You Cannot Break Bread With MAHA
Stop Doing Free Marketing for Your Enemies
Some issues are a matter of science. Some are a matter of politics. Some are but neither; instead, a matter of my professional field of advertising. “Make America Healthy Again” is a marketing brand for all sorts of scam artists, exploitative quacks, and reactionary grifters who are repackaging a mountain of revolting bullshit and selling it as liberation from The Medical Establishment. This is not a “movement,” nor a grassroots gathering of everyday Americans with legitimate concerns. Anyone insisting otherwise is trying to sell you something.
It’s a damned shame that even now in 2026, there are still those among us who fail to comprehend that the decades-long yet always wrong, anti-vaccine crusade against modern medicine can never be placated. There is no magical number of concessions you can make that these bloodthirsty sadists will consider a reasonable compromise. There is no limit to the number of human lives you can sacrifice to Pestilence that will satisfy them. Their “politics” is rooted in domination, humiliation, and dragging you like a dog on a leash further and further down the drain into their anti-intellectual human centipede of reactionary filth.
The Atlantic: America’s Leading Medical Disinformation Hub
Now it’s worth remembering that The Atlantic has spent the COVID-19 pandemic becoming a central hub for the widespread distribution of medical disinformation. This flood of unscientific opinion editorials includes embarrassing diatribes such as:
“Schools Aren’t Super Spreaders” by economist Emily Oster
“Your Unvaccinated Kid is Like a Vaccinated Grandma” by economist Emily Oster
“Governments need to give Americans an off-ramp to the post-pandemic world” by genAI fanboy Derek Thompson
“The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown” by Emma Green
“Why Are We Even Talking About Using COVID Restrictions” by Ross Barkan
“Stop Wasting COVID Tests, People!” by Benjamin Mazer
“The Case Against Masks At School,” published in January 2022 - just after the pediatric COVID death toll had doubled in a few short months and during the worst month for pediatric COVID deaths on record
“Masking Policy is Incredibly Irrational Right Now” by economist Emily Oster
“Immunity Debt Was Worth It” by Benjamin Mazer
“Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty” by Emily Oster, an economist
“It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Pandemic: Biden is Paying the Price for America’s Unprocessed COVID Grief”
The Atlantic did not learn any lessons from its years of enabling MAHA’s rise to power. Instead in 2026, they are green-lighting such garbage as “Public Health Needs MAHA,” by Craig Spencer, a once-respected medical professional from the same Brown University that turned a blind eye to the gross misconduct of faculty members Emily Oster and Ashish Jha. In it, Spencer unironically argues that public health is “too cautious, setting the bar for evidence too high,” and that they “must swallow its pride and admit where the insurgent movement is right.” This was met with considerable and predictable backlash, which led to a longform defense by podcaster Tom W. Johnson, host of Why Should I Trust You, titled: “Why Dr. Craig Spencer Got It Right: His article, ‘Public Health Needs MAHA,’ describes an opportunity. We see it too. His detractors are missing its message.”
What you might not know is that Craig has spent a considerable amount of time appearing on the podcast Why Should I Trust You alongside anti-vaccine propagandists Tom has gleefully invited on, such as Bret Weinstein, who has demanded public executions of doctors & scientists. Another WSITY guest is close associate of RFK Jr. and anti-vaccine propagandist Del Bigtree. Here is Bigtree inciting violence:
This is who Craig and Tom, two fellow well-off white men, want us to reach across the aisle and break bread with. Del Bigtree makes his money peddling lies and conspiracies that are completely detached from reality and has no incentive to ever admit error. Craig and Tom insist that this astroturfed “movement” is something we must approach with humility, admitting guilt to their many obscene accusations:
Craig is not alone in this. Katelyn Jetelina of the popular Substack Your Local Epidemiologist has also appeared on Why Should I Trust You? and written extensively about her time breaking break with MAHA reactionaries, whitewashing their actual beliefs with paywalled articles such as “What I’m learning from MAHA: And why public health needs to catch up with the curiosity-driven movement” - achieving nothing except producing free marketing for those actively campaigning to destroy public health in its entirety. This is a disservice to the public, a betrayal of professional colleagues, and to be frank: disgustingly exploitative of a crisis.
