Protecting Our Children from Trump’s Oncoming Anti-Opportunity Onslaught
Your kids are capable of great things. Say it aloud: My kids are capable of great things.
Maybe it didn’t feel that way when your two-year-old shoved that bead in their nose last week, or when your teenager slammed the door this morning… but it’s true.
I love my job as a pediatrician, and I love being an uncle even more. Kids freakin’ rock! And I love to imagine the amazing things kids will do in the future. That’s one of the reasons why I am so passionate about speaking up for kids in this moment.
Truth be told, it sure feels like Trump Republicans are doing everything in their power to limit our kids’ potential. To make sure there isn’t a level playing field. To make sure some kids feel lesser-than their peers.
Here are some examples (sadly this list is not exhaustive):
Divesting from public education. I mean, right out of the Project 2025 playbook we are seeing the Trump administration threaten to to completely shut down the Department of Education (DoEd). And while the messaging around this has been Republicans ending “woke” curricula in schools, the joke’s on them… DoEd doesn’t control curricula, states do. But they do ensure that students with disabilities have resources, they do help provide funds to feed poor students, and they do enforce anti-discrimination laws to protect students and teachers alike. So disbanding the DoEd has nothing to do with “woke” unless you believe special education is “woke” or you think that poor students shouldn’t get to eat (unfortunately many in the GOP do hold this belief… looking at you, SCGOP).
Dismantling Medicaid, Head Start, CHIP, WIC, and SNAP. I mean come on! There is a rapidly building movement in the Trump administration to dismantle the public programs that are most critical to giving children social support. How can we expect all kids to have access to the American Dream when some kids are starving? When only the richest kids get access to pre-k? When poor kids don’t have health insurance, or access to early intervention programs for a wide range of developmental disabilities? The GOP loves to talk about fairness, but fairness for who — that’s what we should be asking them in response, because it sure as hell isn’t fair for our kids!
Demonizing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that exist to make sure everyone has a fair chance regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or religion. This one really grinds my gears y’all. There is a false narrative around “DEI” that makes it appear that these programs install unqualified minority populations into positions that would otherwise be filled by more-qualified white men. This is a lie. (Please note, I am a white man and I didn’t self-combust when I typed that.) The entire purpose of these DEI programs is to make sure hiring is based on merit, exactly the opposite of what the GOP is screaming from the podium day-in and day-out. What a horrific disservice we are doing to every little kid with big dreams, who happens to be Black, or the child of an immigrant, or transgender, or — let’s be real about who has benefited most from DEI programs — every little girl in America.
It feels like there is so much to be lost right now — and it’s true, the stakes are high.
February is Black History Month and I was recently thinking about Ruby Bridges. In 1960, Ruby was only 6 years old when she was the sole student to integrate a previously all-white only school in Louisiana. Escorted by federal marshals, hundreds of protestors hurled insults at her, and on her first day of school every single white student was taken home by their parents in protest of her presence. Then she spent the entire year alone in a classroom with a single teacher and her guardian federal marshals.
Ruby is 70 years old today. This is not ancient history.
Ruby herself said “Racism is a grown up disease. Let’s stop using kids to spread it.”
I can’t help but pose the question: What is the opposite of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?
A thesaurus would tell us: Uniformity, Inequity, and Omission.
That doesn’t sound very American to me.
Whether we are talking about DEI or about the many programs being threatened by the Trump administration and DOGE, doesn’t that sound bleak? How can they pretend to care about kids, pretend to be the party of family values, when this is the path they have chosen?
I personally think the answer lies in their disingenuity… just an utter lack of empathy in the face of the opportunity to expand their own power.
What I’m really getting at here is that your kids are capable of anything and everything, but right now Trump and his friends are trying to take that away.
And this is why we keep fighting:
“For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.” — Amanda Gorman
Well said! Thank you for this essay.
This is so well said, and one of my favorite substacks to date. I grew up in New Orleans and did not know about Ruby Bridges until my kids learned about her during Black History Month at their elementary school. I’m now a pediatrician and my sister is a nurse practitioner. I know we would not have the opportunity to be in these roles today if it were not for the efforts of so many marginalized people who fought hard to open doors for us. It feels like many white women refuse to recognize this, and they support a man and administration who fears the progress we’ve made. I don’t like this timeline, but I will keep fighting. Everyone matters.