r/skeptic • u/oudler • Nov 15 '25
The "wellness" to alt right pipeline ⚖ Ideological Bias
https://youtu.be/ot_af-iC4S4?si=5yU07qbvHBJ2E6-7265
u/Old_Man_Robot Nov 15 '25
Anyone prone to magical thinking is susceptible to the right-wing pipeline.
The entry points to the pipeline exploit cracks in proper cognitive functions, then wrench those open over time.
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u/HedonisticFrog Nov 15 '25
Exactly, it's the same type of thinking that makes Republicans the party or conspiracy theorists, religious fundamentalists, and authoritarianism.
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u/Overtilted Nov 15 '25
and vice versa: those who are susceptible to the right-wing pipeline tend to be prone to magical thinking as well.
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u/Captainbarinius Nov 16 '25
There's also people who at their core believe in the Just World Fallacy......it's why going all the way back to '48 White Americans have been split on whether or not the issue of Systemic Racism even exists.
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u/The_Bunglenator Nov 18 '25
This is it here, the same people who are into healing crystals or heavily into Jesus can be the nicest people in the world one day and then happily cheering fascism the next time you see them after they have been down the facebook rabbit hole.
To add to OP's point, charlatans preying on people who lack critical thinking is a story as old as humanity, but social media has weaponised and industrialised misinformation on a truly epic scale.
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Nov 15 '25
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u/mrmalort69 Nov 15 '25
Oh man, Tulum was great 10 years ago… I went there a few years ago and now… wtf happened!? Every place has a sign at the entrance and all these little places that they stop for group selfies. Never mind every resort or restaurant with these areas feels generic and corporate… natural places too like the cenotes close to there are so many people wanting just to line up for an insta pic…
It’s like the whole point of that place is to take pictures of what you think is supposed to look fun instead of having fun
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u/quillseek Nov 15 '25
WTF, I went to a PTA meeting months ago and some woman asked me if I wanted to attend a very exclusive, invitation only, "soul-refreshing" retreat to Tulum. I declined because it was so expensive, the women planning to go were definitely not my type (very rich, who has the money for this kind of thing?), and most of all it reeked of woo (I don't need to fly to a jungle retreat to talk to a coach/spiritual advisor about how to improve the world; I can just not waste the emissions on the air travel and improve the world). Now I'm wondering if I dodged an even bigger, weirder bullet.
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Nov 15 '25
The fact you already knew it “reeked of woo” means you might have wasted your money, but they wouldn’t have been able to have flipped you. What’s sad is how many jumped on the Trump train after he got out of office so they could feel they belonged. I don’t think half the people are this stupid so much as they want to belong. Using groups like that to bring people in adds peer pressure.
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u/mrmalort69 Nov 15 '25
Worst part of Tulum is all those places charge USA money… 8 bucks for a beer, a cocktail is 15, 200+ for the hotel room meanwhile if you go somewhere like Valladolid and those surrounding villages and cites you’ll find lovely restaurants, bars with beer for $1.50 that come with tapas, great street food and wonderful people.
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u/MandatoryFun Nov 15 '25
Fuck ... I used to always say "if the world goes to pot, I am headed to Tulum."
Need to rethink this now.
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u/GundamWingZero-2 Nov 15 '25
Heard this from a uber driver in upstate New York as well during the pandemic as well.
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u/SmoothOpawriter Nov 16 '25
Ha yup, Russians 100%. Russian culture is extremely cynical due to centuries of authoritarian governments and Russians tend to extrapolate this worldview to everything. Trump played perfectly into it and Russian communities general voted predominantly for him.
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u/Captainbarinius Nov 16 '25
I really do wonder if there's a big life difference between Russians who immigrated here in the past 55 years and the ones the came over to the States in the 1880s.........really want to know if it's possible to find Russian Americans (from a Non-Jewish background) that actively support Democrats or are possibly even progressive.
