies, and a lot of money, as Congress allotted more than one-and-a-half billion dollars for Health and Human Services in 2022.

Fears abound that Kennedy will send America’s regulation of food and drugs swirling into a chaos of contradictions. RFK and transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick are infamous for their aversion to vaccines, and are apparently already drafting 30-, 60-, and 90-day plans to end chronic diseases. Of course, the alt-Right Twittersphere is agog with the prospect that fluoride in the drinking water, the longstanding hobbyhorse of the conspiracy theorists, may at last have met its match.

In many ways, RFK Jr presents a paradox, as no one in their right mind can ignore America’s addiction to fast-food and cheap calories promoted by genetically modified insecticides and ever-abundant harvests of food porn. Amid a supersized obesity crisis, RFK Jr has tapped into our collective obsession with what shall or shall not pass the most holy threshold of our mouths. He embodies our national addiction to diets, from vegan to paleo. MAHA’s gospel of personal purity channels the spirit of long-lost digestive heroes such as the mid-19th-century Samuel Larned, who left society behind to live in a perfectionist community called Fruitlands. There, he spent one year of his life eating nothing but crackers. Another year he subsisted entirely on apples.

Much like Larned, when faced with real problems, MAHA offers absurd solutions. Lurking beneath Kennedy’s appeal lies the long-standing issue of the sanctity of the American body — not simply the body politic, but the actual bodies of Americans which have been eviscerated by junk food, GMOs, and pharmaceuticals. Into the polluted battlefield gallops RFK Jr on his white horse, promising to stop the FDA’s suppression of sunshine (yes, sunshine. Check X feed @RobertKennedyJr). He has vowed to make America safe for psychedelics, hyperbaric therapies, horse tranquilisers, and of course raw milk — the vaunted cure for ailments as varied as hypertension, heart disease, chronic gastritis, eczema, and psoriasis. As for the concomitant risks of salmonellosis, brucellosis, listeriosis, tuberculosis? Nothing but fright tactics of the Deep State, co-opted by dairy-industry stooges to ensnare lacto-fermentation scofflaws.

“Lurking beneath Kennedy’s appeal lies the long-standing issue of the sanctity of the American body.”

Kennedy exploits a fear of impurity that has always haunted America — and more often than not has been centred around the gut. In the 17th century, puritan divines, led by Cotton Mather, were firmly convinced that the cure for a cough, dropsy, nightmares, and “bloody flux” (whatever that might be) was a gentle vomit. Mather’s list of enteric aphorisms included the dire warning: “Look after thy stomach.” And long before the great Satan was diabetes-inducing breakfast cereal, it was that demon, hasty pudding. “Few things are more deceptive to children or adults, than these soft lazy dishes,” food philosopher Dr. William Andrus Alcott warned in 1838.

RFK channels the days when America was truly Great — when frontier eating raged and nothing was safe from our imperial mouths, not bear, skunk, rattlesnake, nor alligator, nor, as legend has it, the natives themselves, whom Davy Crockett scalped with his teeth. Liberals were stunned at the rumour that Kennedy had devoured a dog. What would they have made of the great Henry Hudson, who in 1609 sat down for a solemn feast with some upstate New York Wappingers for a feast of fatted canine? Much like Trump, Kennedy has positioned himself as the chosen one, promising to return us to the golden age of American consumption and re-invigorate our long-lost notion that we are the city on the hill, sacrosanct, strong in our isolation, confident in our direct relationship with the great god, the stomach.

It’s a trick that goes back to the days of Trump’s strongest presidential antecedent, Andrew Jackson. While the old general duelled on the White House lawn, the great American diet guru Sylvester Graham was the first to rail against store-bought processed foods, thus anticipating RFK Jr’s favourite political talking points. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1829, Graham soon became an advocate of extreme temperance. The harsh physical regimen he championed — proscribing meat, hard liquor, wine, coffee, tea, and tobacco — would have impressed the staunchest of contemporary podcasting bros (except, of course, that part about no sex).

Above all, Graham believed in the transcendent wonders of bread — that is, bread created from unsifted and unbolted flour. He scorned the professionally baked varieties with their immoral additives, such as alum and chlorine. Thousands attended his histrionic lectures, which gained credence the more they were threatened by throngs of apoplectic butchers and bakers. Naturally, he would have been appalled by the sugar content of his modern, eponymous cracker. Though oddly enough, like so many health gurus who came after him, Graham did not live to be old. He was 58 when he succumbed to what his physician cited as a superfluity of warm baths and an overdose of mineral water.

