Opinion | R.F.K. Jr. and Trump’s MAGA Science Agenda

The leader of the Republican Party and our country’s next president has tapped a pro-choice scion of the country’s most famous Democratic dynasty to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In keeping with the bewildering dynamics of today’s negative partisanship, conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation have cheered the selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while liberals have near categorically denounced him.

Mr. Kennedy’s transformation from left-wing vaccine skeptic to potential Republican cabinet member overseeing America’s vast health apparatus represents a profound shift not only in the character of the American right but also in the politics of science more generally. The emergent MAGA science policy agenda, driven by skepticism and anti-elitism, blends familiar conservative and libertarian ideas with a suspicion of expert power once more associated with the left. The result is a uniquely American brand of populism that has the potential to fundamentally reshape national politics.

In retrospect, the science policy of Donald Trump’s first administration was remarkably conventional, at least until Covid struck. He filled many science policy posts with figures highly regarded in the scientific community, even retaining Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health.

There were controversies surrounding environmental policy, including the administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. But those were familiar Republican fare, reminiscent of disputes during the Reagan and Bush eras. When it came to health agencies, many of Mr. Trump’s picks — Scott Gottlieb for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Alex Azar for secretary of health and human services — had impeccable reputations in the Republican establishment. The criticism from the left was mostly the tired refrain that they were too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry.

Yet Mr. Trump left office amid a virulent backlash against scientific and medical expertise, marked by sharp declines in public trust, especially among Republicans. The administration that began Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines to defeat the worst pandemic in a century ended in an epidemic of vaccine skepticism.

While most Americans still support the benefits of vaccination, Republicans today tend to be more vaccine hesitant than Democrats and more distrustful of the pharmaceutical industry generally. Compared with Democrats, Republicans are more likely to believe that the Food and Drug Administration is preventing natural cures from reaching the public because of corporate influence and that genetically modified organisms threaten public health. In short, Republican attitudes toward the scientific and medical establishment increasingly resemble the worldview embodied by Mr. Kennedy.