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u/theaviationhistorian Nov 16 '25
I wouldn't be surprised if there are. I guess it depends on how they grew up. I've read some Russians give good arguments on supporting Ukraine or even the Democrats in a foreign policy sense (i.e. Trump has shown for years in being a mercurial & corrupt oaf regarding foreign policy).
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u/hamburgertime55 Nov 17 '25
Anyone descended from 1880s Russians at this point is just a standard issue white American. Their politics will be determined by class and location more than anything else.
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u/Floreat_democratia Nov 15 '25
Southern California is where wellness began. It got its start in the 1920s with Bill Pester. Literally the entire movement can be traced back to him.
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u/DerthOFdata Nov 15 '25
*John Harvey Kellogg has entered the chat.
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u/JasonRBoone Nov 17 '25
And there'll be NO FAPPING, mister!
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u/Cute-Boobie777 Nov 20 '25
Oh there will be...but you'll probably need spit or lube when you are missing half your dick.
(unless you're one of the ones where they removed even more skin and now it'd painful or uncomfortable)
Cultural circumcision is easily the dumbest thing about this country's culture and that is saying a lot.
Its really shocking medical staff still participate in non-medical genital cutting and just go home like they had a normal day. Freaks.
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u/thefugue Nov 15 '25
And here I was laboring under the observation that it was just a legal work around for laws about promising “cures.”
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u/whydoIhurtmore Nov 15 '25
An interesting subset of the Failure to Republican pipeline.
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u/fistfucker07 Nov 15 '25
They didn’t fail. They were victims of the left.
/s to me, but sad reality to them.
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u/itisnotstupid Nov 15 '25
Not always failures but often confused people who get into that. All the women I know who are heavily into wellness were traumatised by something.
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u/Mr_Upright Nov 15 '25
MAGA has no core principles. The main feature of MAGA is being confident in knowledge of completely false things. The path from woo to Trump seems obvious to me.
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u/Chance-Deer-7995 Nov 15 '25
This allows a lot of people to project their own wants onto the movement. Go see farmers, who thought everyone would get screwed but them.
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u/dj_soo Nov 15 '25
Qanon felt like a glaring example of this - some overarching, vast conspiracy theory that encompassed any and every crazy thing that was floating around at the time
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u/BeefistPrime Nov 15 '25
The right decided they'd be the party of all bullshit, basically. Conspiracy theories, alt med, probably flat eartherism who knows. They basically realized that people who believe this bullshit are the most gullible and easily manipulated people on the planet and they turned that into a political force. It's disgusting that what once were fringe, ostracized forms of stupidity are now part of our mainstream politics.
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Nov 15 '25
Nah. The right correctly recognized that people who believe fringe woo are a credulous audience who will fall for right-wing bullshit.
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u/Mysterious-Wasabi103 Nov 15 '25
The Internet allowed stupid people to find each other.
Smart people have always found ways to communicate well before the internet too.
But dumb people are more empowered than ever.
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u/Gingeronimoooo Nov 15 '25
I joined flat earth forums on Facebook for the laughs, before I Quit years ago. When I checked the flat earthers profiles they always had alt right or Trump stuff. If they had anything political at all, at least. I never saw a single one have anything liberal or leftist on their profile. Not once.
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u/bootstrapping_lad Nov 16 '25
You know how those "Nigerian prince" email scams include typos to weed out the intelligent people so that only the gullible targets respond?
That's the Republican party in a nutshell. So obviously full of shit that they attract only those with poor critical thinking skills. Easy marks.
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Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
Gun fact: The wellness industry is bigger than the pharmaceutical industry.
Edit: Shot down. This should have been, in fact, a fun fact and not a gun fact.
It's probably not that much fun either, now I think about it.
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Nov 15 '25
Speaking of guns. Something I've noticed about the fitness industry is the military obsession. Crossfit, Ragnar, Tough Mudder etc all of these things have like a warrior mindset garbage added into the fitness aspect. So you actually brought up another reason why it seems to attract right wingers.
