The Playbook for Tomorrow’s Leaders
Health | Innovation | Society
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Much ink has been spilled both in favor and against RFK Jr nomination to head HHS- from the “sanewashing” of his more extreme views to the wellness mamas who feel he is going to fight big pharma and clean up our food system.
If it wasn’t clear my stance: to quote Logan Roy, RFK Jr is not a serious person
Don’t believe me? Just ask the family that’s known him his whole life.
But this not a post about his views, it’s about the war of words and memes in our topsy turvy culture.
The center-left/establishment has wholly failed to grasp the current tech-media environment. They don’t understand New Media. They don’t know about branding and marketing. Despite liberal Hollywood having the best storytellers in the world, they have failed to craft a compelling narrative to sell democracy, vaccines, NATO – what have you – to the public.
The pandemic highlighted the utter lack of communication skills of most public health agencies and its leaders, including former CDC director Rochelle Walenksy who was embroiled in a number of missteps regarding her comments about vaccines and masks.
They don’t understand how Joe Rogan and President Trump can meanderingly ramble on for hours, entertain incredulous and incredible views, often spit out overt falsehoods and yet seem more authentic and trustworthy than traditional political actors.
This is the hallmark of our post expertise world.
To counteract the weaponization of mistrust and the viral advantage of contrarianism, the medical establishment needs to adopt a more compelling, emotionally resonant, and trust-rebuilding rhetorical strategy—one that can break through the noise of social media conflict while maintaining credibility and authority. I’ll discuss five high-impact rhetorical tools that can be deployed to reframe the narrative and regain public trust.
But first, it may be worthwhile to discuss this rhetorical dynamic. How did it get this way?
Partly, it is a default nature of the views themselves. Establishment figures in medicine, politics and culture by definition have conventional stances. So they are at a loss when those systems inevitably fail – which is then magnified immediately and exponentially online.
Your successes are ignored and your failures are publicized.
Mistrust can also be easily weaponized unlike trust. That’s because trusting someone – to go on a date with you, build a company, take a trip, care for your child – is an act of vulnerability. It risks rejection, pain and loss.
Mistrust risks nothing in that regard. It gives the illusion of certainty, safety and control. Conflict is attention grabbing. Traditional advice is boring.
“If it bleeds it leads” as they say.
It is not that trust is declining but, like energy, it is being re-directed. As trust researcher Rachel Botsman at Oxford points out, broadly speaking there are 3 forms of trust:
- local – our ancestral tribal communities. Friends & Families.
- institutional – traditional establishment organization
- distributed – the age of algorithms
The first two are declining (for different reasons) in favor of the latter. Hence we don’t know our neighbors but we don’t think twice (well most of us) to get in an Uber or swipe on Tinder for a date.
The central message of the MAHA movement is sound and resonate with all of us: the modern man made environment around us is not supportive of human flourishing.
But like the junk food he vilifies, his message appears attractive but is filled with empty calories.
That’s the gambit with mis-truthers. There are just enough reasonable assertions to help make even a person think if it all makes sense.
Mistrust skewers our perceptions until we have no rhetorical landmarks and we get lost in cultural space. It’s how many radicalize as they go down Youtube playlists with no end. When people are stressed they revert to a defensive posture. Given our perma-crisis era, that means constant uncertainty and attacking anyone that doesn’t have a simpatico position.
The conservative movement has effectively weaponized, capitalized and leveraged this set up for political gain. They cross market each other’s shows and blogs to great success in a self-reinforcing flywheel. Independents and center/left influencers, however, remain siloed.
At its core, anti-establishment figures succeed because they create a “movement” that offers identity, community, and purpose. The medical community must do the same—reposition itself not just as an authority but as a tribe that protects people from fear, manipulation, and misinformation.
🔹 How to Win:
✅ Be proactive, not reactive. Don’t just “fact-check”—seize control of the conversation.
✅ Embrace viral formats. Meet people where they are (TikTok, Twitter, YouTube) instead of expecting them to read academic papers.
✅ Turn medicine into a mission. Frame doctors as guardians of truth and protectors of people, not bureaucratic figures.
💡 Bottom Line:Science doesn’t need to be boring, defensive, or inaccessible. It needs to fight with the same rhetorical fire —but with honesty, integrity, and a better story.
Five powerful rhetorical tools you can use:
1. The Hero’s Journey: Medicine as a Human-Centered Narrative
🚀 Why It Works:
People connect with stories more than statistics. Rather than relying on dry expertise, the medical field must tell stories of struggle, perseverance, and triumph—casting itself not as a faceless institution but as a collective of real people working against the odds to save lives.
🔹 Strategic Shift: Frame the medical profession as the underdog fighting against disease, misinformation, and systemic failures, rather than the “elite establishment” maintaining control.
🔹 Example Messaging:
- “Doctors are not ‘Big Pharma.’ We are your neighbors, your friends, your family—the people who held your loved ones’ hands when they were sick, who lost sleep trying to save a patient, who fight every day to keep you healthy.”
- “Imagine if you had to make life-or-death decisions every day, often with incomplete information, and still get blamed when things go wrong. That’s the impossible weight our doctors and scientists carry.”
🔹 Tactical Execution:
- Personalize the messenger—push real doctors, nurses, and researchers to the frontlines of communication.
- Use documentaries, short-form storytelling, and patient testimonials to humanize medicine.
- Leverage influencers in unexpected places (e.g., former skeptics who became believers).