Two centuries later, the American cult of the body and body-image has grown even more pervasive. As is clear from TikTok and Instagram, the online Right is not only obsessed with micromanaging ingestion, but with muscle mass, protein packs, anabolic protocols, and Popeye forearms. The MAGA male body can and will be remade by any means necessary, to hell with the heart palpitations and suicidal ideation. The result has been the newest entry into the taxonomy of body dysmorphia, Bigorexia.

When it comes to Kennedy, the swole American’s idol, all this eating and not-eating and buffing and vomiting may be moot, as Trump officials have recently expressed doubt that the Senate will confirm a man for a Cabinet-level position who has been known to deposit dead bear cubs in Central Park. Then again, new Chief of Staff Susie Wiles may give the go-ahead for an appointment as some sort of hazy “Health Czar”, which only requires a wave of Trump’s royal hand.

The problem with America is not sexism, racism, inflation, immigration, or boys playing girls’ volleyball. It’s not income inequality, China, or the price of gasoline. The real crisis is and always has been dyspepsia — which way back in 1830, the Encyclopedia Americana declared the most common of all American ailments. And RFK Jr, a man who possesses not a single scientific or medical credential, has at long last arrived as the saviour of the American stomach. He has railed against the threat of Froot Loops — and in these parts, that’s enough.


Frederick Kaufman is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and a professor of English and Journalism at the College of Staten Island. His next project is a book about the world’s first political reactionary.

FredericKaufman

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Martin M
Martin M
29 days ago

Liberals were stunned at the rumour that Kennedy had devoured a dog“. Why would anybody be even remotely surprised about a suggestion like that? 

Howard Ahmanson
Howard Ahmanson
27 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

What’s wrong with eating dogs?

Michael Layman
Michael Layman
29 days ago

It’s going to be a lot of fun chaos as Americans will never give up their addiction to fast and processed foods, though there are rightfully a number of anti-vaxxers.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
29 days ago

Not hard to tell that the writer has almost no clue about RFK Jr’s views. I would suggest reading his books and listening to some of the many longform interviews he has given in recent years.
Whether or not he receives a cabinet post, he has already won, because the MSM can no longer ignore and marginalise him. He has a platform now to explain what has gone so badly wrong for people’s health due to Big Pharma, Big Ag and Big Food (or perhaps the writer thinks the US is the home of people of worldbeating health and longevity?).

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
29 days ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

I’m no fan of people like Tony Fauci, but at least he has spent his career as a doctor in the medical field, and has written many scientific papers and read hundreds more. To top that off he has spent a career in government and proven to be a talented bureaucrat.
Bobby Kennedy is verry bright and persuasive. But he is a trial lawyer by training and career and he doesn’t know the first thing about science or medicine. He has no training and no knowledge base in science and he has no experience running an organization. He continually misrepresents scientific studies in court filings, in his books and writings, and in interviews.
Bobby Kennedy understands the problems — we all do. But he has no good ideas as to solutions and no talent to lead others to solve them. He’s an attack dog, one who often unfairly goes after people who are at least making an effort to solve problems. He’s like a Greta Thunberg, a negative force instead of a positive one, doing more harm than good.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
28 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Tony Fauci is a joke. Through the NIH he funded dangerous gain of function developments outside the US with very few safeguards.
He flip flopped on masks for covid (don’t work, do work, double mask now!), covid vaccines (stop transmission, don’t stop transmission, stop you dying, don’t stop you dying but you must have a shot every 6 months anyway).
He appears to have been consequentially wrong on many things and I look forward to a full investigation and accountability of his time heading up government agencies like the NIH.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
28 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Like I said, I’m no fan of Tony Fauci. He did make a lot of mistakes. But at least he went to medical school, did an internship and a residency, became a licensed doctor who treated patients throughout his 39-year career as the highest-ranked (and highest-paid) medical professional in the country.
What does Bobby Kennedy know about medicine? What training has he had? What experience does he have? None and none. I know a lot of trial lawyers like him. He’s like John Edwards, the Democratic politician who ran for vice president with John Kerry in 2004. John Edwards sounded very persuasive when he stood in court in front of a jury and got them to award tens of millions of dollars in medical malpractice suits. But it was all smoke and mirrors.
I don’t know what Bobby Kennedy feels in his heart, but I do know that much of what he tells us is false. He identifies the problems well enough, but he doesn’t have the solutions he claims to. He’s selling snake oil, and we shouldn’t buy it.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
28 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I don’t know where to begin. Have you read his book on Fauci? Everything in it is evidenced, it will have been lawyered over for months, and I have heard that much was taken out because it might not stand up in court, but neither Fauci nor Gates have sued over the complete destruction of their reputations contained therein. Why is that?
Perhaps an anecdote will help. Fauci spent years pouring public scorn on RFK Jr’s claim that ‘None of the 72 shots on the US Childhood Vaccine Schedule has received a pre-licensing placebo-controlled trial’. It does sound like an outrageous claim, doesn’t it? RFK Jr asked Fauci to supply evidence of a single trial, but none was forthcoming, so ICAN sued the US Govt to obtain the information. The govt was forced to back down and admit that no such trials have been carried out.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
28 days ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

