Trump and RFK Jr.: A Sea Change in Washington?

Joel Salatin|September 28, 2024

MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) and MAGA (Make America Great Again) have teamed up with the end of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign and the endorsement of the Donald Trump campaign.

This is a wonderful alignment on many levels, signaling perhaps a new awareness among conservatives.

First, in full transparency, I have been courted by the RFK Jr. team to endorse him, to be on his farm policy advisory board, etc.

I’ve been a guest on his podcast twice. I’m friends with his inner sanctum. But I would not endorse or commit to vote for him. However, I noted that I could appreciate someone who has sued the federal government more than 200 times.

My problem is that all these suits were demanding that agencies do more. I would advocate for abolishing the agencies altogether.

Therein lies my primary disagreement with RFK Jr.

An Unusual Pairing

He thinks good bureaucrats can be found and cultivated. I think power at the federal level corrupts, eventually, no matter what. Better to leave power in the hands of nongovernmental folks, even though that can produce some wild-west jockeying.

The one thing this change shows is that RFK Jr. is truly a man of convictional integrity. He went against his family legacy, his current family thinking, most of his friends – goodness, Kennedys and Democrats go together like hand and glove.

To throw all that away is something few people would ever consider, let alone actually do. I confess that RFK Jr. as a man has gone way up on my respect-o-meter, in my estimation, as a result of this change.

Isn’t it interesting that Kamala Harris would not give him the time of day, but Trump gave him an audience?

Here’s a fascinating pairing. Environmentalism, wellness, and compost have been the darlings of liberals. This is why I chose the moniker “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer” several years ago.

I became increasingly frustrated at the automatic “organic farmer” box that required unquestioned loyalty to teachers unions, transgender policies, the defund the police movement, internet censorship, global warming, mandatory electric vehicles, open borders, and all the other liberal agendas.

Many times major media outlets, when interviewing me, would ask incredulously how I could be a Christian and make compost. Those two things simply don’t go together in the liberal view.

How Times Have Changed

During the pandemic, most of the organic farming community fell in step with the lockdowns and the orthodox narrative spewing from Anthony Fauci’s mouth. The schism tore apart many longstanding friendships within the ecological farming community. Mine included.

RFK Jr. represented, if anything, the core of non-chemical agriculture. Who could dispute his love for the environment? Who could dispute his career suing agencies to crack down on concentrated animal feeding operations?

Nobody had the street cred within the non-chemical, local food, compost-loving agriculture community like he did. He was universally loved and appreciated for taking on big ag.

But then came Covid. As liberals aligned behind Fauci’s narrative, conservatives found their voices censored, muzzled, and demonized.

Kennedy, whose personal and children’s journey through injuries resulting from mainstream medicine and junk food, found himself politically homeless. Ostracized by conservatives for loving trees and vilified by liberals for loving individual healthcare choices.

And he had the unmitigated gall to use his large platform to question everything…

What infuriated both liberals and conservatives was that people listened.

He became a rallying point for political homelessness. Conservatives overlooked his liberal tendencies in order to embrace his anti-censorship and health freedom positions. Liberals overlooked his anti-system rhetoric and found authenticity.

Kennedy desperately wanted to leverage his political equity to salvage some of the ideas from his campaign. In what must have been a most agonizing decision, he reached out to both Harris and Trump. He talked to Trump, who apparently listened and extended his hand.

This is remarkable. It illustrates a fundamental loyalty and thinking shift at high levels of government.

Talk About It

That Trump would embrace the MAHA viewpoint is notable. Think for just a minute what would happen if Trump put RFK Jr. in at the cabinet level position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Or Secretary of Agriculture.

In my perfect world, we would have neither of those agencies, but an RFK Jr. in charge of either one would completely invert everything to a more ecological and healthful approach. That would be a radical departure from both historically conservative and liberal agendas.

Conservatives can’t dump chemicals on farmland fast enough. The liberals can’t get rid of cows fast enough. RFK Jr. is a maverick who would upend everything, and at this point, that would be a good thing.

Nobody else at that level talks about chronic noninfectious morbidity. Nobody talks about the U.S. being No. 1 in the world in heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune disorders.

Finally, someone on the national stage is talking about cultural health and wellness… not handouts.

If conservatives can own this overall healthy people and healthy soil theme, it could shake up the traditional alignments with ecology and wellness.

The deck is being reshuffled, it seems, and that’s a good thing.

Perhaps conservatives can own the stewardship agenda after all.