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vaccine. Now

0:40

the number of people getting the

0:43

flu shot never really recovered

0:45

after the pandemic-era COVID vaccination

0:47

fights. And over time, a

0:50

funny thing happened. The food

0:52

as medicine crowd, the anti-big-farma

0:54

crowd, the actually fluoride as

0:56

a toxin crowd, reached across

0:59

the aisle to the anti-coVID

1:01

mandate crowd, the anti-Anthany-fauchy crowd,

1:03

and in the middle of

1:06

that political horseshoe. was Robert

1:08

F. Kennedy Jr. and what

1:10

would become the Make America

1:12

Healthy Again movement. And

1:14

my advocacy, I've often

1:16

disturbed the status quo,

1:18

I asking uncomfortable questions.

1:21

And I'm not going to

1:23

apologize for that. We have

1:25

massive health problems in our countries

1:27

that we must face, honestly. And

1:29

the first thing I've done every

1:31

morning for the past 20 years

1:34

is to pray to God. that

1:36

he would put me in a

1:38

position where I can end the chronic

1:40

disease epidemic and protect our

1:42

children. While he may be its public

1:44

face, the backbone of the movement is

1:47

a virtual army of women known as

1:49

crunchy moms. I'm a crunchy mom. Of

1:51

course I'm going to keep telling you

1:53

that your Brita is not filtering out

1:56

what they're saying. We were never allowed

1:58

to get fluoride treatment. And trust me,

2:00

this rubbed a lot of dentists

2:02

the wrong way. Here's what I

2:04

eat for lunch as a high-fat,

2:06

five-year carnivore, seven fried eggs cooked

2:08

in beef fat, my usual stick

2:10

of cold butter straight out of

2:12

the fridge. Seed oils are horrible

2:15

for humans. Get them out of

2:17

your diet full stop. And with

2:19

RFK Jr. poised to take over

2:21

the Department of Health and Human

2:23

Services, this is their time. You

2:25

know... People may be scared of

2:27

RFK, but listen, RFK isn't going

2:29

to take away something that you

2:31

want to make the choice in

2:33

half. It's very important to have

2:35

your freedom to make the choices

2:37

that you want to make, but

2:39

it's also very important for me

2:41

to make the choices that I

2:43

want to make, and to do

2:45

so with informed consent. Just a

2:47

few decades ago, the word crunchy

2:49

might have evoked visions of Birkenstocks

2:52

and granola-eating liberals. Now it's the

2:54

Make America Healthy Again movement. What

2:56

changed? And now that crunchy mom

2:58

seemed to have a direct line

3:00

to those in power, how will

3:02

that change the access you and

3:04

your family will have to vetted

3:06

health information? I'm Audie Cornish, and

3:08

this is the assignment. When

3:12

I was in college, I was

3:15

very opposite of crunchy. If I

3:17

met myself, you know, eight years

3:19

ago, I would have definitely laughed

3:21

at myself and thought I was

3:23

weird. I was just very into,

3:26

you know, believing the mainstream and

3:28

just accepting every narrative that was

3:30

fed to me through, you know,

3:32

education and social settings and that

3:35

kind of thing. This is Diana

3:37

Attia. She reluctantly embraces the maha

3:39

movement. Coming out with a maha

3:41

mom, I lost a lot of

3:44

followers and I think definitely dissents

3:46

myself even further from different friends

3:48

from college and things like that.

3:50

The turning point happened when she

3:53

was 23. She got pregnant as

3:55

she was finishing college. at UC

3:57

Berkeley. An event, she said, rocked

3:59

her world. She dropped the various

4:02

medications she had been using prior

4:04

to the pregnancy, cold turkey. I

4:06

always refer to it as when

4:08

I woke up, right? I kind

4:10

of look at it as, you

4:13

know, I was just asleep. I

4:15

was just another zombie, doing all

4:17

the things that everyone else tells

4:19

me are right. And then I

4:22

woke up and I was like,

4:24

hey, I actually need to listen

4:26

to my body, do my own

4:28

research, become educated. on my own

4:31

choices, having this 180 on basically

4:33

everything that you used to believe

4:35

in, and everything that you believe

4:37

in now, is a little bit

4:40

weird, and it definitely alienated some

4:42

people, and I think that's part

4:44

of growing and, you know, making

4:46

better choices. Choices that even now,

4:48

she admits, are weird to people

4:51

on the outside of the movement.