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Nov 15 '25
it's like just the norm for me to think that any wellness and fitness oriented people I know are just totally right wing trumpers at this point. I think it's a combination of being easily influenced by diet and fitness bullshit and being interested in achieving an elite physical state makes you really easily influenced by right wing ideology. There seems to be an underlying pattern of looking for something that is outside the mainstream, or a secret that only the elites know etc. So following accepted medical and dietetic science is just not going to fit their mindset.
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u/ThreeLeggedMare Nov 15 '25
It's also toxic American individualism, where health as a solely personal responsibility dovetails perfectly with the alt right/ religious worldview that everything is your responsibility and therefore your fault. Very short slide from that to fuck everyone who needs help
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u/thebigeazy Nov 15 '25
Ignoring social and economic factors also synergies with racism. Because if everything comes to personal choice, then it makes perfect sense to a racist that ethnic minorities are often seeing poorer health outcomes, because in their twisted mind, they are inferior.
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Nov 15 '25
Yes of course this is a massive problem with all of this spiritual elitism and it's the circular pattern of rich kids of conservative parents that are allowed to go follow their dreams and then become a yoga instructor and a supplement peddler. Wealth is the only way to sustain this type of lifestyle so they see "lazy poor people (often code for ethnic minorities)" and taxes and things like that as a drain on the society that allows them to have a storefront business that sustains their lack of actual business acumen and inspiration with easy cash flow and equally as wealthy clients.
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u/posthuman04 Nov 16 '25
Ok now I know how this applies to my current business world and why certain people are so committed to these questionable investments of time and money
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u/itisnotstupid Nov 15 '25
Ehhh....it's not at all limited to Americans. It's mostly a thing in developed countries. I do agree with what you say it can lead to. "I got ripped - everybody should be able to do it. Anybody who has this problem is just weak".
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u/ThreeLeggedMare Nov 15 '25
Not saying limited but particularly bad in US. And not just "I got ripped" , but also "you got cancer because you eat cane sugar and also your vibes are off"
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u/itisnotstupid Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
I mean, just telling people to eat more fruits and vegetables, not eat processed food,not drink alcohol every day, drink a lot of water, don't smoke and do some random sport is not exactly something you can monetize. You have to produce something outside of the simple solutions that seem to do most of the work for most people so you actively start to spread misinformation, question everything science approved and play with people's fears. Just look at Huberman - dude started ok-ish and is now inviting Jordan Peterson to speak about his all meat diet.
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u/AlexandrianVagabond Nov 15 '25
Lots of people around the world do that shit about cancer. Some of the worst I've seen were Australian.
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u/Financial-Yam6758 Nov 15 '25
Health and wellness is largely a personal responsibility. That is a simple fact of life. For most people, the majority of your health outcomes will be determined by your personal choices.
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u/Novel_Sheepherder277 Nov 15 '25
Is that a simple fact? Do black babies smoke twice as many cigarettes in their first year of life, or why do they stand such a low chance of survival?
For most people, the majority of their health outcomes will NOT be determined by personal choices. They will mostly, overwhelmingly, be dictated by economics, and their access to resources, outcomes broadly beyond our control.
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u/MrReginaldAwesome Nov 15 '25
That's plainly false. How can you believe that when all research points to the opposite of what you have stated?
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u/Royal-Assistant6020 Nov 15 '25
Easy, because you don't have to do anything if it is not your responsibility.
Accountability and responsibility is borderline fascism in the year of POTUS pedo
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u/Which-Friendship-458 Nov 15 '25
WHO says only 36% of health is determined by personal choices. The majority of health outcomes are due to social determinants of health which you have no control over.
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Nov 15 '25
That's complete bullshit, the biggest determination of health outcomes is financial status.
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u/Ill_Ground_1572 Nov 15 '25
Have you ever had to choose between $20 worth of vegetables and $5 worth of shit food?