I’m not defending Tony Fauci. But he’s gone. What he did in the past doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do now. And Bobby Kennedy offers no solution to the problems we face.
Bobby Kennedy doesn’t understand the science. He has no management skills or experience. Like all litigators he only knows how to go to war and attack people and destroy things. Well the war’s over now, and we need to rebuild. How can he help?

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
27 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

“Bobby Kennedy doesn’t understand the science.”.
Have you read his books?

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
27 days ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

I’ve read what he’s written and I’ve listened to what he says. He misinterprets scientific studies and even lies about what they say. Take his claim that WiFi breaks down the brain-blood barrier. That’s absurd.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
27 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I wasn’t aware of this claim, but this may be rooted in what appears to have been a valid topic of research from this extensive literature review on the topic I’ve just found: https://bioinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/sec10_2012_Effects_Electromagnetic_Fields_Wireless_Communication.pdf

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
27 days ago
Reply to  Nik Jewell

Sure, the effect of electromagnetic radiation on the human body is a valid topic of research. That’s why people like my father devoted their careers to researching it. And they found no evidence that any electromagnetic radiation from wifi or cell phones had any effect on the blood-brain barrier.

Papers like the one you found cannot be taken seriously. Their methodology is flawed. We should be open to the possibility that people may find new evidence of a problem, but we should not do like Bobby Kennedy has done and lie about the state of the science.

I think Bobby Kennedy’s politics are fine. He’s passionate and persuasive, and politics are beliefs that cannot be proven or disproven. But science is all about proof. To lie about science disqualifies him from leading an organization devoted to science like the Department of Health.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
27 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

The paper is a literature review of 120 published studies with multiple authors. All these authors were presumably “absurd” too? You have not characterised the respect in which you find its methodology flawed. (NB I have no drum to beat here, I have no idea whether there is any merit in the claim)
Can you comment on the medical credentials of the current HHS secretary? Or many of his predecessors?

Peter Fogelqvist
Peter Fogelqvist
26 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

No no. What Fauci did does matter. It’s not that simple just to forgive and forget. We have to hold people responsible for the Covid response to account. This is serious stuff. The adult way is not just to forget but to dig deep and find out what actually happened.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
28 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I think you’re conflating scientific training with good public health policy.Fauci was an utter disgrace irrespective of his CV-

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
27 days ago

I’m just saying that someone who knows nothing about the science underlying public health is in a poor position to make good policy.

Peter Fogelqvist
Peter Fogelqvist
26 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Do you know what background the current Secretary for Health and Human services has? Look it up.

N Forster
N Forster
29 days ago

The second bitchy hit piece in Unherd in as many days. This reads like something from the Guardian comments section. More errors, generalisations and misrepresentations than I care to list.
Unherd: Could do better.

Martin Dunford
Martin Dunford
29 days ago

Everyone agrees chronic disease epidemic in the US is linked to an appalling diet high on processed foods and sugar. That is what Kennedy wants to change. As for big pharma and vaccines, they’ve been convicted of so many felonies it’s a joke. Profit before people should be their motto.
What a dishonest and biased article. A pure hit job on Kennedy !

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
28 days ago
Reply to  Martin Dunford

indeed-and to be fair-he’s in great nick-70 or not!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

This was journalism at the level of The View

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
29 days ago

The author makes a comment about fluoridation of drinking water and labels those concerned as conspiracy theorists. Has the author read Dr. Marty Makary’s latest book where he shows that fluoridation is associated with a whole host of medical issues. Makary is no conspiracy theorist. Her is an internationally renowned surgeon at Johns Hopkins as well as an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine. Perhaps the author needs to do some more homework before writing drivel.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

Message to Mr. Kaufman on behalf of MSM: I think you’ll find he’s already won that argument…

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
29 days ago

 The 70-year-old reformed cocaine dealer and heroin addict is not so much dangling the prospect of Kennedy glitz returning to the White House, as he is on his knees, begging to be the Drug Czar, and make America safe for polio.
Seriously? We’re aware of his past substance issues. And? When your piece starts with this sort of narrative, what follows is not going to be journalism; it’s going to be advocacy based on demonizing any position not in line with your own. “Safe for polio.” Okay, Karen.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
29 days ago

Sos we’re about to find out whether being unvaxed vegans will make MAGA people healthier than the rest of us. Good luck with that.