4:53

Beyond the natural deodorant or ingredient

4:55

checking, are so-called remedies remedies, like...

4:57

coffee enamis. I think a lot

5:00

of people would think that's weird

5:02

and I would say I thought

5:04

it was weird too and then

5:06

I decided to try it just

5:09

because it's very good for parasite

5:11

cleansing digestion getting all the organs

5:13

fueled and functioning properly. The National

5:15

Institutes of Health by the way

5:18

actually looked into this in 2020

5:20

and said they found no clinical

5:22

evidence that it's effective but these

5:24

are the exact kind of institutions

5:27

that have lost people like Diana.

5:29

and you see a lot of

5:31

the same theme surface if you

5:33

spend enough time with these moms,

5:35

which Kira Butler has. She's a

5:38

senior editor and a reporter at

5:40

Mother Jones magazine, and for a

5:42

time she thought of herself as

5:44

a crunchy mom. I was living

5:47

in Berkeley, California, around 2007, 2008.

5:49

This was right when Michael. Right,

5:51

this was right when Michael Paulin

5:53

had written his book, The Ademivar's

5:56

Dilemma. Everybody was very into urban

5:58

farming and eating. Mostly plants and

6:00

all of that, no pesticides, all

6:02

organic. I raised chickens in my

6:05

backyard. Check. So yeah, yeah, I

6:07

would say I was pretty crunchy.

6:09

But some of these things are

6:11

pretty mainstream, or maybe they're mainstream

6:13

now. Like how do we even

6:15

define crunchy anymore? So there's been

6:18

this really interesting shift. It used

6:20

to be like back when I

6:22

considered myself to be pretty crunchy.

6:24

It was a movement on the

6:26

left. You know, when you thought

6:28

about like Marin County, California with

6:31

kind of aging hippies who might

6:33

eat granola, which I think is

6:35

where the term crunchy came from.

6:37

It was really a movement of

6:39

the political left. That has shifted.

6:41

It started a little bit before

6:44

the pandemic, but it really accelerated

6:46

during the pandemic. And now it

6:48

really is more common on the right.

6:50

One of the things I found interesting

6:53

is with social media. There's

6:55

all of these different lifestyles

6:57

that influencers can

6:59

promote online and this one

7:02

in particular Your moms

7:04

basically who are almost creating this

7:06

like magazine like look to their

7:08

lives With the chickens and it's

7:11

part of a certain look so

7:13

for a while I didn't really

7:15

look at it as political

7:17

Right. I mean, there's nothing

7:20

inherently political about making

7:22

your child individual little

7:24

goldfish crackers one by

7:26

one from scratch. Right. Or

7:29

buying wooden toys or like, if

7:31

anything, I saw it as a

7:33

class thing. Sure. Yeah. And that,

7:35

you know, I think the economic

7:37

piece of it is important as

7:39

well. It's on the same continuum

7:41

with the kind of Tradwives movement.

7:43

Can you talk to me about...

7:45

when this shift happened. I'm assuming

7:48

it was the pandemic, because there

7:50

already was a movement of people

7:52

who, for instance, weren't vaccinating their

7:54

kids at the same level

7:56

as maybe the generation before. And

7:58

I remember reporting. on some of

8:00

that movement, but I tend to

8:03

look at the pandemic as this

8:05

turning point for certain populations where

8:07

they were radicalized, so to speak,

8:10

around some ideas. It probably started

8:12

a little bit before the pandemic,

8:14

and to be clear, in the

8:17

anti-vaccine movement and in this crunchy

8:19

movement in general, there's always been

8:21

this kind of horseshoe effect, I

8:24

think, as what people are calling

8:26

it these days, but it's the

8:28

idea that the... the kind of

8:31

far ends of the left and

8:33

right spectrum kind of meet around

8:35

in the middle in the back.

