Goldberg: Trump’s surgeon general pick pits MAHA vs. MAHA

Like the divine intelligence of the universe the list of reasons that wellness influencer Casey Means should not be surgeon general is vast For one thing she never completed her health residency She s mentioned that she dropped out of her operation after a revelation about the corruption of the soundness care field but the former chair of the department that oversaw her training communicated the Los Angeles Times that she left because of anxiety Means believes that the biological industry wants to make people sick to profit from their healing so she shows little interest in expanding access to traditional wellbeing care In her bestselling book Good Strength The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Vitality she argues that metabolic disorders caused by unhealthy lifestyles are at the root of virtually every illness including cancer infertility heart condition and depression Failure to address the fundamental causes of these maladies means that the more access to medical care and medications we provide to patients the worse the outcomes get Means is obviously correct that the American diet is a mishap and the greater part people would benefit from better sleep more exercise and stress-control techniques like meditation What s insidious in her philosophy is the notion that good choices and a positive attitude can obviate the need for modern pharmaceuticals Physical condition is alas never limitless even with the ENERGYbits algae tablets Means hawks on her website She is a vaccine skeptic suggesting in her newsletter that the current extreme and growing vaccine schedule is causing strength declines in vulnerable children She s also a critic of birth control pills as she recounted Tucker Carlson last year The things that give life in this world which are women and soil we have tried to dominate and shut down the cycles What underlies the infighting These views however are not the reason that specific of Donald Trump s supporters erupted into virtual civil war after he nominated Means to be surgeon general last week Trump tapped her after withdrawing his first choice former Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat who was ascertained to have exaggerated her credentials Means is a close ally of Robert F Kennedy Jr now the secretary of fitness and human services Yet much of Kennedy s Make America Healthy Again or MAHA movement has revolted against her nomination It s a rift that underscores the instability of a political coalition built on paranoia distrust and the dogged pursuit of social media clout Among the loudest voices railing against Means is Laura Loomer the conspiracy theorist who has achieved an outsize role in a few of Trump s personnel decisions In a post on the social platform X she zeroed in on Means new-age spiritual practices detailed in a newsletter article Means wrote about finding love at The surgeon general nominee described working with a medium doing full-moon ceremonies and plant medicine experiences and asking for help from trees Loomer called her a crackpot and warned without a trace of irony The inmates are running the asylum At first glance it might seem that we ve fallen so far into the upside down that Loomer has emerged as a voice of reason but that isn t quite true Means enemies in both MAGA and MAHA circles may think that emphasizing her woo-woo beliefs is the best way to sink her nomination But in truth the bulk of them aren t opposed to Means because she s outside the therapeutic mainstream They oppose her because she s not far outside enough especially when it comes to vaccines which she has raised doubts about but not denounced as agents of mass murder Even before her nomination particular anti-vax influencers had grown suspicious of Means and her brother Calley a wellness entrepreneur now working with HHS They saw the pair as sketchy parvenus who were diverting their movement s attention from vaccines to food perhaps at the behest of shadowy outside forces After the Means siblings appeared on Carlson s podcast last year right-wing radio host Shannon Satisfaction devoted an entire episode of her show to raising red flags about them Curative freedom newcomers Calley and Casey Means have burst onto the scene seemingly overnight are very highly platformed and while I appreciate their concerns about food and chronic wellness it is slightly bizarre to me that they continually minimize the impact of vaccines she declared Not anti-vax enough Now that Means has been tapped to become surgeon general such suspicions have led to a very society rift in Kennedy s world Nicole Shanahan his former running mate wrote online that someone not Trump seemed to be secretly controlling Kennedy With regards to the siblings there is something very artificial and aggressive about them almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets she declared Related Articles Facing billion Trump slump Newsom wants to pause Medi-Cal enrollment for immigrants Another sign that Elon Musk s businesses are benefiting big from his role as Donald Trump s first buddy Alameda County aids in Supreme Court challenge to Trump administration Lopez Trump s immigration reforms are reshaping the meaning of being American Why a contentious project to raise California s Shasta Dam could move forward under Trump Naomi Wolf a liberal feminist turned anti-vax conspiracy theorist wrote It looks to me as if both Casey Means and Calley Means have been sent to us by scarier interests than the CIA describing them as a spearhead for Silicon Valley powers hoping to harvest American s biometric records Mike Adams who runs Natural News an influential right-wing alternative robustness site mentioned of Means She s an impostor she s a plant Kennedy has responded to these attacks by accusing Means detractors of being paid shills for big food which as you can maybe imagine has made chosen of them even angrier For decades he s been telling people that monstrous totalitarian powers control the healthcare system In the subculture he s helped build scientific knowledge is uncovered not in peer-reviewed articles but down internet rabbit holes and all appeals to authority are necessarily suspect Now the dark energies he s manifested are coming back to haunt him I am becoming increasingly wary of the forces in the world that tell us to silence our intuition in favor of linear thinking and expert advice Means once wrote If MAHA types intuit that there s something off about her who can tell them otherwise Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist