Reason Speakeasy: Elizabeth Nolan Brown on the MAHA Movement

What happens when the culture wars go paleo?

Only a dozen years ago, GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin defiantly sipped from a Big Gulp and Fox News’ Sean Hannity declared, “I like junk food.” Republicans and conservatives denounced First Lady Michelle Obama’s school-lunch crusade and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s holy war against salt and supersized sodas as the worst sort of nanny-state excesses.

Now, President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is leading the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement and calling for a return to tallow fries and an end to synthetic food dyes.

As Reason Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown says in magazine’s July cover story, it’s as if the nutritional fixations of hipster Brooklyn in the aughts have switched sides in the culture wars.

Join Brown and Reason Editor at Large Nick Gillespie for a provocative live conversation about how the American right flipped the script on health, wellness, and food freedom. What does RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement reveal about the strange new alliances between alt-wellness influencers, culture warriors, and government regulators? Is this a libertarian opportunity to dismantle the medical-industrial complex or a new flavor of nanny-state authoritarianism?

From trad wives to protein-maxxing to alternative medicine, we’ll unpack the realignment of food politics and how to think about the future of public health, individual freedom, and the weird shadows being cast by the latest food pyramid.

We’ll meet at the Blue Building, located at 222 East 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and Nick’s conversation with Brown will begin at 7 p.m., followed by audience Q&A and a reception. Tickets include beer, wine, soft drinks, and a selection of healthy and unhealthy appetizers.

Also check out other Health & Wellness events in New York.