8:37

So you see some similarities. And

8:40

during the pandemic, when you started

8:42

to see, you know, people protesting

8:44

against mask mandates and then against

8:47

vaccine mandates, this kind of libertarian

8:49

ethos of, you know, the government

8:51

doesn't belong, telling me what to

8:54

do with my kids, that got

8:56

more mainstream appeal. How did it

8:58

start to surface in its forums

9:01

and, I don't know, read it

9:03

threads or even tick-talk out of

9:05

the pandemic? So I think the

9:08

first time I covered this very

9:10

early on in the pandemic, I

9:12

want to say it was April

9:14

or May of 2020, I had

9:17

noticed that some of the folks

9:19

that I followed on Twitter, on

9:21

Instagram, on Facebook, who were in

9:24

just general moms groups. You know,

9:26

these were groups that were like,

9:28

where people go to ask a

9:31

question about car seats, we're beginning

9:33

to talk more politically about vaccines.

9:35

And this was interesting to me.

9:38

So I began to follow these

9:40

groups more closely. I began to

9:42

do real reporting on it. And

9:45

I really did see this shift.

9:47

And at the same time, I

9:49

saw a shift in the anti-vaccine

9:51

movement. You know, some of the

9:54

influential groups like the group that

9:56

RFK Jr. used to had were

9:58

noticing that these parents, these scared

10:01

pandemic. moms were kind of a

10:03

great audience for the misinformation that

10:05

they were peddling, basically. You're saying

10:08

misinformation, but was it also a

10:10

collection of other, I'll call them,

10:12

question marks. So like, are seed

10:15

oils healthy or unhealthy for you,

10:17

right? Like is raw milk healthy

10:19

or unhealthy for you? There's like

10:22

a lot of health and wellness

10:24

trends that are probably a lot

10:26

more complex. to explain if you

10:28

really dig into it. But they

10:31

also fall under this umbrella of

10:33

things in this community that people

10:35

believe and are very much sharing

10:38

information about. Yeah, that's right. There's

10:40

a whole... kind of host of

10:42

things. And you know, I think

10:45

that a lot of them have

10:47

to do with this idea of

10:49

naturalness and this idea of toxins,

10:52

right? Like that there are so

10:54

many toxins in the world, which

10:56

is not wrong, right? Like I

10:59

feel like I also see news

11:01

stories every day about microplastics or

11:03

your black utensils or like, I

11:05

guess I'm getting at the idea

11:08

that they're not crazy. No, not

11:10

crazy by any means. When you

11:12

think of the time that this

11:15

really started to accelerate this April,

11:17

May, 2020, it was a scary

11:19

time. And even beyond the things

11:22

that really had to do with

11:24

the pandemic, anything that gave parents

11:26

a sense of control. You know,

11:29

oh, you know, maybe if I

11:31

avoid seed oils, my kid will

11:33

be healthy. Maybe if I'm careful

11:36

about exposure to 5G cell phone

11:38

radiation, my kid will be healthy.

11:40

You know, it's a narrative that

11:42

was very, very appealing to a

11:45

lot of people. It's also, when

11:47

it finally surfaced in the mainstream

11:49

election cycle with RFK, out of

11:52

context, it always sounded a little

11:54

bit nuts, right? Like, why was

11:56

he talking about beef tallow? Why

11:59

was he really like there were

12:01

these sort of parts of patois

12:03

from that. that he would surface

12:06

in his public dialogue. And if

12:08

you didn't know, you really didn't

12:10

know. But if you did, he

12:13

was speaking your language. And I

12:15

think that's, you know, a lot

12:17

of the folks that had become

12:19

involved in this community during the

12:22

pandemic, when he really became part

12:24

of the political conversation, they felt

12:26

recognized. You know, this was a

12:29

guy who was a leader in

12:31

their movement. How much of a

12:33

leader was he? Is he someone

12:36

who kind of moved into it?