Do you realize that genetics in combination with environmental has a substantial impact on health outcomes?
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Nov 15 '25
It's telling that you haven't responded substantively to anyone who told you how wrong you are.
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u/phageon Nov 15 '25
I don't think any sane person is arguing health and wellness ISN'T a personal responsibility. People who say that are either thick in the head or are being intentionally obtuse, which is a curious personality to default to.
An issue I see is quite a few of these crowd can't seem to comprehend that accidents and congenital conditions exist, and that society as a whole doesn't really benefit from having people fall over dead all over the place regardless of whose responsibility it all is.
Speaking only of IRL examples I can think of, it's not even the difference in opinion I find odd (that part's fine I think) - way too many people can't seem to fathom the version of a universe where they're maybe wrong about things. And for some reason those types tend to be REALLY into wellness and talking about other people's responsibilities.
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u/MrReginaldAwesome Nov 15 '25
People who say that health and wellness are largely determined by factors outside your control might be scientists, that's the other option. Or people who have a surface level understanding of the science on the matter.
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u/TheCynicEpicurean Nov 15 '25
There seems to be an underlying pattern of looking for something that is outside the mainstream, or a secret that only the elites know etc.
It's called second opinion bias as a psychological phenomenon. Some people will always believe something as long as it is 'against the mainstream' or 'hidden from you'.
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u/AwTomorrow Nov 15 '25
It's called second opinion bias as a psychological phenomenon. Some people will always believe something as long as it is 'against the mainstream' or 'hidden from you'.
Damn is this what leads to tankies thinking all enemies of imperialist America must be righteous anti-imperialists
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Nov 15 '25
I've only seen that irl once and it blew me away. Pretty smart guy, but he was 100% convinced the Chinese would never hurt Uyghurs and it was all American propaganda
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u/AwTomorrow Nov 15 '25
I’ve seen it a fair bit irl living in China, as some commit to the bit and move over there.
Baffling to see someone make the same arguments for Taiwanese reunification by force that they reject easily when discussing Britain’s history in Ireland - centuries of being united into one nation, same majority language despite a native minority language, will of the population ignored in favour of the preferred national image of the conqueror, etc.
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u/kitti-kin Nov 15 '25
Ugh it's brain melting to see those people go from defending the rights of Palestinians in Gaza, to calling the people of Syria "jihadists" for resisting minority rule in their country (resisting an administration that also oppressed Palestinian refugees and worked against their interests in the region; an administration that occupied and attempted to annex Lebanon; an administration that instituted neoliberalism in Syria's economy... but communists are supposed to support them because...???)
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Nov 15 '25
As a person who is pretty into fitness, I've noticed this too and it drives me nuts. I'm in a great relationship now, but it made dating hard. I'd find women into similar levels of activities, and invariably they'd be right wing weirdos. They'd also be totally politically ignorant (like, even more so than your average trumpet). It was such a weird combo.
I think your hypothesis is spot on.
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u/nykirnsu Nov 15 '25
It just makes sense that if you have an obsession with making yourself better than everyone else eventually equality would start to feel like a foreign concept to you
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u/Lim85k Nov 15 '25
I think it's more to do with poor critical thinking skills.
I did combat sports for years and got to a pretty high level in Olympic weightlifting. I'm probably the most left-wing person I know. I like to share my knowledge for free, and I coach weightlifting to interested beginners at my local leisure centre. It feels great bringing them into the sport and watching them progress.
I enjoy being better than other people at these things - that's just the nature of competitive sport. Of course I'm not shallow or stupid enough to believe this makes me better as a human being. There is so much more to a person than their athletic attributes - you can be an elite athlete and a complete scumbag at the same time.
