Retiring a slur is not about policing every mistake. It is about refusing to make disability shorthand for human failure.

Content note: This article names an ableist slur once for clarity and historical context.

It often slips into conversation disguised as an ordinary insult.

A frustrating decision is called “retarded.” A malfunctioning device gets labeled with the R-word. Someone makes a mistake, and the word appears as a punchline.

When challenged, the response is usually predictable: I wasn’t talking about people with disabilities.

But that defense misses the point. The insult only works because it borrows its negative meaning from a disability label. It asks everyone listening to accept the same underlying equation: intellectual disability equals stupidity, incompetence, absurdity, or worthlessness.

That is why the R-word is not harmless slang. Even when it is directed at an object or at someone without a disability, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities remain the hidden targets.

A diagnosis became a weapon

The R-word did not begin as playground slang. It developed from terminology once used by medical professionals, educators, governments, and institutions to classify people with intellectual disabilities.

Over time, that terminology became saturated with ridicule and contempt. The clinical label migrated into everyday speech as an insult.

Institutions eventually recognized that the language could no longer be separated from the degradation attached to it. In 2010, the United States enacted Rosa’s Law, replacing references to “mental retardation” and “the mentally retarded” in numerous federal laws with “intellectual disability” and “individuals with intellectual disabilities.”

The law did not change anyone’s eligibility, rights, or medical diagnosis. It changed the terminology because terminology helps determine whether people are discussed as human beings or reduced to categories.

Today, intellectual disability has a specific clinical meaning. The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities defines it through significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, originating during the developmental period. Crucially, its framework also emphasizes that limitations coexist with strengths and that appropriate, sustained support can improve a person’s functioning and well-being (Schalock, Luckasson, and Tassé, 2021).

A slur conveys none of that complexity. It turns an entire population into a one-word caricature.

“I didn’t mean it that way” does not erase the meaning

Intent matters, but it is not the only thing that matters.

A person may use the R-word without consciously wanting to harm anyone. Yet language carries social meaning beyond the private intention of the speaker. When a disability label is repeatedly used to mean defective, ridiculous, or incompetent, it teaches listeners which kinds of people society considers acceptable targets for contempt.

Research illustrates how thoroughly the word entered ordinary speech. In a study of 1,169 American children and teenagers, 92 percent reported hearing the R-word used as a slang insult (Siperstein, Pociask, and Collins, 2010). A later study involving 2,297 students across 12 high schools found that the word was used frequently and most often directed at people without intellectual disabilities (Albert, Jacobs, and Siperstein, 2016).

That finding does not make the language less ableist. It reveals how ableism works: the disability category becomes a portable insult that can be aimed at anyone.

The harm is larger than hurt feelings

The case against the R-word is sometimes dismissed as excessive sensitivity. But the issue is not simply whether a particular person feels offended on a particular day.

The word participates in a broader culture of stigma.

It reduces people to a stereotype

People with intellectual disabilities have different personalities, abilities, needs, ambitions, relationships, and life experiences. A slur erases those differences and replaces them with a presumption of incompetence.

Once that presumption takes hold, it can influence who is listened to, trusted, included, hired, educated, befriended, or allowed to make decisions.

It tells people who belongs

Casual slurs establish the boundaries of a group. They tell some people that they are safely inside the joke and others that their identity—or an identity associated with someone they love—is the joke itself.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities identifies inherent dignity, nondiscrimination, respect for difference, and full participation in society as foundational principles. Language alone cannot create inclusion, but language that continually marks people as inferior certainly works against it.

It can affect psychological well-being

A systematic review found that people with intellectual disabilities and their family members experience self-stigma and family-associated stigma, with potential negative effects on psychological well-being (Ali et al., 2012).

In a later study of 229 people with intellectual disabilities in England, greater self-reported stigma was associated with greater psychological distress and lower quality of life. Because the study was cross-sectional, it could not establish causation, but its findings underscore that stigmatizing treatment is not merely an abstract question of etiquette (Ali et al., 2015).

Words exist inside relationships, schools, workplaces, health systems, and communities. Repeated messages about who is inferior can have consequences far beyond a single conversation.

Disability is not a synonym for intellectual limitation

Disability is not one condition or one experience. Developmental disabilities can involve physical, learning, language, or behavioral areas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physical, sensory, developmental, and intellectual disabilities may overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

Someone’s mobility, speech, hearing, vision, or appearance tells us nothing reliable about that person’s intelligence.

