The Make America Healthy Again movement wasn’t always tied to Donald Trump. Although many of its core followers share Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bogus skepticism of vaccines, a belief more prevalent on the right than the left, Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary was a Democratic and independent candidate before endorsing Trump in 2024 for a reason: Kennedy has supporters across the political spectrum.
And now, that tension is coming to a head: As Anna North explains in her illuminating new piece, the marriage of convenience between MAHA and MAGA is heading toward a divorce. And that has huge implications for the 2028 elections and beyond. Along with vaccines, a number of MAHA adherents care about strengthening environmental regulations and breaking up corporate oligarchies — issues that Democrats could be very comfortable getting behind. In other words, rather than just a faction of the right, MAHA is now a swing-voter constituency that’s up for grabs — one that both parties have the opportunity to attract, if they’re savvy enough to seize the opportunity.
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—Seth Maxon, politics, policy, and ideas editor
