The Danger of RFK Jr. and the MAHA Movement: When Wellness Becomes a Weapon

If you spend time in rural communities like mine, you’ve probably heard someone say: “Well, at least RFK Jr. is talking about food and health.”

But let’s be real clear—talking about food systems and public health isn’t the same thing as actually supporting the people who grow the food and need the care. The “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, wrapped in the language of clean eating and personal freedom, is doing real harm to the very communities it claims to uplift.

RFK Jr. and MAHA push a seductive message: that health is something you can control on your own if you just eat right, detox, and reject “the system.” But that’s not how it works—not for farmers, and not for families.

John Shoffner examines a fresh crop of purple hull peas.

As a farmer and someone who’s spent her life in rural America, I’m here to say: this movement is dangerous, and it’s not on our side.

It pretends food can replace healthcare.

We grow food. We believe in its power to heal, nourish, and build strong bodies. But food alone doesn’t prevent pandemics. It doesn’t treat diabetes or deliver babies. It doesn’t stop cancer or restore rural clinics. MAHA’s message—that if you just eat well, you won’t need the doctor—

ignores the systemic barriers rural folks face to actual, affordable care.

It romanticizes “natural” while ignoring the real-life struggle of farmers.

RFK Jr. praises regenerative farming and talks about breaking up Big Ag. Sounds good on the surface. But where is the actual policy to support farmers making that transition? Where are the investments in infrastructure and land access. The rhetoric is kind of there—but not the resources.

It endangers public health in rural areas.

When you undermine trust in vaccines, medicine, and public institutions, you leave rural folks—especially kids and elders—more vulnerable. We already lack hospitals and OBs. Now RFK Jr. wants to erode what little public health trust we have left? That’s not “freedom.” That’s negligence.

It hobbles farmers.

RFK Jr. loves to blame “chemicals” for everything—but he’s never had to battle pigweed in 100-degree heat or save a crop after a flood. The truth is, many farmers use inputs like herbicides and fertilizers because they have to—not because they want to.

Farming is tough, and in places like the Delta, we deal with extreme weather, invasive pests, and razor-thin margins. Until there’s meaningful support to help farmers transition to regenerative methods, we can't afford to pretend that slogans are solutions.

If RFK Jr. really cared about farmers, he’d talk about real policy—not just fear and shame.

It distracts from the real food fight.

The true path to health in rural America looks like:

• Farm to school programs (cancelled by DOGE)

• SNAP access at farmers markets (cancelled by DOGE)

• Local processing facilities (threatened by tariffs)

• Support for women- and BIPOC-owned farms (cancelled by Trump)

• Clean water, land access, and fair labor (actively gutting federal agencies)

But RFK Jr. doesn’t fight for those things. He just talks about them while sowing disinformation and division.

We need to reclaim the narrative.

Food is not a weapon.

Health is not a performance.

And farmers are not political pawns.

Don't be fooled by the MAHA movement's shiny language if you care about local food, rural health, and honest work. It may wear the mask of clean eating and freedom, but underneath, it’s just another attempt to divide and distract us from the real fight: building resilient food systems and healthy rural communities for all.