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MAHA beats MAGA


The coalition that put Donald Trump into office twice is coming unravelled. That judgment is of the jigsaw-perceiving sort.  One of its pieces is the recent Republican Party primary in Iowa. 

https://www.wsaw.com/video/2026/06/03/lahn-wins-iowa-gop-governor-race-turek-takes-democratic-senate-primary/  

"Make America Healthy Again," a loose grouping itself, of people who read Ivan Illich and those who just want to be able to drink unprocessed (raw) milk without governmental interference, of people who are sure vaccines cause autism and those who believe pesticides are destroying the food, from the granola eaters on the left to the granola eaters on the right including some who have made that transition personally -- MAHA ending up (as that acronym suggests) more-or-less aligned with MAGA during the last presidential election campaign. This year, in the mid-terms, that alignment has come apart. 

In the Iowa Republican primary for Governor, MAHA backed Zack Lahn, whereas MAGA, represented by President Donald Trump's specific endorsement, backed Representative Randy Feenstra. Lahn won, by embracing water and food quality issues and keying in on Iowa's cancer rate. In the most recently available data, Iowa ranked number three among the states in terms of the number of cancer patients per 100K residents. Only Kentucky and West Virginia scored higher, according to World Population Review. Kentucky and WV are both states long associated with coal mining, so coming in third TO THEM may help make Lahn's point. 

At any rate, in November we will see whether the MAHA candidate can patch things up with Feenstra and his supporters, and whether that allows him to beat his Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, who ran unopposed in his own primary.  


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Comments

  1. HenryJune 11, 2026 at 12:33 PM

    I've read Tolstoy's story, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," but I don't get your reference to it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ChristopherJune 11, 2026 at 9:57 PM

      Oops. I meant to refer to author/philosopher Ivan Illich, not to the fictional character with a very similar name. The author of, among much else, MEDICAL NEMESIS (1975).

      Delete
  2. ChristopherJune 18, 2026 at 2:04 PM

    Oddly. I don't think I mentioned facebook or Oman at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BelinJune 24, 2026 at 7:10 PM

    I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago. For over two years, I relied on Levodopa and several other medications, but unfortunately, the symptoms kept getting worse. The tremors became more noticeable, and my balance and mobility started to decline quickly. Last year, out of desperation and hope, I decided to try a herbal treatment program from NaturePath Herbal Clinic.
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