cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17696
Since Donald Trump marched back into the White House in January 2025, his administration has waged an all-out war on disabled people. Trump has issued executive orders rolling back civil rights protections, slashed funding for vital services and support, and advocated for legislation that would ramp up institutionalization.
The administration’s actions reflect the cruel and dehumanizing language it uses to speak about disabled people, who comprise more than a quarter of the nation’s population: One February 2025 executive order characterized children being diagnosed with autism or ADD/ADHD as “a dire threat to the American people and our way of life,” while, according to a memoir by Trump’s nephew, the president thinks some disabled people “should just die.”
Trump’s second-term assault on the disability community comes as many continue to shoulder the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately killed disabled and aging Americans, worsened the nation’s care worker shortage, and left at least 20 million people ill or disabled with long COVID. Rather than commit to plugging gaps in the nation’s public health system and preparing for future crises, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is implementing an extremist anti-science agenda that public health experts have warned “endanger[s] every American’s health.”
Truthout asked several disability justice advocates and organizers from across the U.S. to explain what’s at stake for disabled people in Trump’s attacks on voting rights, education, the climate and Indigenous land stewardship, health care, and trans rights. They also shared where they’re finding hope and how you can join the struggle for disability rights and justice as it continues into the second year of Trump 2.0.
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