Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:53] I wonder if you can start, Lesley, by telling me a little bit about Fairfax.
Lesley McClurg [00:01:57] It’s a really adorable little town. About an hour from San Francisco out in West Marin. It’s kind of known for its beauty. It’s a really beautiful town. There’s a ton of mountain biking trails. It’s got an adorable downtown, kind of old fashioned downtown. So you’ve got all these shops, these kind of eclectic shops you can go and you can get your crystals and your hemp clothing. And on Wednesdays, there’s this incredible farmers market where people go and get their fresh local honey and their heirloom tomatoes.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:36] Yeah, when did you, I guess, first start to notice something else sort of brewing underneath here in Fairfax?
Lesley McClurg [00:02:43] Yeah, I mean, as I was following the pandemic as a health reporter, you began to see, I used to call it, like the Venn diagram is getting very strange, where you’ve got kind of wellness culture intersecting with more conservative viewpoints, especially around vaccines. And you’ve got wellness culture sort of questioning, has always questioned, mainstream medicine, kind of anti-pharma, more all-natural. And then as we saw, conservatives didn’t like the sort of mandates during the pandemic to protect people from the virus, but you had to change your life. And conservatives didn’t like that lack of independence. And so you saw these communities begin to intersect. And I began to really see that in my reporting. And then I just happened to have quite a large community out in Fairfax and began to overhear these conversations in personal ways, in social circles. And that’s kind of only gotten louder.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:48] This has a lot to do with also the rise of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. What exactly have you seen people in Fairfax embracing more in this moment?
Lesley McClurg [00:04:03] Right around when RFK started to run for president last year, the RFKers set up right at the entrance of the farmers market. And they had all their MAHA, make America healthy again, swag. And so the vibe began to shift a little bit more publicly there. And then those voices began to get quite a bit louder. The vaccine rates were quite high, or were quite high in Marin during the pandemic. That’s not really the historical trend in Marin. You know, 10 years ago, I think Marin had some of the lowest vaccine rates in California. And there’s always been kind of a questioning of putting something foreign that was created by a pharmaceutical company into your body. That ethos, I don’t think has ever died. But when the vaccine mandates came on and you couldn’t go into restaurants and hospital workers, et cetera, couldn’t go to their jobs without getting their vaccines, those ripples, you know, in certain communities started to ignite. And I think they were even more fueled by RFK’s messages, you know Kennedy’s messages.
Lex Fridman [00:05:06] Difficult question. Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?
RFK Jr. [00:05:10] I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.
Lesley McClurg [00:05:25] He has an organization that he founded called Children’s Health Defense. And I’ve gotten those emails and their press releases for years. And there is a pretty deep skepticism of vaccine science. There’s a thought that vaccines cause autism, which scientifically there’s not proof at all for that. But there is conspiratorial thinking around vaccines that RFK ignited. And that only became louder during the pandemic. And I think a lot of people turned to their social media for information during the pandemic and RFK was there with a lot of messaging.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:02] And I know you talked with some people in Fairfax who, on paper, I mean, don’t love Donald Trump, actually identify as more lefty type people, but who sort of have really began to embrace this ideology that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. really represents. Can you tell me about some of the people you spoke with?
Lesley McClurg [00:06:30] I spoke to a man named Nathaniel Lepp and he is a doctor and addiction specialist in Fairfax.
Nathaniel Lepp [00:06:36] I see him as part of the anti-establishment or anti-authority type of movement.
Lesley McClurg [00:06:45] He would have called himself, I think, very left historically. And yet he wanted the Democratic Party to push harder and, I think, be a little bit more left, I would say. And he was very disappointed with the kind of more mainstream pull of the Democratic party.
Nathaniel Lepp [00:07:01] I officially unregistered myself from the Democratic Party because I was just so fed up with the sort of establishment Democrats’ refusal to allow passionate, more left, populist candidates to get through and win the nomination. I supported Howard Dean, I supported Bernie Sanders.