This is why figures such as Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, and Frida Kahlo are often mentioned in conversations about disability. Their lives challenge the assumption that a physical or sensory disability prevents intellectual or creative achievement.

Yet there is a deeper point that lists of exceptional people can miss.

People should not have to demonstrate extraordinary intelligence, productivity, artistry, or courage to earn dignity. A person with a significant intellectual disability deserves respect for the same reason a celebrated scientist or artist does: because that person is human.

The strongest response to ableist language is therefore not, “Some disabled people are geniuses.”

It is: No marginalized group should be used as our unit of contempt.

Better language is usually more accurate language

Removing the R-word does not leave us unable to criticize bad ideas or describe frustrating situations. English offers plenty of alternatives—and most of them communicate more precisely.

Instead of using a disability slur, say what you actually mean:

• The proposal is poorly designed.

• The decision was reckless.

• The instructions are confusing.

• The claim is uninformed.

• The situation is absurd.

• The joke is juvenile.

• The mistake was careless.

When disability is relevant, use accurate and respectful terminology. “Person with an intellectual disability” is a widely accepted formulation. When referring to a particular person or community, however, it is best to ask about language preferences. Some disability communities favor person-first language, while others prefer identity-first language. The National Institutes of Health recommends respecting the preference of the person or group whenever it is known.

And often, the most appropriate word is simply person.

What meaningful change looks like

Eliminating one slur will not eliminate ableism. Respectful vocabulary means little if people with disabilities remain excluded from classrooms, workplaces, public spaces, friendships, leadership roles, and decisions about their own lives.

But changing our language is still a concrete place to begin.

We can:

1. Stop using the word, including as a joke or a description of objects and situations.

2. Correct it without staging a public humiliation. A calm “That word harms people with intellectual disabilities—please choose another one” is often enough.

3. Apologize plainly when we make a mistake. A brief acknowledgment and changed behavior matter more than a long explanation of what we supposedly intended.

4. Listen to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Their experiences should guide conversations about the language and barriers that affect them.

5. Move from respectful speech to inclusive action. Invite participation, provide appropriate support, challenge low expectations, improve accessibility, and include people with disabilities in decisions.

The Special Olympics-led Spread the Word campaign reflects this broader goal. Originally created in 2009 to end the R-word, it later expanded its focus from eliminating a slur to building communities in which people with and without intellectual disabilities learn, work, and participate together.

That evolution matters. The goal is not merely a cleaner vocabulary. It is a more inclusive reality.

Words reveal what we are willing to normalize

Language changes because societies change. Terms once treated as acceptable can become unacceptable when we finally listen to the people they demean.

Retiring the R-word is not censorship. No one is being deprived of an essential tool for thought or expression. We are being asked to give up a slur that turns disability into an insult—and to replace it with language that is both more humane and more precise.

That is not a sacrifice. It is growth.

Words cannot create justice by themselves, but they can reinforce injustice every day. Removing the R-word from our vocabulary is one small, practical way to stop doing so.

Let’s choose words that describe problems without degrading people. Let’s correct ourselves without defensiveness and others without cruelty. Most importantly, let’s build communities in which dignity is not awarded according to intelligence, productivity, or ability.

It belongs to everyone.

References and further reading

1. Albert, A. B., Jacobs, H. E., & Siperstein, G. N. (2016). “Sticks, Stones, and Stigma: Student Bystander Behavior in Response to Hearing the Word ‘Retard.’” Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 54(6), 391–401.

2. Ali, A., Hassiotis, A., Strydom, A., & King, M. (2012). “Self stigma in people with intellectual disabilities and courtesy stigma in family carers: A systematic review.” Research in Developmental Disabilities, 33(6), 2122–2140.

3. Ali, A., et al. (2015). “Self-reported stigma and symptoms of anxiety and depression in people with intellectual disabilities: Findings from a cross-sectional study in England.” Journal of Affective Disorders, 187, 224–231.

4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Developmental Disability Basics.”

