Inside the Fringe Worldview of RFK Jr.’s VP Pick
24th May 2024
Once a Democratic donor, Shanahan and her politics have changed drastically in the last few years, a journey she attributes to the pandemic and her 5-year-old daughter’s autism diagnosis.Shanahan has embraced new influences, including a doctor guru who believes, wrongly, that vaccines cause widespread injury and sunshine cures almost everything. Her fringe ideas are now central to a presidential platform that rejects experts and institutions, and elevates influencers and entrepreneurs with conspiratorial views and dubious solutions to national problems.
Shanahan is emblematic of a certain “left to right crossover” that Derek Beres, an author and co-host of the podcast Conspirituality, documented during the pandemic: a coalescence of MAGA patriots, New Agers, wellness influencers and conspiracy theorists, united by their opposition to COVID protective measures and vaccines.
Stray from the Party Line, and they’re on you like a pack of dogs.