18/04/2025
I read this and just felt so sick to my stomach.
How can we sit by and let these people remain in power.
As a global society of humans, how come those in power are not recognising how inhumane this administration is. And why are they not stopping them?
I can't help but think, as horrific as this month has been already, it is going to get worse, unless Trump and his administration are not stopped.
I just don't get it.🥺
The Death of Empathy: RFK Jr.’s War on the Disabled
By Tony Pentimalli
On April 16th, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—now Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services—stood behind the seal of the United States government and uttered words that will stain our national conscience for generations.
“These are kids who will never pay taxes,” he said. “They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”
This wasn’t a misstep. It was doctrine. A governing philosophy spoken aloud by the official responsible for shaping healthcare for 330 million Americans. Under the authoritarian cruelty of Trump’s second term, Kennedy’s remarks aren’t shocking—they’re expected.
We are watching the death of empathy made policy.
Let’s be blunt: this is not policy analysis. It’s a eulogy for the disabled, delivered in bureaucratic language to make genocide sound like efficiency. Kennedy’s words are a page ripped from history—hauntingly familiar to anyone who knows the origins of Germany’s Aktion T4 program, where disabled people were called “burdens,” “useless eaters,” and “lives unworthy of living.” Before there were gas chambers, there were doctors. Before there were killings, there were statements like this.
Kennedy claimed autistic individuals are incapable of love, creativity, and connection. That’s not just wrong—it’s dehumanizing. It’s not a commentary. It’s an erasure.
And it is false.
Holly Robinson Peete, a prominent advocate and mother of an autistic son, responded swiftly:
“My 27-year-old autistic son works, pays taxes, and is the kindest person I know. He’s held down a job for 6 years. He writes beautiful poetry. And yes—he goes on dates.”
Disability is not a void. It is not absence. It is variation. To speak of autistic people as incapable of art, labor, or love is not only offensive—it’s violent. And in Trump’s America, that violence is state-sanctioned.
RFK Jr.’s pattern of pseudoscientific rhetoric is long-standing. For years, he has peddled conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism, despite overwhelming evidence disproving such claims. He has stoked fear and misinformation for personal gain, using disabled children as political pawns while pretending to champion medical freedom. Now, with the full power of the Department of Health and Human Services behind him, those once-fringe ideas have become public policy.
We are already witnessing the consequences. Under this administration:
Federal special education funding has been slashed by 24% in two years.
Medicaid waivers for disability services have waitlists stretching over a decade in some states.
The Department of Government Efficiency has fast-tracked cost-cutting measures eliminating mental health and developmental disability supports.
Trump’s trillion-dollar military budget has ballooned while community-based services are left to rot.
This is not about saving money. It’s about sending a message: if you’re not useful to the machine, you don’t matter.
Let’s not pretend Trump’s hands are clean. During his first term, he mocked a disabled reporter on national television. He dismissed his own nephew’s severe health challenges with a shrug:
“Those people,” he said, “maybe they should just die.”
When told his nephew didn’t recognize him, Trump reportedly replied, “Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
This is the morality of fascism. It’s not about hatred alone. It’s about efficiency. About removing obstacles. About reducing human lives to actuarial math and cutting the “losses.”
We’ve seen this playbook before. The only thing that’s changed is the wardrobe.
But we will not be silent.
We say this for every autistic child learning to speak at their own pace. For every disabled adult navigating a world designed to exclude them. For every parent, teacher, aide, therapist, and advocate who has fought against impossible odds to build a world of inclusion.
Poetry is not limited to those who hold pens. It lives in laughter, in effort, in persistence. It lives in the stimming of joy and the brilliance of pattern. It lives in humanity—however it expresses itself.
We are not “burdens.” We are not “cost centers.” We are not problems to be solved or expenses to be eliminated.
We are people.
And if history is any guide, these are the moments when silence becomes complicity. So here is what must be done:
Demand RFK Jr.’s immediate resignation. His position is untenable.
Organize. Call your senators. Flood their offices. Make this impossible to ignore.
Divest from platforms, corporations, and campaigns that promote ableist ideologies.
Vote like someone’s life depends on it—because it does.
And finally, we must look forward with open eyes. If we do not stop this now, we know where it leads:
AI-driven healthcare systems triaging patients based on perceived worth.
Private insurers denying care to children labeled as “low potential.”
Schools stripped of IEP funding, relegating disabled students to warehousing instead of education.
A society that calls itself civilized while quietly erasing those who fall outside its economic definition of value.
This is not science fiction. It is a policy roadmap. And it is already underway.
But we are many.
We remember.
We resist.
And we will wrench the pendulum back—not gently, but forcefully—because the alternative is unthinkable.
*Tony Pentimalli is a political analyst and commentator fighting for democracy, economic justice, and social equity. Follow him for sharp analysis and hard-hitting critiques on Facebook and BlueSkybsky.social
