Only five weeks into the new Donald Trump presidency, but that little over a month of the fascist felon-turned-US head of state has arguably already taken years off chronically ill and disabled people’s lives and rights.
From the get-go, Trump’s return to the Whitehouse was always bound to spell a surge in unbridled ableism. If there’s one thing the citrus-tanned billionaire is always ripe for, it’s punching down – and that’s a much easier feat from the highest lofty office in the land.
Make America Grossly Ableist would fit well with the MAGA family of dogwhistle slogans. Leave off the ‘again’ part though – it’s unneeded – the 50-state North American shithole in the hands of the rampant neoliberal Democrats had systemic ableism down pretty well before Trump swept to power. Even so, things can only get worse under the steer of the egotistical megalomaniac.
And, ever the eager fascist eugenicist, Trump has certainly lived up to this – as one group has been documenting in harrowing, disquieting detail.
Trump eugenics incoming
In January, the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey drew attention to the eugenics part of Trump’s inauguration bile.
It was a brief line, that as she pointed out, you might have sneezed and missed, where he said:
We will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease-free.
Nothing is ever innocuous when it comes to Trump, and this was no exception. The always brilliantly incisive Charlton-Dailey interpreted his seemingly throwaway comment, and lo and behold the sinister ramifications quickly come into view:
Of course there’s something glaringly obvious here, you can’t “end” chronic illness, because the clues in the name – they’re chronic. You can however deny support, make it harder for disabled people to get treatment, and actively work to endanger them.
So how is Trump planning to “end chronic disease”? Well it sure as fuck ain’t through support and funding research.
Ultimately, Trump’s own record speaks for itself in terms of where this is heading. Charlton-Dailey went through the dangerous and disturbing details, which included:
- Trump’s history of wanting to deny children disability benefits
- Project 2025’s plans for time limits and lifetime caps on Medicaid – so low income people may no longer be able to afford potentially lifesaving treatment.
- Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and making it easier for Big Pharma to boost medication prices for more stonking profiteering. She noted how over 65s and people with certain disabilities would therefore lose their free vaccinations.
- Robert Fucking Kennedy Jr of chronic illness denialism, brain worms, anti-medication, and food poison fame as new health secretary.
And it begins…
A little over a week after Charlton-Dailey wrote this, in all his fake anti-establishment-elite contrarian nationalist wisdom, Trump ditched US membership of the World Health Organization (WHO). Of course, we all know how well that turned out at the height of a global pandemic last time.
But, there’s clearly no need for an international health body and cross-border cooperation on global health when you have a Covid-19 conspiracist and ardent anti-vaxxer as US president, with RFK Jr in tow.
In unrelated news, Texas and New Mexico are going through their worst Measles outbreak in three decades. It’s largely down to – you guessed it – lower rates of vaccination uptake thanks massively to vaccine skepticism fomented by conspiracy theorists.
In particular, the vaccine causes autism myth is part of this. Naturally, both Trump and RFK Jr have at one point or another leaned into that peak ableist shitshow.
But everyone take some hydroxychloroquine, am I right?
Then, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes were all the frothing-at-the-mouth fascist’s faux outrage. Trump scapegoating disabled folks and people of colour for fatal plane accidents was very on-brand for the vile bigot, and just as baseless. Obviously, this was the felon president doing what he does best. That is, pointing the finger of blame at someone other than the ginormous man-baby sitting at the highest office.
Plenty pointed out that Trump had gutted a key aviation safety body . Plus, nothing to see here on Trump’s inauguration day, just the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) chief stepping down after clashing with nepo-baby and nefarious Trump-bankrolling puppeteer Elon Musk.
Of course, this was Trump only just getting started. Now, a group has created a weekly round-up dedicated to tracking all the latest-in-Trump-ableist-bullshit. And already, the policy and dangerous political manoeuvres for chronically ill and disabled people are racking up.
A weekly round-up in Trump’s ableist bullshit
Disability Rights Watch has documented the news that many will have also missed that spells disaster for disabled communities in the US. By the Canary’s count, its run-down is now nearing thirty separate disability-related policies and events.
For a flavour of some of it, within just five weeks of his presidency, Trump and his administration have:
- Removed the accessibility page and all American Sign Language (ASL) content from the Whitehouse website. Other webpages have also faced the delete button too. This includes the Department for Education’s resources on disabled children’s rights.
- Frozen the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division that deals with discrimination complaints. As Disability Rights Watch highlighted, it’s one of the key “mechanisms for enforcing” Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which are meant to protect disabled people from discrimination.
- Fired ASL interpreters and accommodations divisions, including the Whitehouse press office interpreter.
Put multiple programmes supporting disabled people “under review”.
Moreover, Trump has bandied about executive orders like they’re going out of style. Just a few of these Disability Rights Watch pointed out are:
- Ending spending on DEI programmes.
