"I Took the Test RFK Jr. Is Using to Determine Who Should Work at His Health Department"

[Nevilledog]

https://slate.com/life/2024/12/rfk-robert-kennedy-trump-health-human-services-job.html

Donald Trump has promised to allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild” in his new role as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The environmental lawyer, anti-vax conspiracist, and brain-worm survivor chartered an oddly shaped coalition of COVID denialists and almond moms in his path to the White House, all of which was successfully marbled into the Trump platform during the waning months in the campaign. It’s hard to know exactly what Kennedy is cooking up for public health, or if some of his more radical ideas (like, say, removing fluoride from the water supply) will ever make it past the purgatory of “advisory boards.” But we do have at least one hint about how the man intends to structure his wing of the executive branch: a test ostensibly designed to locate potential employees for RFK’s reign at HHS. Among other things, Kennedy would like to know if you’ve ever experienced clairvoyance.

The whole assessment, which was first reported by Puck and was confirmed to be real by the Trump transition team, is available for anyone to take. Unlike more concrete examinations of one’s fitness to serve in a public health regime—like, for instance, any tangible background in medicine or health policy—the test reveals itself to be a free-associative chimera of IQ-ish logic puzzles and the sort of discredited Myers-Briggs queries you used to take in Computer Lab. It would be a hilarious prank if its intentions weren’t seemingly dead serious.

As an American, I decided to determine my own fitness for a role in RFK Jr.’s cabinet of horrors. It was a disquieting experience. The first 17 (17!) questions in the test are all pattern recognition, where you’re asked to slot a geometrical graphic into a row of three without breaking order. After that, you’re ushered to some good old-fashioned word association, and asked to determine, through multiple choice, the closest definitional relative of a particular article of speech. (Like, say, matching “envy” up with “jealousy.”)

Remember those standardized tests you took in middle school? Where everyone was trapped in the basketball gym for six hours on a Monday afternoon? It’s kinda like that, except with, you know, the fate of the entire American medical apparatus on the line.

*snip*

[choie]

1. I seem to recall that

he hasn't been confirmed yet.

[3catwoman3]

2. I had to look up "almond mom."

What does almond mom mean?
An almond mom is a parent who follows incredibly strict or dangerously unhealthy eating habits and attempts to force them on their children.