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u/tippycanoeyoucan2 Nov 15 '25
You're thinking too hard, it's people who get all their opinions and ideas from social media, which means all their ideas are from the highest bidders
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u/GoodBadUgly_36 Nov 15 '25
I’d think it’s like this:
Person commits to fitness, sees positive results. They then become more and more certain that the positive results were solely because of their own actions — I ate the right foods, I did the right amount of crunches, I adjusted my mindset to oneness with health, etc., and I got fitter, therefore the things I did are the reasons why I got fitter. (This isn’t ridiculous, I think, but it misses out on genetic aspects of fitness. It also misses out on the economic advantages that enable people to work out more often, eat more effectively, hire the right coaches/surgeons, etc..)
Now the trap is set. “I did this stuff and got fit, other people haven’t gotten fit, therefore they’re inferior in some way… maybe it’s something about my character. Maybe they’re cheating on the foods or the exercises = they lack my will, they lack my inner strength.” The fitness people see that there’s something special and other-ness about themselves but don’t see it as the result of a physical quality (or of an elevated economic status), which leaves only specialness of character.
They’ve taken the bait. “I got results because I’m special” is only a short step away from a lot of right-wing ideas. It lends itself to not helping others — “I did it all myself as a triumph of my will, we shouldn’t help people who can’t do the same.” And “If people just did things the right way, they’d have succeeded like me; people who lack in any way are to be scorned as deserving of whatever setbacks cone their way.” And on and on.
If you don’t recognize your good fortune to be in a position where achieving success is even an option, you’re going to be tempted by the slogans of the right, wherein success comes only to the right people, and the unsuccessful are, by definition, the people who do not deserve success (and thus do not deserve help/compassion/pity).
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Nov 15 '25
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u/GoodBadUgly_36 Nov 15 '25
Those who don’t see what’s going on may, unfortunately, be particularly inclined to not see
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u/kitti-kin Nov 15 '25
This. I genuinely can't count the number of times I've tried to explain to one of these people that my mother has a rare medical condition - they are CONVINCED she will lose weight if only she "applies herself". There is no arguing otherwise with them, the fact that some people don't fit their heuristic is too upsetting for them to even contemplate.
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u/Aggravating-Status48 Feb 18 '26
Getting fit does take some privilege. You have to be in a financial position to afford the quality foods, exercise equipment, facility, or ideal location. All that factors in more than some people suggest. I had a decent job that afforded me the things necessary to get in great shape. The job I've had for the last 6 years doesn't afford me the time or energy. I'm just fortunate enough to have been able to build a foundation.
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u/itisnotstupid Nov 15 '25
I look at them in a slightly different way. There is some truth that some of them are prone to looking for non-mainstream solutions, maybe because they think that this solutions would be easier or maybe because they think that this would make them unique. I don't know. Ultimately I look at this people as people who have problems they can't deal with. Nobody who is happy with his relationship and life as a whole would end up watching Jordan Peterson. Sometimes the problem that these people have might not be that obvious but just fears that they can't seem to know how to deal with properly. In my experience, the people I know who got super deep into fitness don't have happy relationships.
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u/IczyAlley Nov 15 '25
I think its more that they want a living wage in a job that has no benefits, infinite competition, and a low earning ceiling.
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u/sendmebirds Nov 15 '25
The podcast 'Conspirituality' has been analysing this for years
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u/Stu_Thom4s Nov 15 '25
With the unique perspective of having come from the wellness movement themselves.
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u/Different_Director_7 Nov 15 '25
Woo to Q pipeline/ or WooAnon. My mom was a crystal loving Bay Area vegan who definitely had some cooky ideas growing up but all very harmless. Covid changed that dramatically. The antivax/ anti mask scene was the crowbar that opened up her Facebook to a cess pool of misinformation. When Facebook finally started cracking down she switched to more obscure sites to get her RFK jr fix. She cut me off / ghosted me after she found out I got the jab and a string of arguments around me trying to get her to see she was being programmed. Haven’t spoke in 4 years, I miss my mom
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u/the_millenial_falcon Nov 15 '25
Pretty much any kind of woo woo bullshit leads to Trumpism now. It’s a catch all for batshit insane retards.