- Setting off a sweep of anti-DEI investigations.
- Gone full anti ‘woke’ indoctrination in schools – threatening to defund them for what Trump’s admin calls “discriminatory equity ideology”.
Disability Rights Watch also included some state attacks on chronically ill and disabled folks. While Trump obviously won’t have had a direct hand in these, his ableist rhetoric and government will have undoubtedly emboldened them. And it’s all from Texas – because of course it is. Specifically, the hotbed state of Republicanism and Trump fanboy fascism is in the thick of a case seeking to dismantle Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. If nothing else, it’s clearly in step with the president’s moves to mothball access to justice through this.
Of course, there’s plenty more where all that came from. You can pore through Disability Rights Watch’s weekly round-up here:
https://bsky.app/profile/novicsara.bsky.social/post/3liuo6asq7k2t
Mass sterilisation and population control is back, baby
Overall, that’s a lot of bad news for chronically ill and disabled folks. Yet somehow, this isn’t even all of it either.
Spotted: former Trump speech writer and out-eugenicist Darren Beattie now at the State Department. At the start of February, Trump appointed him as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.
A couple of outlets have highlighted that this is the dude who has flirted with that old eugenicist chestnut: mass sterilization programmes! As US-focused media site NOTUS pointed out, he has:
repeatedly voiced support for mass sterilization of “low-IQ trash.”
It reeled off a list of his racist, classist, ableist best-worst moments. Predictably, they were truly disgusting:
“Population control? If only!” he wrote in May 2024. “Higher quality humans are subsidizing the fertility of lower quality humans.”
In 2023, Beattie questioned why abortion is legal and “well within Overton window of public discourse,” but the “idea of offering feral populations financial incentives for voluntary sterilization is completely taboo.”
Later that year, he responded to a video of people in an Atlanta neighborhood by calling for a sterilization program.
“When a population gets feral, a little snip snip keeps things in control,” he wrote. “Could offer incentives (Air Jordans, etc.).”
Beattie made another post in March 2021 in favor of promoting better genes, which he suggested again in 2024: “Pay smart people to have more kids, disincentivize stupid people from having kids,” he wrote last year. “So simple but molds destiny on deep intergenerational level.”
He also said far-right conspiracy theories that a grand population-control scheme is already happening aren’t accurate because “all I see is trash multiplying.”
So, joy of joys, that’s another rancid population control and eugenics fanatic among the Trump toxic male vanity parade that’s now the US government. The worrying part though is that Trump’s actions so far mean that reality isn’t actually so divorced from the possibility of his administration following through on Beattie’s abhorrent ideas.
Just good neoliberal capitalist murderous economics
Trump’s crusade against chronically ill and disabled people has a purpose – and it all leads to: eugenics.
After all, devaluing disabled lives and killing chronically ill folks off is just good economics. That is, that’s the case as far as neoliberal capitalists are concerned. Trump’s murderous Covid-19 denialism shows how these assaults on their rights are all part and parcel of this.
It led to disproportionate deaths for disabled and other marginalised communities during the pandemic. So he’d likely now be thrilled to know that his deliberately catastrophic mishandling of it has saved the US treasury a good buck.
Yes, some economists have really researched that – with US government grant funding to boot.
Notably, US conservative-financed think tank the National Bureau of Economic Research has put out a new study. And, it’s as chilling as its title ‘The Effect of US COVID-19 Excess Mortality on Social Security Outlays’ suggests. The paper opines that:
Excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic has complex implications for the OASDI program. While there is an estimated net positive financial impact due to reduced future retirement benefits, this effect is mitigated by decreased payroll tax contributions and increased survivors’ benefits.
So, chronically ill and disabled people’s lives measured by their value in service of the US capitalist economy then? Got it.
Its headline takeaway was that the US government would pay out $205bn less in Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits. In short, the pandemic killed so many older and disabled people, that the US government now won’t be paying out so much in social security.
The point is, it’s this atrocious ableist rhetoric that continues to lay the groundwork for Trump’s latest swathe of attacks. We’d like to pretend this isn’t precisely what cuts to disability benefits is all about too. However the reality is that it pays the government to deprive disabled people of benefits. But it comes at an unconscionable cost – disabled people’s lives.
Attacks on disabled people’s rights – Trump edition version 2
Ultimately, it’s clear Trump is back for stripping chronically ill and disabled people of their rights feat. eugenics policy-making, round two. Needless to say, he’s off to a terrifying flying start – even if US airlines are not because: diversity *long eye-roll, even longer utterly exhausted sigh*.
In Trump inaugurated 2025, the world at large just became that much less safe for chronically ill and disabled people. Now, more than ever, chronically ill and disabled communities in the US and internationally, need to watch each-other’s backs – because states everywhere sure as hell aren’t going to – and in many cases, are actively trying to kill us.
Featured image via the Canary