Max More
Max More
29 days ago
Reply to  Alan Gore

Vegans? I thought right wingers were supposed to be meat eaters?

David Colquhoun
David Colquhoun
29 days ago

The howls of rage from anti-vaxxers in the comments are what I expected from Unherd readers. I have a question for them. It is, surely, generally acknowledged that the future prosperity of the UK will be strongly dependent on science and technology. Science shows that vaccines work. The fact that the hard right insists on denying scientific reality makes them look like luddites.

McExpat M
McExpat M
29 days ago

Yes they do work and Kennedy has said as much. Yes we need to get back to science and not The Science. Decades of corporate interest lobbying and fealty to progressive politics has meant a lot of the science we have been relying on to inform our policy and the lives of hundreds of millions of people needs some careful reconsideration.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
29 days ago
Reply to  McExpat M

We also need to get rid of, “l am the science” types.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
29 days ago
Reply to  Bret Larson

We do need skeptics who are not like Tony Fauci. But it would help if they are not like Bobby Kennedy too, a man who is anti-science. He has no science background and has no idea how it works. On Joe Rogan he said that there are hundreds of studies that show that WiFi breaks down the blood-brain barrier and causes diseases. Hundreds of studies, he said. He’s wrong. There’s not hundreds of studies. There’s not even one.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
28 days ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I have a hard time defending science. Most people have no idea what it can actually say. And it has nothing to do with what party they vote for. The understanding of basic technology and the science behind it is minimal to vanishing.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
29 days ago

Do you mean climate change is real? And the earth is not flat? And vaccines actually work? What a shock that would be to most unherd readers, even if presented with evidence of the “science ” , it’s still not real because the “science ” is not real. Good luck dealing with that, luddites sounds complementary with this crowd

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
29 days ago

Who is saying that vaccines don’t work?
Are you sure that you have a basic understanding of science yourself?

Tony Price
Tony Price
29 days ago

Who needs experts?

Chris Roberts
Chris Roberts
29 days ago

Is it not a good goal to encourage good health, regardless of how?

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
29 days ago

This author’s bile and biases swarm through his every word ….

El Uro
El Uro
29 days ago

I remember how we ate sparrows roasted over a fire as children. It was delicious! And the article is stupid because it is senselessly evil.

diane dodge
diane dodge
29 days ago

Garbage.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
29 days ago

Why does Unherd continue to publish articles by this fool? He has no idea what he is saying, no clue as to what RFK stands for. He’s just a Trump-basher whooping it up to impress other Trump-bashers with his clumsy, awful writing. Please stop inflicting this man on your readers. He’s not worthy of this site.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
29 days ago

Great article and funny as well. RFK will fit right in there with the coming Trump show. I guess someone ‘sophisticated ‘like RFK is needed to tell Americans that eating less fat, sugar and salt, managing weight and getting some exercise will be good for you. Wow , what a revelation that will be, no one listens to doctors but RFK will be OK. The great health revolution is coming, in 4 years everyone will be fit and healthy, just in time for the great war with China

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
29 days ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

Frederick is that you?

Sj Kay
Sj Kay
29 days ago

If I wanted to read this sort of poorly researched tripe I’d have continue my subscription to the Times or Telegraph. Whenever I read ad hominem attacks I find it hard to give any credence at all to the article. This is tedious mainstream type stuff.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
28 days ago
Reply to  Sj Kay

Well said. Mud-slingin’ ain’t arguin’, after all ….

Gwynneth Andrus
Gwynneth Andrus
28 days ago

Unherd’s journalism standards are slipping.

Matt Waters
Matt Waters
26 days ago

More disappointing out of touch liberal garbage. Unherd unfortunately is serving up the same old slop as the Atlantic etc. Unherd more like IveHerd this already.

Cristina Bodor
Cristina Bodor
26 days ago

This article is fit for NYT.

Peter Fogelqvist
Peter Fogelqvist
26 days ago

This is just a hit piece not worthy to be published. I would not have any problem with it if the article had been well researched and thought through but it isn’t.

stacy kaditus
stacy kaditus
22 days ago

.