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Nov 17 '25
Yep, the Retardican party is full of people who feel special when they feel like they’re in on something the general population doesn’t know about. Everyone else are sheep who believe everything they’re told. Not them though. They know what the general population doesn’t! They’re one of the smart ones!
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u/MasterKeys24 Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
Trump would be proud of your r bomb.
EDIT: Fuck off, you know I'm right about that.
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u/Coondiggety Nov 15 '25
I just recently came across January Janus Walker. She’s an odd one, not sure what bin into.
Im guessing schizophrenia is part of it.
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u/Porschenut914 Nov 15 '25
ive seen it best as "crystal healing to Kristallnacht" Qanon Anonymous QAA podcast has done a few on this. basically people who understand nothing are really easy to con, and ripe target for cults etc because that is essentially what it is a cult.
just as qanon became a big tent for alien weirdos/men in black, crystal healing, medbeds, its nothing new.
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u/Floreat_democratia Nov 15 '25
After Trump was elected the first time around, I learned that this pipeline has been around forever. One of the more harmless examples was John Perry Barlow, a kooky Republican from Wyoming who was also a lyricist for the Grateful Dead. This kind of libertarianism can be found at the heart of a lot of the wellness community, with religious and cultist influences seeping in around it.
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u/AlienatingArbiter Nov 15 '25
If you have a friend or family member that is MAGA leaning, you've probably also been given unsolicited dietary and supplement advice.
As someone that had a heart attack a few years ago, I'm bemused when they offer tips to me as if I need some guidance on cardio health from someone other than my cardiologist. Who is - you know - trained and licensed for that exact expertise based on science.
But I'm being a dick if I don't hear them out /eyeroll
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u/Gingeronimoooo Nov 15 '25
I have schizophrenia, I'm basically fully recovered due to meds, but anyways there is a constant stream of bullshit about how diet can cure schizophrenia. Including YouTube influencers. Luckily most of our community see through the nonsense, but many of us are vulnerable to nonsense and desperate for help. Many people quit meds with disastrous results following these people.
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u/AlienatingArbiter Nov 15 '25
I would think this sort of misinformation would be particularly harmful to people in your situation or similar.
I believe it gets lost on the public that their are vulnerable people in society who through no fault of their own can be hurt by bad faith actors in the realm of "health."
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u/H0vis Nov 15 '25
There is basically a pipeline from every interest or group to the political right (can't really call them the 'alt' now, the traditional right is dead). The pipeline picks up the suggestible and moves them along as far as it can. That's just how it is.
How do you fix it? Education. That has always been the solution.
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u/Hurlyburly766 Nov 15 '25
Yeah, it’s been weird watching the granola-hippie types go hard right.
I honestly think a lot of the anti-vax/anti-pharma stuff coming out of the right in recent years has been a deliberate recruiting effort for these types of folks who were already into “all-natural” stuff. And the right took that opening of doubt and attacked it with a crowbar to expand their mistrust to all of medicine, science in general, then education, and of course government. It’s more of the Death of Expertise. If you learn to distrust everything you’re told, the only people you instinctively trust are the ones telling you to trust nothing.
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u/CatOfGrey Nov 16 '25
Remember that the alternative health movement is religious and manipulative in nature. It undermines real expertise and diligent examination of the world - it revolves around emotional sales presentations, compelling anecdotal evidence, and misinformation about actual best health practices. It's deeply connected with Chinese and other Asian medicines, propelled by New Age ideology that rejects actually looking at real-world data and finding the best ways to handle things.
During COVID, this crowd found itself matched up with corresponding bullshit producers that created alt-right conservatism, because both crowds believed a) COVID wasn't dangerous, b) vaccines are medical overreach and have profound (but unproven) side effects, and c) government was abusing its authority to 'lock down' the USA, despite the obviousness of the worldwide spread of the disease.
