Definitely, this was not the dystopia. The United States was supposed to fall victim to a James Bond movie villain, someone like Eldon Tyrell - the millionaire who creates replicants in Blade Runner - or someone similar.
In all catastrophic scripts and books since Aldous Huxley wrote 'Brave New World' 92 years ago, no creator imagined that the United States, the greatest economic, military, and technological power in the world, the country with 43% of Nobel Prizes in History, would appoint an individual who has compared vaccines to the murder of six million Jews in World War II to lead its healthcare system. A person who has alternatively claimed that Covid was "a coup d'état," intended to kill only black people, or only white people, as long as they were not Jewish, as apparently they are immune. An individual who is not a doctor or biologist but a lawyer, who claims vaccines cause autism, opposes water fluoridation, and, when it comes to changing the country's health, wants to ban even paracetamol.
That person exists, and his name is Robert F. Kennedy. He is the nephew of the assassinated president in 1963, John F. Kennedy, and the son of the Attorney General - a position equivalent to the Secretary of Justice - Robert F. Kennedy, also assassinated five years later. Kennedy was proposed yesterday as Health Secretary by Donald Trump, causing some consternation among those who not only use vaccines, paracetamol, or even a mobile phone, which according to Kennedy causes cancer.
Kennedy has been a lifelong left-wing Democrat and has been considered a potential candidate for senator from New York or for a high-ranking position in environmental protection, given his intense activity in that field and, above all, the 'brand' of his surname. His current wife is actress Cheryl Hines, famous for her role in the 'cult' series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' where she plays the wife (first) and ex-wife (later) of the writer, director, and star, Larry David. Kennedy and Hines have been accused of causing, with their anti-vaccination campaigns, outbreaks of measles in the islands of Samoa and Tonga in the Pacific, resulting in a hundred deaths in 2019.
Additionally, Kennedy has had his share of scandals, some predictable (sexual) and others more akin to 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' Among the latter, which are much more original, is his confession this year that he once ran over a bear cub with his car, then took the animal's corpse, put it in his vehicle, drove into New York, and left it in Central Park. Furthermore, Kennedy has stated that part of his brain has been eaten by a parasitic worm that entered him on a trip to Thailand, which, according to some observers, would explain his medical theories. Finally, Kennedy was at the center of the scandal of the year when it was revealed that he was having an extramarital affair with the star journalist of 'New York' magazine, Olivia Nuzzi, 39 years his junior, and engaged to another prominent figure in American journalism, Ryan Lizza, who currently works at Politico after being fired from 'The New Yorker' for sexual harassment in 2020. Lizza and Nuzzi have broken off their engagement, but Kennedy and Hines remain a couple.
No one thought Kennedy would end up supporting a Republican in the White House. Even less so when that Republican, Donald Trump, is fundamentally opposed to any kind of environmental protection regulation, believes that climate change "is a Chinese invention to benefit U.S. industries" (as he said in 2015), and thinks that if the Earth is indeed warming, it's better because then the poles will melt, sea levels will rise, and there will be "more beachfront to build on."
But politics and conspiracy theories tend to make strange bedfellows, and that's how Kennedy has come to power alongside Trump and, indeed, abandoned by his family, who have publicly rejected him. However, the Kennedy 'brand' has a significant psychological component for Trump's followers, many of whom believe that John F. Kennedy - Robert's uncle - was assassinated by the 'deep state' - i.e., the CIA, the press, and, in general, any official who doesn't sit well with someone - because he was going to bring peace to the world and, above all, restore the gold standard. According to this theory, Trump will continue Kennedy's alleged work, so it's best to have someone with that surname close by.
The arrival of John F. Kennedy's nephew in the government is the result of his failed presidential campaign, where he ran as an independent, and where his anti-vaccine and conspiratorial platform took more votes from Trump than his environmentalism did from Biden. His vice-presidential candidate was Nicole Shanahan, whose most notable achievement was marrying Google's co-founder, Sergei Brin (estimated fortune: $149 billion, according to Bloomberg), who later divorced her when 'The Wall Street Journal' reported that she had cheated on him with Elon Musk ($307 billion). It wasn't just about infidelity: Brin had rescued Musk's automotive company, Tesla, when it was on the brink of collapse during the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.
The Department of Health and Human Services, the administrative unit he is set to lead - unlikely because his ideas are too exotic for Republicans to ratify - if the Senate confirms his appointment, is actually a conglomeration of agencies, understandable in a country without public healthcare, where the social protection system has been created in leaps and bounds and completely uncoordinated.
Nevertheless, its influence is immense. The Department manages, among other programs, the public-private healthcare systems for the elderly (Medicare) and low-income individuals (Medicaid) and is the largest state administrative unit in the U.S., with an approximate budget of $1.7 trillion, roughly double that of the Department of Defense and slightly less than the magical figure of two trillion dollars that entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to cut from the U.S. federal budget.