12:38

I mean, if you listen to

12:40

his relatives, they make it sound

12:43

like maybe he doesn't quite believe

12:45

in everything he's saying. But where

12:47

was he in this world before

12:50

we came to know him on

12:52

the political stage? So his history

12:54

is as an environmental lawyer. He

12:56

for a long time worked for

12:59

the environmental group Riverkeeper, which fights

13:01

for clean water, basically. And through

13:03

that, he sort of became very

13:06

interested in toxins, pollution, and how

13:08

that can affect human health. And

13:10

after that, in kind of the

13:13

late 20 teens, he became involved

13:15

with children's health defense and he

13:17

became the head of that group

13:20

and that group is is the

13:22

largest anti-vaccine advocacy group in the

13:24

world. So he we saw kind

13:27

of a trajectory for him where

13:29

he went from being concerned about

13:31

you know toxins such as mercury

13:33

in the water to maybe mercury

13:36

in vaccines to vaccines in general

13:38

to a whole lot of other

13:40

things. How does this audience, this

13:43

Venn diagram between RFK and his

13:45

ideology and this world of so-called

13:47

crunchy moms, how did they come

13:50

together? Meaning when you look at

13:52

Make America Healthy again and maybe

13:54

what's on that platform so to

13:57

speak, do you recognize the language

13:59

of these women? Yes, and I

14:01

think, you know, it's important to

14:04

realize that these alliances were not

14:06

formed instantaneously and that there are

14:08

many different communities coming together. You

14:10

know, one example of a community

14:13

that has long been involved in

14:15

the anti-vaccine movement is people who

14:17

believe that autism is caused by

14:20

childhood vaccinations. This is a

14:22

hypothesis that has been disproven

14:24

over and over and over

14:26

again, but you have the...

14:28

a very small subset of

14:30

the autism community and the

14:32

autism caregivers community that believes

14:34

this very strongly. And in

14:36

RFK Jr. these folks saw

14:38

a champion and they really

14:41

came to support him when

14:43

he announced that he was

14:45

running for president and then

14:47

they continued to support

14:49

him as he became Trump's

14:51

pick to lead the health

14:54

and human services department. I

14:56

mean, when I think about

14:58

how the Trump folks or

15:00

how Republicans reacted to

15:02

like Michelle Obama's healthy

15:04

lunch initiative, you know, it

15:06

was like outcry. So it's hard to

15:09

picture RFK saying basically the same

15:11

exact thing and are people

15:13

going to embrace it because

15:15

these voters come along with

15:17

it. You know, it is, it's

15:19

very interesting that that kind of

15:22

contradiction. between, you know, just a

15:24

few years ago where people were

15:27

saying, you know, how dare you

15:29

say that school lunches should be

15:31

healthier to go all the way

15:34

to like, we have to get

15:36

all of the so-called toxins out

15:38

of the food, you know, the

15:41

pushback against genetically modified ingredients, which,

15:43

you know, genetically modified ingredients, there's

15:46

been, you know, study after study

15:48

has shown that they're safe

15:50

to eat. It is a real turnaround

15:52

for conservative folks,

15:54

but they seem to be all

15:56

in, you know, this is now

15:59

seen as a way in which

16:01

the government has kind of hoodwinked

16:03

the American people by putting these

16:05

toxins in food. And this has

16:08

been become a rallying cry for

16:10

conservatives against the government. We're going

16:12

to take a quick break when

16:14

we come back. I'll ask Kira

16:17

about some of the more unconventional

16:19

crunchy mom beliefs. Ryan

16:26

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

16:28

The message for everyone paying

16:30

big wireless way too much.

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Please for the love of

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everything good in this world,

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stop. With Mint you can

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$15 a month. Of course if

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you enjoy overpaying, no judgments,

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but that's joy overpaying.

16:48

No judgments, but that's

16:50

weird. Okay, one judgment.

16:52

Anyway, give it a

16:54

try at mintmobile.com, Can you

16:56

talk about some of the

16:58

more unusual trends within the

17:01

crunchy mom community? You mentioned

17:03

seed oils. This is the idea

17:05

that oils that come from seeds,

17:07

so that would be like, you

17:09

know, your canola oil, that these

17:11

oils are dangerous, that they can

17:13

cause cancer. This has been disproven.

17:16

And in fact, seed oils have

17:18

been proven to have been proven

17:21

to have been proven to have

17:23

been proven to be healthier. very

18:03

read in on anti-institution

18:06

materials, meaning

18:08

I got really read in on

18:11

having a natural birth.