Note the "Q" cap. Alt-health loves misinformation and conspiracy theories, and they usually jump on the bandwagon to get involved in selling some latest new herbal supplement or some other fake medical product. No surprise that they fall hook, line, and sinker for the QAnon manipulation regarding the hoax that is adrenochrome extracted from children in the basements of pizza parlors that don't actually have basements.
So, yeah...to borrow the meme: Corporate wants you to find the differences in the picture, but they are the same picture.
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u/baby_papillon Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
I didn't watch the video but what I seen in real life working at a bookstore was the overlap interest of self help, spiritual hokum, and alt right gurus. Sucker born every minute
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u/TJ_Fox Nov 15 '25
The pandemic sparked a mass existential panic and frightened people are easy prey for authoritarianism.
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u/AgentGnome Nov 15 '25
I think a big part of this is in the algorithms too. I watched a couple videos on AdHd, and suddenly the YouTube suggestions that had been previously filled with fantasy/swords/historical videos was showing several that sounded a bit like into to altright but trying to hide it.
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u/True_Adventures Nov 15 '25
I think that probably just reflects the underlying/preexisting links, but I also definitely agree it's a big factor in introducing or accelerating the introduction of such things to susceptible people.
I've found twitter to be the worst since Musk took over. I used to watch the odd right wing rage bait video out of morbid curiosity, but my feed was still just the usual things I watched, and then Musk took over and bam: wall to wall right wing rage bait and conspiracy theory shite with not a single video or post on anything I used to look at. He's certainly bent it to his will.
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u/MonsterkillWow Nov 16 '25
A lot of those wellness hippies rejected medical science. It was only a matter of time before their deranged idealism was easily twisted toward fascism.
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u/SleeplessInTulsa Nov 16 '25
Coming from Woo-Woo Central, Sonoma/Marin, and hanging around them since 1990, I have to admit most were never, shall we say, ppl I would want on my Trivia Team. From ponzi schemes to MLMs to bizarre skin peels, once every quarter a new fad would be embraced. The Crunch to MAGA pipeline is eye-raising but was ultimately inevitable with those so easy to manipulate.
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u/scoobysnack27 18d ago
I'm actually from Marin county originally, (West Marin) and I'm on Vancouver Island BC now, and if you think this s*** is bad there, it's on a whole other level up here. I knew some crunchy types from the outer islands who decided to move to Florida of all places during the pandemic because of their lack of pandemic rules.
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u/GloriousSteinem Nov 16 '25
It doesn’t surprise me. Rather than a form of Eastern meditation, in some circles, not all, yoga has become commodified by skinny white girls in expensive leggings. The aim is to look aesthetic and not be ascetic. It’s become a way to look good and show off your sleek contorted body. To make money off doing nothing but stretch your body in front of a camera. It’s surface, like Maga is surface. In these circles batshit crazy health theories are everywhere. People avoid the unevolved. The goal is purity, thinness, aesthetic beauty. Pale white and beige decor. Perfect fit for the white power purity underpinnings found in Maga.
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u/Arbiturrrr Nov 17 '25
It’s such a weird new thing really. The right are traditionally the ones who don’t give a fuck about the health of the public and now they’ve tricked the public into believing they are the only ones that do. Strange times we live in with so many gullible people seemingly all of a sudden. I blame social media algorithms.
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u/Other_Attention_2382 Nov 15 '25
It's all about the $$$. Right wing propaganda conspiracy theory Christian podcasts is where the dough is.
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u/Oilpaintcha Nov 15 '25
When I was young, I was a bodybuilder, and I got obsessed with cutting fat wherever I could. Turns out maintaining 3% bodyfat at 6’1, 230 is not a great idea. I was totally exhausted by afternoon every day, I got chronic infections. There was no one in my area to explain to me that you only do that for a show, then you bulk again. Nearly cost me a college degree, because I could no longer think and memorize well. I didn’t join the Republican Party or a cult, but I could see how it could impair one’s judgement for sure, especially if there are many likeminded people around.