Lesley McClurg [00:07:25] And he also, I think in his medical career, questioned what he was being taught. He witnessed the opioid crisis during his residency and he saw doctors prescribing pain medications that led to deep addictions and horrible lives. And he blamed the medical institution for that and he now works as an addiction specialist to wean people off of psychiatric medications that he believes are causing more harm.
Nathaniel Lepp [00:07:51] The crisis of opioid overdose related deaths in America was fueled by the medical system, by doctors and pharmacies and not only that, like major institutions.
Lesley McClurg [00:08:08] I think that has led him to a place where he is interested in a candidate who is willing to question the institutions that we have in place. And RFK Jr. is kind of famous for questioning the CDC and the FDA and these organizations that have historically, you know, been kind of our protectors of health.
Nathaniel Lepp [00:08:25] I don’t hold any politician to, like, a high level of precision, like in their words. I think it’s like, you know, I think that he’s directionally correct.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:51] How widespread does this, it seems like dissatisfaction with government, this sort of anti-vax, pro-RFK junior politics that Nathaniel seems to share, how widespread does that seem to be in Fairfax?
Lesley McClurg [00:09:19] It’s a great question. I don’t think there’s hard data. I would love to see hard data and be able to really put this into perspective by how people are voting, et cetera. We can’t do that because RFK was no longer a candidate for president. And I would say, if you go to Fairfax, I wouldn’t say that you get this overwhelming sense of RFK loyalty. What I gathered was that this small, very fringe, four people at a rally, anti-vax voice has gotten quite loud on a civic level.
Matt Willis [00:09:49] I didn’t realize the degree to which misinformation was taking hold in my community.
Lesley McClurg [00:09:54] Even talking to public officials like Matt Willis, he’s the former public health official in Marin County. He says that that contingent of folks used to be small and fringe that he kind of dismissed.
Lesley McClurg [00:10:08] It moved from what was a visibly kind of older community of a few people who would show up repeatedly, kind of a known cast of characters at supervisor meetings, et cetera. And then you started seeing more families. There were moms because of their concerns about vaccines for their kids. And then by the time RFK started running for office, the float at the Fairfax parade was intergenerational.
Lesley McClurg [00:10:38] This is a group that called for his removal from office. And even last summer, there was a Fairfax parade and there was an RFK Jr. float.
Matt Willis [00:10:49] A lot of the folks that I recognized from board meetings who were really accusing me of harming people directly and had hung signs over Highway 101 to have me locked up. I was there with my family and I just thought maybe we should protect them from whatever might happen if we’re recognized.
Lesley McClurg [00:11:07] He says now that he underestimated that group of people and that they’re much louder.
Matt Willis [00:11:12] Now as the RFK and the MAHA movement has become more broad, we’re seeing a lot more engagement from people across the community, including families.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:27] How does this anger about the vaccine and this loud support for RFK Jr. trickle down into other parts of politics in Fairfax?
Lesley McClurg [00:11:39] I think that anti-vax seeded a questioning of the government’s influence in individual lives that then seeds a questioning of the governments influence in renter controls, in DEI policy, in LGBTQ protections.
Chase Cutrano [00:11:57] There is just a really weird sort of energy that has come as a outcropping of the pandemic.
Lesley McClurg [00:12:06] And I talked to Chance Cutrano, who is the former mayor in Fairfax. And he really outlined that sentiment. He said, you know, it started as kind of an anti-vax voice. And then he felt that during the meetings, it then took on more of the anti-science, anti-DEI, anti-LGBTQ. And this really struck him. You know, historically, Fairfax is quite environmental, but even to anti-climate policies.
Chase Cutrano [00:12:32] So you’re anti-housing and anti-homelessness. And then not only that, but anti-electric vehicle. And now, oh my gosh, it’s the same people are coming back and they’re not only electric vehicles, they’re anti-battery powered landscape equipment.
