The Senate voted to approve RFK Jr.’s nomination 52-48, largely sticking to their get together strains. Notably, former Republican chief Sen. Mitch McConnell voted in opposition to Kennedy, the only Republican to do so.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed after a contentious affirmation listening to, which included a number of Democratic senators questioning his controversial stances on vaccines and different points. During the listening to, Glamour explored how he grew to become such a well-liked determine amongst so-called “MAHA Moms” on-line. That unique story is under.
ORIGINAL STORY: As I watched clips this week from RFK Jr.’s affirmation listening to to doubtlessly turn out to be the following secretary of Health and Human Services, I may solely slowly shake my head in disbelief.
This man? This man? This man, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the one that’s going to “make America wholesome once more”? The man who spends his time, according to his cousin Caroline Kennedy, making smoothies out of mice and chickens? The man with a worm in his brain? The man who solely drinks raw milk?
I’m not attempting to be judgmental of my fellow mothers right here. I simply can’t consider that is the particular person I’ve seen so many rally behind. During the listening to, Kennedy instructed a Black senator to her face that she ought to be on a unique vaccine schedule than white individuals. He’s insisted for many years that fully disproven hyperlinks between vaccines and autism are actual, harming thousands of people. An Esquire reporter wrote this week that when he talked about to Kennedy throughout a 2020 interview that his six-year-old son had battled leukemia, Kennedy requested him if his son had been vaccinated, implying the author may have been answerable for his baby’s most cancers. He, allegedly, sexually assaulted a babysitter. And these are only a few examples of Kennedy’s unfitness to serve.
Despite all the pieces, this is the man who I’ve watched numerous girls and moms on social media fawn over because the savior of the well being of our nation and our valuable, candy little infants. These girls have taken up his “make America wholesome once more” or “MAHA” mantle, proudly declaring Kennedy the hero who’s going to place “youngsters’ security first” and begin a generational revolution. Sorry, however what is going on right here?
Although it could really feel prefer it, Kennedy’s capability to seize the hearts and minds of so many ladies, particularly moms, shouldn’t be one thing that got here out of nowhere. It’s the newest growth in a long-simmering obsession with wellness and conspiracy theories on social media, one which has ensnared hundreds of ladies and continues to develop in prominence, as evidenced by Kennedy’s big quantities of assist on-line.
To again up: In 2020 in the course of the first lockdowns of the pandemic, I first began to notice that many wellness influencer mothers had been sharing issues that felt…off. They had been making obscure statements about not believing all the pieces you learn, in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic being some form of smokescreen, about praying for infants, and warning in opposition to “elites.”
