Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to run the Department of Health and Human Services, many journalists have swiftly denounced his views, backing up their statements with scientific studies to combat his misinforming the public. The effect of these denouncements is that his ideas are so obviously false and dangerous. The frustration and fear of misinformation is legitimate. Yet it is necessary to explore why mainstream views on health are not obvious to many people. A loose group recently called “anti-corporate naturalists” by Ezra Klein share many of RFK Jr.’s beliefs (and his penchant for misinformation). Like RFK Jr., they seem impervious to refutations of their views regarding raw milk, vaccinations, fluoridation, and seed oils, among others. Rather than remaining confounded by this behavior, it is worth exploring the deeper premises informing their views. There is something about their beliefs that could seduce even someone like myself with liberal leanings and crunchy tendencies.

Anti-corporate naturalists represent an overlapping kaleidoscope of beliefs and groups which exist in online and geographic spheres. “Anti-corporate” describes their distrust of mainstream institutions, and “naturalist” highlights their advocacy for natural and organic lifestyles. Supporters of regenerative agriculture, alternative medicine, and the Paleo diet—and even Red Pill manosphere influencers like Joe Rogan— could all fall under this umbrella. Until recently, wellness groups like these have not united under a single political party. Now many have joined behind Donald Trump, revealing an underlying philosophy in common with his base.

Any interest in nutrition might lead one to online rabbit holes with an anti-corporate naturalist bent. This happened for me, prompting a switch to a mainly animal-based diet. Over time I did some seemingly strange things like drive across state lines to purchase raw milk and only use skincare products made with beef tallow. Even though I jumped at the chance to receive the first Covid vaccine, I heavily deliberated over the booster the following year. I harbored some secrecy around friends who shared my liberal politics, but, unlike me, weren’t skeptical of drugstore products or foods cooked in seed oils.

I was vulnerable to some conspirative takes because of my upbringing in the evangelical church. Even years after defecting from religion, it increased my capacity for credulousness and influenced how I thought about nature. I trusted in the potential for innate harmony within my body and the environment. This was demonstrated when, in my early twenties, I didn’t shampoo my hair for a year after reading that it was unhealthy to strip away the hair’s natural oils. I believed that ideal health could be reached if we yield to the wisdom of nature without intervention. As crunchy as that sounds, this philosophy is shared by anti-corporate naturalists, not only in their beliefs about nutrition, but also leading directly to their fear of vaccines. Clear evidence supporting vaccines is discarded because it does not align with their underlying belief in the goodness of nature.

However idealistic, there is truth to the view that health and balance could be reached if not for human interference. This ironically links the right and the left, yet on different scales. Those on the left tend to focus on mitigating our wider environmental impacts which lead to climate change. On the right, the focus is more personal. The goal is to enable individual choice to opt out of toxic food and from pharmaceutical industries. Additionally, there are differences in how each side attempts to repair the consequences of human interference: either by moving forward or looking backward. Progressives look forward, supporting technological advancements in the face of a complex and bewildering future. Those on the right, alternately, often find comfort in the promise of a former paradise. Anti-corporate naturalists exhibit this in their pursuit of primeval purity. It may explain their attraction to the false nostalgia of “Make America Great Again.” This Eden-ward yearning is where they overlap with evangelical Christians.

I was drawn into these wellness cultures, not by the evangelical church, but by glowing success stories in podcasts like Peak Human and Wise Traditions. There, holistic health experts described how the body will heal naturally once purified of toxins such as heavy metals and artificial ingredients. Their stories felt genuine, providing knowledge not offered through mainstream healthcare. Rather than the healthcare system, they called it the “sick-care system”: profiting from the pharmaceutical solutions it offers, without the patient’s lifelong health in mind. The stories invariably concluded with a few simple steps needed to experience transformation. I would listen with an almost religious devotion. In hindsight, it doesn’t take much to notice that this structure is also used by cults. Both lead with soaring success stories and straightforward steps, whether towards superior health or eternal life. Follow the straight and narrow. Continue with absolute purity in pursuit of the promised reward. This language is precisely what links wellness cultures, evangelical Christians, and Trump’s coalition. The world is fallen from grace, and out of harmony with nature, and not as great as it once was. Let’s look back to the Garden, when humans were robust, and their environment was pure.

After years of listening to wellness influencers, I found the blind spot: the mechanism of conspiracy and the disconnection from mainstream medicine. Anti-corporate naturalists wholeheartedly follow the idea that nature works in perfect harmony for humans. It’s a tempting thought but is blind to the fact that sometimes nature works in perfect harmony against humans. Some viruses are naturally great at killing us. Humanity has endured devastating plagues, many dying young from measles and smallpox, or living the rest of their lives paralyzed from polio. The risks of vaccination are miniscule in comparison. In the end no true purity can be claimed, not even by the most scrupulous homesteader.

I still embrace much that I’ve learned from holistic nutrition and alternative medicine. But I’m no longer vaccine-hesitant and no longer averse to taking pharmaceuticals. I’ve given up raw milk in light of its risks. Maybe I’ve arrived at a place that seems obvious, because I’m finally questioning the ideal that nature is always in service of humans. We’re hybrids of old and new; primates evolving alongside technology in imperfect conditions. Still, many anti-corporate naturalists have good instincts about health. What they offer is a holistic perspective, seeking health by way of root causes and the interconnection of bodily processes. This stands in contrast to the specialization of mainstream healthcare which gains knowledge through the isolation and study of separate symptoms and bodily systems. However, the anti-corporate naturalists’ downfall into misinformation is precisely because their desire for a complete picture causes them to blatantly disregard the benefits of specialized scientific research. But it should be now obvious why this research is often politicized and ignored. Science simply could never compare to the abiding mythos of primeval health, the pure Garden of our origins, and fantasies of what our country used to be.