Lesley McClurg [00:12:46] Now, how much of that is tied directly to RFK supporters or a wave of more Trumpian thought? It’s difficult to dissect. But I think, as we can see nationally, those forces are intersecting. The RFK followers are tipping in a more Trumpien direction. And so we’re beginning to see that unfold in small towns, even in very blue parts of California.
Chase Cutrano [00:13:11] I mean, it’s all like in the spirit of this libertarian, like, don’t tread on me. I mean there are a lot of Don’t Tread On Me stickers in Fairfax, you know?
Lesley McClurg [00:13:19] He last year, you know, received a death threat and a call for a public lynching. This was on a local political website and he just, you know, was kind of thrown for a loop.
Chase Cutrano [00:13:32] Now I’m just in therapy because I am no longer in office. So I’m trying to just process the horror of serving in this strange time, especially as a young person that believed in civic life and public service and just seeing a lot of maybe truths that I took for granted being tested, but also just decency and decorum in general being tested.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:05] Yeah, I mean, Lesley, this, I guess, phenomenon that you’re describing happening in Fairfax does seem like a sort of smaller reflection of something that we’re seeing happening on a national level, this sort of mainstreaming even of these sort of anti-vax, anti-establishment policies. I mean this isn’t unique to Fairfax, right?
Lesley McClurg [00:14:30] No, I think and that’s one reason why I placed it in Fairfax. It would be one thing if I was, you know, two or three hours north of here in quite conservative country telling this story. But this is, you know a community that again kind of has that intersection. I talked to this woman from Petaluma. Her name is Zadie Dressler and she’s a nurse.
Zadie Dressler [00:14:50] I’ve never really cared as much about this stuff until RFK started talking about it honestly.
Lesley McClurg [00:14:57] Zadie said politics weren’t really on her radar at all, but during the pandemic, she didn’t want to get the vaccine and decided she had to get it to continue working at her hospital. And she said she a few months after the vaccine, she started to have some health problems that she links back to the to the vaccine, and started to question the vaccine.
Zadie Dressler [00:15:16] I called Kaiser and I was like, I needed an EKG and a chest x-ray because I am having tachycardia and like chest pain. And they gave me those two things but then just kind of treated me like a psych patient. And it was months after my second vaccine.
Lesley McClurg [00:15:30] She gets a lot of our information from social media and she started to see some of the messages questioning the vaccine and what it’s doing and kind of write for RFK’s message.
Zadie Dressler [00:15:40] You have all these things that are just on TV or however you get the information, they’re just blatant lies. And then you’re supposed to be like, ‘Oh, I trust the president’ or ‘Oh, I trust this scientist who’s telling everyone to get these shots.’ So the whole thing it’s, it’s got so many tentacles.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:59] I mean, what do you think these people want ultimately? I mean if you are on the RFK Jr. train, does that mean that you are also on the Trump train? Like is Trump’s politics and Trump’s message more broadly also really resonating with this group of people?
Lesley McClurg [00:16:17] My overall sense is that the gateway for entering potentially more conservative thinking is health.
Matt Willis [00:16:25] Marin County has always had, you know, a fringe element around health and well-being.
Lesley McClurg [00:16:32] And Matt Willis talks about this. Maybe they don’t want the chemical colors in their food, and they don’t want pesticides in the ground, and they want drugs to be poured on them by the medical system. And so you already kind of believe in a more natural life. Like that’s potentially your gateway.
Matt Willis [00:16:49] Unfortunately, that got linked, I think, to a charismatic leader, you know, RFK, who himself carries many of those beliefs and has similar kind of libertarian ideology and freedom of choice and anti-government.
Lesley McClurg [00:17:04] And they really resonate with the message of disruption. And you’ve got someone like RFK who’s saying, you know, the CDC and the FDA are our enemies and we’ve got to take them down and let’s fire all these workers and start over and do this differently. And I think that level of disruption and the willingness to question authority is really resonating with this particular set.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:34] What’s your biggest takeaway from this story, Lesley?