2. Adopt the “Truth Bomb” Strategy: Precision Strikes Instead of Long-Winded Debates
🔥 Why It Works:
Misinformation spreads because it is simple, emotional, and provocative—the medical community must counter it with equally crisp, powerful “mic-drop” statements that don’t require a PhD to understand.
🔹 Strategic Shift: Instead of reacting defensively, go on the offensive with sharp, undeniable truths that disrupt misinformation’s viral spread.
🔹 Example Messaging:
- Misinformation: “Doctors profit from keeping you sick.”
Truth Bomb: “Dead patients don’t come back. The best doctor is the one you DON’T have to see.”
- Misinformation: “Natural immunity is better than vaccines.”
Truth Bomb: “Surviving a house fire makes you ‘fireproof,’ but wouldn’t you rather prevent the fire?”
- Misinformation: “The medical establishment can’t be trusted.”
Truth Bomb: “The same doctors who ‘can’t be trusted’ are the ones who saved RFK Jr.’s voice when he had spasmodic dysphonia.”
🔹 Tactical Execution:
- Short-form video content & meme-driven messaging (instead of dense academic responses).
- Targeted social media “punchlines” that instantly dismantle anti-science rhetoric.
- Leverage late-night comedy, TikTok creators, and Twitter debates to distribute.
3. The “Challenge the Charlatan” Playbook: Turn Mistrust Against the Manipulators
🔍 Why It Works:
RFK Jr. and other contrarians exploit mistrust but are often deeply flawed figures themselves. Instead of directly debating them on facts (which they distort), reframe the argument around their credibility, incentives, and contradictions.
🔹 Strategic Shift: Instead of playing defense, turn the mistrust lens onto the charlatans:
- “Who profits from your fear? Who’s selling the books, the supplements, the ‘miracle cures’?”
- “Why do they hide their own financial interests while accusing doctors of corruption?”
- “If the medical establishment is so evil, why do these same people run to hospitals when they get sick?”
🔹 Example Messaging:
- “RFK Jr. isn’t anti-science. He’s just selling his version of it—wrapped in fear, cherry-picked studies, and book sales.”
- “If your doctor is ‘bought off,’ what about the influencers making millions on fear and conspiracy?”
🔹 Tactical Execution:
- Expose financial motives behind misinformation spreaders.
- Show hypocrisy through receipts (who actually treats them when they get sick?).
- Highlight former insiders (ex-anti-vaxxers, reformed contrarians) speaking out.
4. Flip the “Anti-Establishment” Script: Reframe Science as Revolutionary
⚡ Why It Works:
People love rebels and disruptors—but medicine itself is often the biggest disruptor of disease, suffering, and misinformation. Instead of defending the establishment, position doctors and researchers as the ones challenging outdated, harmful ideas.
🔹 Strategic Shift: Science is not static—it is constantly evolving, questioning, and improving. Show how medicine isn’t dogma—it’s a revolution against disease and misinformation.
🔹 Example Messaging:
- “You want disruption? Science is the biggest disruptor in history. It took us from polio outbreaks to eradicating polio.”
- “Real rebels fight disease, not imaginary enemies.”
- “The medical ‘establishment’ just discovered how to edit genes, print organs, and cure hepatitis C. That’s real revolution.”
🔹 Tactical Execution:
- Rebrand scientists as the real revolutionaries.
- Tell stories of breakthroughs that disrupted old ways of thinking.
- Lean into technology (AI in medicine, CRISPR, longevity science) as proof of constant evolution.
5. Make It Personal: Lean Into Emotion Over Rationality
💡 Why It Works:
Logic alone rarely wins arguments. People trust personal experiences, visceral emotions, and lived struggles more than data points. The medical field must lean into human stories that evoke emotion, not just rationality.
🔹 Strategic Shift: Instead of debating in abstract terms, showcase real patients, real doctors, and real stakes.
🔹 Example Messaging:
- “I treated a man who refused the vaccine. I had to tell his family he wouldn’t make it.”
- “RFK Jr. doesn’t have to be at the bedside when someone gasps for air from preventable illness. We do.”
🔹 Tactical Execution:
- Patient testimonials that evoke genuine, heart-wrenching emotion.
- First-person narratives from frontline doctors & nurses.
- High-quality visual storytelling (documentaries, short films, personal vlogs)
To his supporters, the intense controversy he generates is proof of his righteousness. That’s going to be an uphill battle to fight, but these strategies can help.
It will be curious if RFK Jr can be effective to his followers in the unique position he finds himself – the anti-establishment crusader who railed against doctors and pharma is now the establishment himself. Trump has been able to maintain that insider-outsider role, but only by scapegoating, and savvily identifying political foils to play against.
And being against something does not clarify what he stands for. What is the proactive vision of health in America? We deserve to know.
A Final Word
In my quiet and lonely moments when my family has gone to bed, I wonder if our cultural battles with each other signify something truly sad:
Maybe we fight each other because we have lost hope for solving our problems.
Resignation has bred antipathy.
Perhaps, our hope for a better tomorrow is not something we gave up as much as it was stripped of us by brutal and unrelenting times.
Figures like RFK Jr will always populate our cultural landscape, because he appears to bear witness to too many people who feel they are alone and powerless as they scream into the void.
I’m sick.
I’m hurting.
Help me!
Do Something!
As physicians and advocates, we have heard these cries before. We have legitimate stories to share, but we have to be savvy to the evolving rules of words, audio, and video.
Let’s not cede the ground to dark horse figures who speak a good game, but don’t (and don’t want to) understand what they talk about.
We need solutions not screaming.
Tomorrow Can’t Wait