18:13

I didn't end up doing

18:15

it, but like... I went down

18:17

the rabbit hole, right, of reading all

18:19

the books and learning about

18:21

how medicine and institutional medicine

18:24

and men had like taken over the

18:26

whole thing of birthing and then later

18:28

when my child was born like what

18:30

should I feed the child and you know was

18:32

like oh the corporate food mega pharma

18:34

wants them to eat blah blah blah

18:36

and I shouldn't do that and like

18:39

I was susceptible to that as

18:41

anyone, you know. And I guess I

18:43

can't figure out when our

18:45

suspicion crosses over into just

18:47

raw distrust. I think it's completely

18:50

understandable. You know, it's when

18:52

you're told that something that

18:54

you're doing might be harmful

18:56

to your kids, that is

18:58

an incredibly powerful message. And

19:01

when you combine that with

19:03

the fact that parents and

19:05

mothers in particular, do not have an

19:07

easy time in the United States. You

19:09

know, we don't have a lot of

19:12

parental leave. Child care is really expensive.

19:14

And like all of our diseases are

19:16

under-researched. All of our diseases are under-researched.

19:18

And also, you know, mom's health is

19:20

under-researched. Like, you know, a lot of

19:22

moms, like you get sent home from

19:25

the hospital with this baby. and then

19:27

you know you might be experiencing pain

19:29

and that pain might be ignored and

19:31

you know your doctor says like it's

19:33

it's fine you're fine the idea that

19:35

you can make these choices that you

19:38

can choose how you have your kid

19:40

you know how whether you have a

19:42

natural childbirth when you see of information

19:44

right and a see of information you

19:46

can go quote-unquote do your research now

19:48

as a reporter I'm very skeptical

19:51

of the research online I'm like oh I don't

19:53

know if this is I tend to go

19:55

to these institutions that lots of people

19:57

don't trust now like the CDC website or

20:00

the Mayo Clinic or something. But

20:02

this like, do your own research

20:04

thing, and that really just meaning

20:07

going down the internet rabbit hole,

20:09

is like, it's spread to many

20:11

different corners. We're talking about crunchy

20:14

moms, but it's all over. It

20:16

is all over and I think

20:18

you know again to go back

20:20

to the pandemic you also had

20:23

the strain of anti-science of you

20:25

know that the experts know nothing

20:27

don't trust the experts and when

20:30

they won't say they're wrong if

20:32

they are wrong you know you

20:34

had genuine you know poor choices

20:36

by people in the government about

20:39

how they messaged around science. So

20:41

you had this kind of ascendant

20:43

movement of not trusting science combined

20:45

with you know all of the

20:48

usual stuff about getting your information

20:50

on social media and it really

20:52

was kind of like a powder

20:55

kick. Now that they have a

20:57

seat at the table or likely

20:59

will in RFK Jr. What do

21:01

they want? Like what does this

21:04

particular kind of voter, not just

21:06

the women, but the voter who

21:08

Yeah, falls in this anti-toxin, anti-everything

21:11

kind of umbrella along with RFK.

21:13

What is it that they're hoping

21:15

to get out of having this

21:17

seat at the table? I think

21:20

it's really hard to generalize because

21:22

I think many of them genuinely

21:24

want, you know, lunch, school lunches

21:26

that are healthier for kids, you

21:29

know, they genuinely want water that's...

21:31

healthier to drink air that's healthier

21:33

to breathe. But do they want

21:36

water that's not fluoridated? Do they

21:38

want no vaccine mandates? Do they

21:40

want like to do they see

21:42

it as a moment to roll

21:45

back things? There is a group

21:47

that sees this as a politically

21:49

convenient moment to push for these

21:52

changes that they believe in that

21:54

are not backed by science. So

21:56

I think you have a real

21:58

continuum. You have folks who maybe

22:01

don't know that much. about RFK

22:03

Junior and say, yeah, healthier kids,

22:05

that sounds great. And then you

22:07

have folks that really are part

22:10

of this anti-vaccine or anti-fluoride or

22:12

anti, you know, 5G cell phone

22:14

towers. And, you know, you have

22:17

that group that is hoping that

22:19

they will be able to push

22:21

through those changes with this guy

22:23

who sees things as they do.

22:26

Are we underestimating them and him?