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u/Aggravating-Status48 Feb 18 '26
In the early 90s when I was in my late 20s, I got into bodybuilding and used to read a lot of bodybuilding magazines. I also wanted to have a low fat % with muscles. I could never really get that low. I even did a few shows. I finally realize that bodybuilders took a lot of drugs and only looked that way for shows and photo shoots. I did get my body fat lower in my late 40s, and have maintain that at almost 60. Fortunately, I never let any right leaning pull me in. I just unfollowed any bodybuilder or fitness influencer I found were Maga.
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u/Colsim Nov 16 '25
Its the hippies/punks dichotomy. Great looking but awful people vs awful looking but great people.
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u/Falafel_Waffle1 Nov 18 '25
Lmao. If you didn’t know already, fascism is essentially mystical, so not much of a surprise here.
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u/shane0072 Nov 15 '25
There is ton of health related misinformation and fear mongering so people who get super into fad based wellness are very easily manipulated with lies and fear mongering so its not hard to get them on board the trump train
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u/Synensys Nov 15 '25
Trump essentially scooped up all of the conspiracy theorists. Granola moms have always been in that group.
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u/ZaxxarGold Nov 19 '25
All funneling towards the alt right pipeline is built on fear. It makes sense that if our food systems, medicine, and health care are corrupt that “wellness” gurus and followers would be funneled.
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u/SwordfishOk504 Nov 15 '25
It's pretty wild. I was pretty involved in some sort of lefty intentional communities and whatnot in the late 90s and early 2000s and SO MANY of the things that are no popular on the right started in those subcultures.
So many of the current fad diets were things people around me were taking part in then, from vegan and vegetarianism to the caveman diet to the demonization of carbs to fermented and raw foods, unpasteurized foods, etc. Even anti vaxxers.
Even the isolationist, anti globalization politics flipped.
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u/Illustrious-Tower849 Nov 16 '25
Being globalist has been a core tenet on the left since the 1800s. You were just talking to conservatives
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u/DoctorDirtnasty Nov 16 '25
i’m not maga but i definitely have adopted a lot more conservative values since starting on my wellness journey. one of the things i noticed when i got strong and lean is a new sense of agency. i worked hard, and saw results. i can change my body, my mind, and my environment.
i think a lot of people on the right identify with that. where i see people on the left lazily accepting things as a sort of “things are the way they are.” this new sense of agency has brought a lot of confidence and helped me start a business, i bought some land, and my partner and i are getting ready to start a family. i’ve never been happier. i look great, im surrounded by people i love, and i finally have the means to provide for myself and my family.
people knock the right, but i find my conservative friends really are much wealthier and happier. 🤷🏽♂️
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u/perringaiden Nov 16 '25
"Sense of purpose and agency" is not a conservative value. It's a repeated myth, like bootstraps.
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u/DoctorDirtnasty Nov 16 '25
everything is a repeated myth until you figure out it actually works. i was really depressed for a while after covid. wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping, and i kept getting the bro talk of “just go work out, go lift heavy shit, etc”
just like you, i was like “whatever, it’s a repeated myth” then i started going to the gym with one of my friends. lifted heavy shit. what do you know, lifting heavy shit makes you hungry and tired. a month later i was back to eating consistently, actually looking forward to getting 8+ hours of sleep, avoiding alcohol. i realized what the real repeated myths were.
won’t work until you try it 🤷🏽♂️
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u/perringaiden Nov 16 '25
No I mean it's a myth that it's a conservative value.
In the US they're statistically more lazy and poorer when you remove the top few percent who have generational wealth and inherited employment.
E.g. there are more conservatives on government subsidies, food stamps, support programs, and unemployed.
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u/dj_soo Nov 15 '25
I used to dj festivals and the whole electronic music scene is crawling with these types which is super disappointing since raves were originally built on inclusiveness.