The Cowardice of Selective Amnesia
Craig Spencer opens his Atlantic screed by admitting that he spent hours upon hours subjecting himself to the manipulative propaganda of MAHA scam artists, not realizing that he himself is not impervious to their dishonest influence upon his thinking. He takes the side of MAHA, insisting that his professional colleagues in science and medicine are all foolish for refusing to legitimize their scams and ridiculous accusations. The only way you can possibly believe we can reach some sort of acceptable middle ground with MAHA is by willfully ignoring what they have actually said and done, such as using genAI to generate fraudulent citations:
This also requires that we ignore a mountain of dead children who have died of vaccine-preventable causes, simply because their parents were deceived by anti-vaccine scam artists such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Del Bigtree. Here is Scott and Tom’s buddy Bret Weinstein, not a pediatrician, arguing that children should receive zero vaccines on RFK Jr.’s anti-vax propaganda hub:
What is to be “learned” from someone who profits from spreading lies that result in absolutely nothing except dead children? There are countless stories of parents who were misled by these cranks and as a result having to bury their unvaccinated child after they suffered a painful, agonizing death caused by COVID-19. These horror stories have to be completely erased in order to even begin to pretend that there is anything we can learn from MAHA crackpots.
Instead, we should be listening to voices such as Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkamp of Death Panel, who clearly see MAHA for what it is: health fascism.
The Spectacle of MAHA Fascism
Since the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors, scientists, and public health officials have been the target of an unwavering onslaught of abuse, including harassment, death threats, and real-world violence (such as murder and mass shootings) incited by MAHA ringleaders such as Bret Weinstein & Del Bigtree. Their commitment to use violence & intimidation to suppress & censor the facts is an undeniably fascist tactic. Their ideology is rooted is eugenics, a fascist worldview, as explained by virologist James Alwine & epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs. They are not afraid to speak the truth:
“The administration, right-wing politicians, and the MAGA movement seem to have taken it upon themselves to eugenically cleanse the Earth of poor, non-white people.”
It is completely obscene for someone like Tom W. Johnson, a podcaster with no real-world responsibility, to censor the actual beliefs of MAHA - including demands for show trials & public executions - while insisting that medical professionals should grovel on their hands and knees, prostrating themselves upon the MAHA altar. This podcaster insists that MAHA is not to blame for their own actions because public health is “shunning” and “lashing out” at them, and that “the smart thing to do” is a “mindset change” in which they engage in a “dialogue” with the same people who want to watch them die.
What Tom is doing, with the help of credentialed public health professionals such as Spencer and Jetelina, is profiting from the anti-vaccine war on science by mining the “controversy” for content. This is what is called “infotainment,” something James Spader’s Alan Shore was ranting about on Boston Legal over two decades ago as FOX News surged in popularity. Lending credibility to MAHA propagandists by insisting they have legitimate concerns & important, meaningful things to say is only made possible by completely erasing their actual words and actions. MAHA crackpots, who will believe any sensationalist conspiracy theory they hear on Twitter, are not going to be magically dissuaded by treating them with kid gloves or ignoring their bloodlust. Craig and Katelyn are betraying their professional colleagues and ultimately sabotaging their difficult work in order to elevate their own profiles.
The sad reality is Craig and Katelyn have abandoned any sort of commitment to science and medicine to instead pursue a career in becoming media figures, without a care for who gets hurt as a result. They are helping MAHA figureheads spread their exploitative propaganda & profit from scamming the public. It’s shameful, insulting, and frankly obscene. It’s Spencer and Jetelina, not their colleagues in public health, who need to go back to class and learn just what happens to those who choose to collaborate with fascists.