22:28

It's definitely possible. You know, there

22:30

have been folks that have speculated

22:33

that it was RFK Jr. that

22:35

really helped to move the needle

22:37

for Trump. And one piece of

22:39

data, and this is not perfect

22:42

by any means, if you look

22:44

at the rate of childhood vaccinations

22:46

nationwide, and in some states it's

22:48

more pronounced than others over the

22:51

last few years since the pandemic,

22:53

there has been a decline. a

22:55

kind of steady decline in vaccination

22:58

rates. And this is not a

23:00

perfect proxy, you know, probably, you

23:02

know, some of them has to

23:04

do with people not catching up

23:07

with routine childhood vaccinations after the

23:09

pandemic, etc. But there is a

23:11

subset of that group that are

23:14

folks that changed their mind on

23:16

vaccines during the pandemic, that decided,

23:18

you know, that that vaccines were,

23:20

you know, a tool of the

23:23

deep state or whatever. and chose

23:25

not to vaccinate their kids. And

23:27

if you can see those numbers

23:29

reflected in our national vaccination rates,

23:32

I don't think it's too outlandish

23:34

to speculate that that is a

23:36

mighty group of people that is

23:39

really a politically powerful block. I

23:41

think one of the things that

23:43

many other people are nervous about

23:45

is that In a scenario where

23:48

they get many things that they

23:50

want, and you saw this in

23:52

the hearings with RFK Jr. when

23:55

he was asked about children in

23:57

Samoa who had died, who had

23:59

not been vaccinated. And he didn't

24:01

really have an answer. You know,

24:04

he was kind of like, I

24:06

don't know about that. Seems probably

24:08

bad. And I just thought, well,

24:10

like, this is the thing. You

24:13

know what I mean? Like, what,

24:15

when you talk to these women,

24:17

when you're doing this reporting, what

24:20

do they say about evidence of

24:22

outbreaks or evidence of, like, danger

24:24

as a result of some of

24:26

these ideas? Well, they say a

24:29

lot of different things. And I

24:31

mean, what RFK Jr. said was,

24:33

oh, no, I wasn't in Samoa

24:36

for any anti-vaccine advocacy purposes. I

24:38

was there like helping them install

24:40

like a medical informatics system or

24:42

something. But it turned out that

24:45

he was there meeting with prominent

24:47

anti-vaccine activists. So, you know, this

24:49

is a guy who is not

24:51

entirely honest. about his beliefs and

24:54

about the work that he's been

24:56

doing with children's health defense for

24:58

the last several years. You know,

25:01

in terms of what, you know,

25:03

your average crunchy mom, voter might

25:05

say about potential negative effects of

25:07

not vaccinating. I've heard folks say,

25:10

oh, measles isn't that bad. Everybody

25:12

used to get measles and, you

25:14

know, most people were fine, but

25:17

a lot of people weren't. A

25:19

lot of children have died of

25:21

measles. So, You know, I think

25:23

it's a matter of who do

25:26

you believe, right? Do you believe

25:28

RFK Jr. who says, I wasn't

25:30

in Samoa to talk about anti-vaccine

25:32

advocacy and, you know, measles, isn't

25:35

that bad anyway? Or do you

25:37

believe the, you know, reams of

25:39

studies backed by government agencies that

25:42

show that, you know, there can

25:44

be devastating consequences from declining vaccination

25:46

rates? How easy is it to

25:48

accomplish? or difficult is it to

25:51

accomplish some of the things that

25:53

these voters might want? Meaning, can

25:55

he actually do very much about

25:58

the vaccine schedule for children? He

26:00

certainly could. And you know, I

26:02

do think it's a distinct possibility

26:04

that RFK Jr. would be able

26:07

to accomplish changes to the vaccine

26:09

schedule and that then doctors would

26:11

find themselves having to tell patients

26:13

to tell parents basically, you know,

26:16

don't trust what the federal government

26:18

says. Are there any aspects to

26:20

what they want that would be

26:23

positive for public health, meaning are

26:25

they going to force their reimagining

26:27

or the rethinking of long-held assumptions?

