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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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There’s always been debate about whether Donald Trump is anti-establishment or a member of the establishment. Since he is a billionaire, does he relate more to the billionaire class? Because he’s a Republican, will he always conform to Republican pressure? Because there’s photos of him with Epstein and Hillary, is his anti-establishment ethos just a larp?

His prospective appointments suggests that he is anti-establishment now. The appointees include:

  • Robert F Kennedy, one the most vocal critics against the pharmaceutical and processed food industries. His statements include: “the principal objective of the FDA today is to serve the mercantile interests of pharmaceutical” and “get President Trump back in the White House and me to DC so we can ban pharmaceutical advertising”. He has called for the regulation of unhealthy food, the banning of fluoride in tap water and the legalization of psychedelics. In Trump’s victory speech, Trump proudly stated that RFK will “go wild” with his blessing provided he doesn’t touch fracking or the oil industry. Many say his uncle was killed by the deep state.

  • Tulsi Gabbard, who has disputed the American account of Assad’s chemical weapon use, argued against the American funding of Ukraine, and argued against sanctions on Russia. She was placed on a heightened TSA terrorist watch list.

  • Rumors of Thomas Massie being tapped for agricultural secretary. He has the most controversial foreign policy view of any Republican politician. He wants the legalization of raw milk and more freedom involving small farms selling their produce. His stance is anti-corporate.

  • A possible link up with Ron Paul, the foremost anti establishment candidate of the late 00s.

If he goes through with these appointments — and to be fair, that’s a weighty if — I think it would make him the most anti-establishment president since Andrew Jackson.

  • Robert F Kennedy, one the most vocal critics against the pharmaceutical and processed food industries. [...] In Trump’s victory speech, Trump proudly stated that RFK will “go wild” with his blessing provided he doesn’t touch fracking or the oil industry. [...]

  • Rumors of Thomas Massie being tapped for agricultural secretary. [...] He wants the legalization of raw milk[...]

I assume Trump voters want a return to the economy prosperity they recall from 2017-2019, not to the whole having a pandemic thing of 2020. Hopefully we get lucky and H5N1 doesn't jump to humans (and my understanding is it's more likely it won't than it will), but if you wanted to maximize the chance of another pandemic, these are the policies you'd enact. Not that Biden has exactly been pro-active in doing anything about H5N1.

Although if we get a sufficiently anti-vax federal government we can just have some old-fashioned polio and measles epidemics.

People drank raw milk for thousands of years. Louis Pasteur only invented pastuerization in the 1860s. It wasn't until the early industrial era of contaminated factory dirt that raw milk began causing problems. Which is to say, pasteurization doesn't make milk safe to drink, it makes dirty contaminated milk safe to drink. Which isn't even a problem anymore because our cleanliness is better. Not to mention that the average cow used for raw milk lives in very healthy natural conditions compared to the feedlot pens used for factory farming mass milk cows.

I've been drinking raw milk on and off again for years. It's never made me sick. Raw milk is banned in certain states, but a dozen or so allow it, and more allow some workarounds. It would probably make the Founding Fathers sick to know that milk as they knew it is now illegal to drink in many places. What kind of liberty is that?

Anyways, the last pandemic probably didn't come from viruses in the food supply jumping to humans; it probably came from novel coronavirus funding. Prosecute the people responsible or bankrupt the institutes responsible. I don't know that either of those things will happen, but with Bobby Kennedy in government it's the likeliest chance we'll ever have.

I agree, at the very least direct-to-consumer raw milk should be perfectly legal. I wouldn't trust even something like a co-op creamery not to screw something up.