The Right’s Newest Trojan Horse: Meet MABA, the “Nature” Group That’s Anything But Green

They did it with education. They did it with health. Now, they’re coming for the environment.

Never underestimate the power of conservative branding.

Since their early days I recognized Moms for Liberty and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) for what they are— highly organized, politically savvy, and dangerously underestimated by the left. While many Democrats brushed them off as fringe or unserious, I knew they were building real political power. And just last week, those two forces, Moms for Liberty and MAHA, sat together at a roundtable inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, shoulder to shoulder, legitimized at the highest levels of Republican politics.

That’s why I want us to focus on the latest Republican splinter group in town: MABA, Make America Beautiful Again. Yes, you read that right. Sometimes reality feels like one long SNL skit these days.

MABA is helmed by a group called “Nature is Non Partisan.” If the name sounds harmless, even appealing, that’s by design. Like Moms for Liberty and MAHA before it, MABA wraps itself in the language of common sense, nostalgia, and bipartisanship while quietly working to reshape the Republican coalition and expand its conservative voter base.

MABA is positioning itself as a nonpartisan environmental movement, focused on restoring America’s natural beauty, cutting through government inefficiency, and promoting what it calls “market-based conservation.” Again, on the surface none of this seems controversial.

But if you take a closer look, the pattern is one we have seen before. Just as Moms for Liberty weaponized parental rights and education to fuel right-wing extremism, and just as MAHA turned personal health skepticism and wellness curiosity into a full-blown attack on public health institutions, MABA is using environmentalism as a Trojan horse for deregulation, privatization, and dismantling federal protections for land, water, and wildlife.

This isn’t about conservation. It’s about eroding trust in government, slashing regulations that corporate donors hate, and pulling in new voters, specifically suburban moderates and environmentally conscious Gen Z, who might not align with the GOP on other issues (yet) but can be won over by a movement that claims to be “above politics.”

The Republican Party knows it needs to expand beyond its MAGA core, and MABA is its latest attempt to do just that. If history tells us anything, it will be a mistake to ignore it. Too many on the left ignored the MAHA ladies and look where that got us. That’s why I want us talking about this NOW. And not just talking about it, but yelling about it and exposing it for exactly what it is before their misinformation starts spreading.

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MABA is launching on March 20th which is why I am breaking it down here today. So let’s take an even closer look.

As I mentioned, MABA presents itself as a broad, bipartisan movement for conservation. If you look at the “team” section on their website they go so far as to identify the staff as liberal and conservative. But the people sitting on its board aren’t just environmentalists, they are right-wing strategists, corporate lobbyists, and former government officials with a history of dismantling the very protections they now claim to support.

Among the names tied to MABA are former Trump administration officials, think tank executives, and figures with deep connections to industry groups that benefit from weaker environmental regulations. Many of them have spent years working to roll back conservation laws, weaken federal oversight, and push for the privatization of public lands. Now, they are rebranding themselves as “pro-nature” to give their agenda a fresh look.

Take Ben Cassidy, Nature is Nonpartisan’s Chief Policy Officer. He previously served as a senior Trump appointee at the U.S. Department of the Interior and as the Executive Vice President of Safari Club International, a group that lobbies for expanding trophy hunting and reducing restrictions on public land use. His history is one of promoting commercial access to protected lands, not conservation. See here for the type of ‘conservation’ content they post on IG (it’s images of trophy hunting).

Other board and advisory members include a mix of corporate executives, conservative media personalities, and former government officials with deep ties to fossil fuels, agriculture, and development industries. A managing director at Thiel Capital is on the Board of Directors, as are two of the most powerful Gen Z female conservative influencers, both of whom I've talked about on this Stack: Isabel Brown and Brett Cooper.

There are also a few liberals, but let’s be clear, RFK Jr. ran for president as a Democrat. MAHA moms and Moms for Liberty are full of former Democrats. This isn’t a sign of bipartisanship; it’s part of the strategy. These groups actively recruit disaffected moderates, independents, and former Democrats who feel alienated by the party’s stance on certain issues, whether it’s COVID policies, education, or environmental regulations. By positioning themselves as “common sense” movements, they create an easy on-ramp for people who wouldn’t otherwise see themselves as aligning with the right. MABA is following the same playbook, giving conservatives a new way to siphon off voters who care about nature but are wary of government intervention, offering them a movement that claims to be about conservation, when in reality, it’s about dismantling it.

What I’m most worried about is that they are clearly digital first. Their branding is cute, 70s-inspired, soft, and nostalgic, a calculated contrast to the urgency and often apocalyptic tone of mainstream climate activism. They understand aesthetics, they understand virality, and they have literal influencers on their board of directors. This isn’t just another conservative policy group; it’s a well-designed, highly strategic media operation built to spread fast online and appeal to the exact kind of disengaged, aesthetically-driven, culture-first audience that the left keeps failing to reach.

Right now, the climate movement is still speaking to its activist base. The messaging is designed to mobilize people who are already invested, who already believe the science, who already see climate change as an existential crisis. But MABA isn’t speaking to those people, it’s speaking to the ones on the sidelines, the ones who care about nature and conservation but don’t see themselves as political. And the right doesn’t need to convince everyone. They just need to peel off enough voters to win elections. That’s what Moms for Liberty did with suburban moms, it’s what MAHA did with wellness influencers and the vaccine-hesitant, and now MABA is gearing up to do the same with conservation-minded moderates. If the left doesn’t start taking this seriously now, we’re going to get out-messaged, again.