[Steve_Seattle]

Actually, I tend to associate medical "quackery" with the political left - not the hard-left of radical politics, but the Marianne Williamson left, the soft-left, the nicey-nice left of gay tolerance, liberal politics, environmentalism, and New Age religion.

It is here that you find the panoply of unorthodox remedies like aromatherapy, "healing" cards, crystal therapy, neo-Druidism, Wicca, herbalism, "Native American" remedies, smudging/clearing-the-air, Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, vibration therapy, Rolfing, psychic readings, past-life regression, yoga, "energy healing," homeopathy, and innumerable others.

Conservatives, on the other hand, typically rely on mainstream medicine, gruff I-take-good-care-of-myself-ism, sometimes supported by faith and prayer (but not REPLACED by faith and prayer).

[Wallace T.]

There is a connection between the soft left and organic food, natural cures, New Age ideas like crystals, essential oils, etc. Health food stores tend to be concentrated in upscale urban neighborhoods, affluent suburbs, college towns, and elite resort areas.

However if you go to what was called the farther shores of politics. i.e. libertarians, traditionalists. conspiracists, survivalists, there is a string strong interest in organic foods, homeopathic medicine, etc., but not much for the New Age elements on the soft left. In the 1960s, the John Birch Society opposed fluoridated water and promoted alternative cancer cures. The promotion of said cures reportedly was the reason John Wayne left that organization.