Radio Free America: The Right is objectively pro-diarrhea

Image by Nikos Michals

Welcome to Radio Free America, Aaron Kleinman’s newsletter on stories that matter in state politics but aren’t getting enough attention. Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week? Sign up!

All my grade school readers should rejoice: You have an excellent excuse to not eat vegetables right now. A cyclosporiasis outbreak is leading to thousands of people getting painful intestinal sickness. The cyclospora parasite is spread through contaminated fresh, leafy vegetables and raspberries, none of which are contained in pizza rolls or Cool Ranch Doritos. So much for RFK Jr.’s “Eat Real Food” campaign!

Of course, Kennedy has plenty of blame in making real food more dangerous than Mountain Dew Code Red. A year ago, he eliminated the federal program that coordinated the state-level response to outbreaks of pathogens like cyclospora. ProPublica journalist Annie Waldman ran through other federal budget cuts that are hampering the FDA’s response, with the second Trump era seeing draconian cuts to staff.

It’s part of a broader deregulatory push across Kennedy’s tenure in which the FDA takes a less active role policing what we ingest. And while Kennedy started his career as a nominal liberal, he’s fulfilling a longtime goal of the right in this country: destroying the regulatory state.

Back in 1906, Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” a novel based on his experiences covering the meatpacking industry in Chicago. Americans got a look at what actually went into unregulated industrialized agriculture for the first time, and they were nauseated. This led to the founding of the FDA later that year. Since then, the federal government has taken an active role in making sure what you eat doesn’t make you sick.

And it worked! Before the FDA was founded, diarrhea was the third-leading cause of death in the United States. But because it was such an effective example of the government being able to improve people’s lives, neutering the FDA became a critical element of the far right’s war on the modern state. 

At first, they fought to limit jurisdiction over pyramid schemes (key funders and organizers of the far right) that were offering dietary supplements. This push ended up getting bipartisan support, as was necessary when the far right didn’t have full control of the government. But with the Democratic Party becoming increasingly irrelevant across wide swathes of the country, the far right has been able to push Republican-governed states in particular to try to adopt their most extreme, anti-small-intestine ideas.

You can look at states like Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Arkansas, where lawmakers have sought to loosen restrictions on unpasteurized milk, which contains all sorts of bacteria that can lay you up for a week. Or you can look at Florida, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, Mississippi and Georgia who, among others, tried to make ivermectin, a deworming drug used on horses, more widely available for human use. And at the federal level, the war on gut health has gone global, as DOGE cuts have led to around 700,000 deaths from preventable diseases, including diarrheal ones.

I know it’s hard to take diarrhea seriously, but just humor me for a paragraph. It’s a painful, humiliating and, in some instances, life-threatening event that the government really can prevent. It’s a quality-of-life issue as much as safe roads or good schools. Sinclair complained after he wrote “The Jungle” that he was aiming for the country’s heart but hit its stomach, but what if the stomach is the way to the heart? What if showing the public that you can do the basic things like keeping their underpants clean is a necessary step before embarking on more ambitious social welfare projects? Especially after public health institutions blew some of their credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It’s also why you’re at greater risk for intestinal distress when the right wing gains power. Because it’s a leading indicator of a broken state, and deaths can be shrugged off eugenically. I don’t think that’s what people were voting for in 2024, but now the lesson is clear: vote for brown shirts, get brown pants. 

---

AROUND AMERICA

• Republican Florida state Rep. Fabián Basabe is facing a civil trial this week for sexually harassing two of his aides, one incident of which occurred at a local elementary school. Part of Basabe’s defense appears to be that a large child was obstructing the view of the conduct from other witnesses. Before his political career, Basabe appeared in the 2005 E! reality show “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive,” and the “Legal issues” section takes up the majority of his Wikipedia page. He’s also unopposed in the Republican primary for renomination to his seat.
• It’s going to be tough for Democrats to hold the Kentucky governorship after Andy Beshear retires. He won twice in spite of Trump carrying the state by close to 30% three times in a row. But if anyone can do it, it’s probably former House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, who represented a seat that Trump won by more than 40%.
• You might have missed yet another unprofessional candidate costing the left a chance in a winnable election. Washington congressional aspirant Melissa Chaudhry forgot she was on the record when she said she wouldn’t support gay rights out of fear it would cost her support from religious Muslims, and that she would immediately switch to the Green Party if she were elected.
• Rep. Haley Stevens is going viral for a 19-second clip where her Midwestern accent seems dialed up way too high. But here’s the thing: I’ve known Haley for more than 20 years (and, full disclosure, donated to her 2018 congressional run). This is just how she talks. Unless she’s been running a decades-long subterfuge a la “The Prestige,” this isn’t an act. Democrats have been clamoring for authenticity; well, here’s some authenticity for you.
• I really thought that the taboo against campaigning with men who brag about sleeping with teenage girls would hold strong after the Epstein files were released, but Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. John James went on stage with Ted Nugent in Paw Paw, Mich.
• The campaign to make Charlie Kirk the modern Horst Wessel appears to be faltering, as activists can’t even muster Republican support in Arizona to construct a monument to him.

---

INTERNET STUFF I LIKED THIS WEEK

Sam Neill, the acclaimed character actor who was in two of my favorite movies (“The Hunt for Red October” and “Jurassic Park”) and another that made me never want to go into outer space (“Event Horizon”), died on Monday at age 78. His reaction to his celebrity was mostly bemusement at his luck in life, which made him eminently relatable and a great talk show guest. You can see that in the clip above as he patiently runs down which celebrities his farm animals are named after. Rest in power, king.

---

BOOK CLUB

On Sept. 26, 2022, a Ukrainian intelligence operation blew up portions of the Nord Stream pipeline that carried Russian gas to Germany. This cut off a critical economic tie between Russia and Western Europe and ended up making it easier for Germans to shift away from decades of Ostpolitik and side with Ukraine in their struggle against Russian aggression. Wall Street Journal reporter Bojan Pancevski manages to spin the true story into something of a John le Carré novel, except the real heroes aren’t spies but everyday Ukrainians who happen to be expert divers. The book was released before the Ukrainian drone campaign that has knocked out much of Russia’s domestic refining capacity, so the author’s thesis that operations like this are actually the future of warfare seems even more prescient.

---

HELP US OUT

A lot of you ended up being Bombas defenders because they refund you if you complain about your socks. But that only lasts for 30 days, and I feel like my relationship with my sock provider should end once the socks are purchased. To quote the GOAT, we don’t need to bring ink and paper into this.

Also, good call on NAYA being terrible. Most overpriced sad lunch bowls i’ve come across.

As for this week, how is the sad lunch bowl gang coping with the cyclospora outbreak? Seems like restaurant lettuce is highly suspect these days. What are we doing for a quick lunch that won’t require us to go on Lipitor? Email me what you think.

Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week? Sign up!