26:29

I think that's... The hope that

26:32

some of this advocacy around toxins

26:34

and pollution will push the needle

26:36

in that direction. You know, I

26:39

think like you mentioned earlier, there

26:41

genuinely is a lot of pollution

26:43

that's affecting the water supply, that's

26:45

affecting the food supply. And to

26:48

the extent that RFK Jr. can,

26:50

you know, push for more transparency

26:52

on that, can push for government

26:54

research about what affects those chemicals

26:57

those pollutants might have in our

26:59

bodies, I think that's a good

27:01

thing. Yeah. I'm also fascinated by

27:04

the power of this group versus

27:06

what they call big pharma. It

27:08

feels like there's a clash coming

27:10

ahead. Right. And that's, it's the

27:13

same kind of thing, right? It's

27:15

like... You know, big pharma, I

27:17

don't think there would be very

27:20

many people who would argue that

27:22

big pharma is perfect. You know,

27:24

this is a massive industry that

27:26

basically created the opioid epidemic. It's

27:29

pretty clear that this is an

27:31

industry that's in need of reform.

27:33

On the other hand, you know,

27:35

are vaccine manufacturers like, you know,

27:38

raking in money and not testing

27:40

their products at the expense of

27:42

human health? No. Right. So it's,

27:45

you know, it's hard to hold

27:47

both pieces in your mind at

27:49

once about big pharma, you know,

27:51

that this is an industry in

27:54

need of reform and also, you

27:56

know, vaccines aren't dangerous in the

27:58

way that many of these. activists

28:01

claim. What does this mean for

28:03

people like you? You talked about

28:05

the horseshoe politics, the idea

28:07

that on some topics, the

28:09

quote unquote extreme left and

28:11

extreme right kind of fine common

28:14

ground. And you've found yourself in

28:16

that place, right, in this reporting.

28:18

What does it mean? Are there

28:21

still kind of left leaning crunchy

28:23

moms out there? And if so, are

28:25

they like homeless now, politically

28:28

homeless? Yeah, you know, I talked

28:30

to this woman named Zan Honeycutt

28:32

who runs this anti-GMO group

28:34

called Mom's Across America. She

28:37

was out in California for

28:39

a long time. She recently

28:41

moved away. She had always

28:43

voted Democrat for years and

28:46

years. And then in the

28:48

last election, she voted for

28:50

Trump. She shared that she

28:52

had left the Democratic Party

28:55

and she had become a

28:57

Trump supporter. I do think

28:59

that that's happening. I think that

29:01

there are folks that were, you

29:03

know, on the far left and

29:05

so devoted to these ideas of,

29:07

you know, the harms of toxins in

29:10

the food supply that... Because it's

29:12

an identity, like it's a way

29:14

of life. It absolutely is. And

29:16

these folks have found a lot

29:19

of community. in that identity. You

29:21

know, this network moms across America,

29:23

there are a bunch of other

29:25

groups, you know, for parents who

29:28

oppose, you know, pesticides or parents

29:30

who oppose vaccines or whatever other

29:32

cause, crunchy cause they rally around.

29:34

These are powerful community groups and

29:37

you have people who are talking

29:39

about politics and are talking about,

29:41

you know, whether or not the

29:43

Democratic Party is really a good

29:45

place for them anymore. And are

29:47

you going to be a crunchy mom anymore?

29:50

I mean, I still, I actually don't

29:52

have time to like have chickens or

29:54

like grow my own food. Like, you

29:57

know, the more that I read these

29:59

days about. Even just buying

30:01

organic, I'm like not convinced

30:03

that that's as important as

30:05

I used to think it

30:08

was. So maybe my answer

30:10

is no, I'm not that

30:12

crunchy anymore. Kira Butler, Senior

30:14

Editor, and Reporter at Mother

30:17

Jones. The assignment is a

30:19

production of CNN audio. This

30:21

episode was produced by Grace

30:23

Walker. Our senior producer is

30:25

Matt Martinez. Dan Dizula is

30:28

our technical director and Steve

30:30

Lictai is executive producer of

30:32

CNN audio. We had support

30:34

from Haley Thomas, Alex Manissary,

30:37

Robert Mathers, John Deanora, Lenny

30:39

Steinhardt, James Andris, Nicole Pesseroo,

30:41

and Lisa Nameral. What else

30:43

do I usually say? Thank

30:46

you all for listening. I'm

30:48

Audie Cornish. Don't laugh at

30:50

me. It's like y'all stay

30:52

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