MAGA Influencers Got Caught Defending Diet Coke

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an idiot and has no idea what the hell he’s doing as Health and Human Services Secretary, but I don’t particularly hate his campaign against Big Soda. Fun fact: Not only am I the first person in my family to go to college but I’m also one of the very few to make it to age 45 without losing all or most of my teeth—a fate that’s befallen many in my family thanks to soda products (and also meth). That said — and call me libertarian if you must — I don’t necessarily agree with RFK Jr.’s attempt to prohibit soda purchases with SNAP benefits and food stamps.

That is, however, exactly what RFK Jr. is trying to do. And for a moment, it looked like the MAGA world might actually get on board (the same MAGA world, by the by, that believes pasta in Europe will make you skinny). But Big Soda’s customer base includes a lot of low-income folks (see also: my toothless family), and they weren’t going down without a fight.

To wit: soda-makers launched a campaign against the RFK measure, and they used MAGA influencers to sell it. And those grifters eagerly took the cash and played their parts. According to The Daily Beast, a number of MAGA influencers—many using nearly identical language—began orchestrating a coordinated attack on the measure.

“A new war on soda has begun, targeting purchases made through SNAP. I don’t believe it’s the government’s role to decide what people should or shouldn’t eat,” Miles Cheong posted. “Promoting better health for Americans is a reasonable idea, but not when it involves curbing Diet Coke purchases.” Several more influencers followed suit, all of them clinging to the same bizarre talking point: Donald Trump’s love of Diet Coke.

These influencers were given a couple templates to use by Influenceable, with one of those templates SPECIFICALLY telling them to mention Trump’s Diet Coke habit

This was done to invoke an EMOTIONAL response from loyal Trump supporters, making them feel as if banning soda from… pic.twitter.com/yjqBFlCMJx

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 22, 2025

Naturally, they all got caught. A few conservatives who hadn’t sold out snitched on the ones who had, and before long, the influencers began quietly deleting their posts and issuing weak apologies—essentially confirming what many of us already knew: their political opinions are for sale.

Yeah, that was dumb of me. Massive egg on my face.

In all seriousness, it won't happen again. https://t.co/ojKNTLBTVp

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 23, 2025

It’s not just that they’re hypocrites — oh, but they are! — it’s that they’re also cheap hypocrites. These people will scream about THE FIRST AMENDMENT one day, then go full-on word police the next, all because someone offered them some bitcoin and handed them a script. There’s no principle, consistency, or actual belief system — it’s just a rotating menu of outrage for hire.