5. Congress.gov. “S.2781—Rosa’s Law.” Public Law No. 111-256, 2010.

6. National Institutes of Health. “Person-first and Destigmatizing Language.”

7. Schalock, R. L., Luckasson, R., & Tassé, M. J. (2021). “An Overview of Intellectual Disability: Definition, Diagnosis, Classification, and Systems of Supports.” American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

8. Siperstein, G. N., Pociask, S. E., & Collins, M. A. (2010). “Sticks, Stones, and Stigma: A Study of Students’ Use of the Derogatory Term ‘Retard.’” Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 48(2), 126–134.

9. Special Olympics. “Why the R-Word Is the R-Slur.”

10. United Nations. “Guiding Principles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”

America keeps sounding an alarm about Muslims.

Listen to enough right-wing rhetoric and you might imagine that the country is on the verge of an Islamic takeover: Sharia law in every courthouse, mosques replacing churches and a foreign population quietly plotting against the nation from within.

Then you look at the numbers.

According to the latest Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, 62% of American adults identify as Christian. Muslims account for approximately 1.2%.

Before going further, an important correction: 62% of Americans do not belong to the Christian right. That figure includes Catholics, mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, evangelicals, Orthodox Christians and others with widely different politics.

The Christian right is a political movement, not a synonym for every Christian in America. PRRI estimates that approximately 10% of Americans qualify as adherents of Christian nationalism and another 20% as sympathizers.

That distinction matters. Propaganda thrives on imprecise categories, and we should not fight it by creating categories of our own.

But the basic imbalance remains striking. A small Muslim minority—with little collective institutional or political power—is repeatedly presented as an existential danger to a country in which Christianity remains overwhelmingly dominant.

The alarm is much louder than the supposed threat.

The threat that does not exist

Let me be precise about what I mean.

There are Muslim criminals, extremists and violent people. There are also Christian, Jewish, Hindu, atheist and politically unaffiliated criminals, extremists and violent people. Governments have a legitimate responsibility to investigate actual threats, prevent violence and prosecute crimes.

What does not exist is the collective Muslim threat described by right-wing propaganda.

Muslim Americans are not a single political organization. They do not share one ethnicity, nationality, ideology or interpretation of Islam. Pew’s research describes an American Muslim population that is roughly 30% white, 30% Asian, 20% Black and 11% Hispanic.

They are immigrants and native-born citizens. They are conservatives and progressives. Some are devout. Some barely practice. Some are undoubtedly kind; some are undoubtedly unpleasant. In other words, they are people.

Propaganda erases all of that. It takes millions of individuals and turns them into one sinister character called “the Muslims.”

Once that character has been invented, almost anything can be attributed to it.

A crime committed by one Muslim becomes evidence about Islam. An extreme statement by one cleric becomes the secret opinion of every family attending every mosque. A conflict on the other side of the planet becomes a loyalty test for a Muslim grocery-store owner in Michigan.

Other Americans are rarely treated this way. When a Christian commits an act of violence, Christianity itself is not automatically placed on trial. Christians across the country are not expected to hold press conferences condemning the offender. Their silence is not treated as suspicious.

Muslims, however, are frequently expected to answer for strangers simply because those strangers claim the same religion.

That is collective guilt, and collective guilt is one of propaganda’s favorite tools.

I am not defending Islam

As I have said before, I am an atheist.

I do not believe the Quran is the word of God. I do not believe the Bible is the word of God. I do not believe that any supernatural being has handed humanity a perfect book, a chosen people or an unquestionable set of commands.

Islam contains ideas that should be criticized. So does Christianity. So does every ideology that makes claims about how human beings should live.

We should be free to question religious teachings about women, sexuality, apostasy, authority and punishment. We should be free to debate religion, reject it, satirize it and walk away from it.

But Muslims are not ideas. Muslims are people.

That is the line propaganda tries to erase.

Criticizing a religion means examining its doctrines and institutions. Prejudice means treating a person as dangerous, inferior or disloyal because of the group to which that person belongs.

I do not have to admire Islam to know the difference.

A Muslim does not need my approval to build a mosque, wear religious clothing, run for office or raise a family. A Christian does not need my approval to attend church. I do not need either person’s approval to reject religion entirely.

Rights are not rewards we give people for holding beliefs we like.

Fear has a political purpose

The mythology of a Muslim takeover survives because it is useful.

Fear encourages people to surrender their judgment. It turns neighbors into suspects and political opponents into traitors. It allows politicians to present ordinary discrimination as “security” and religious favoritism as “tradition.”

The imagined enemy must always be both weak and terrifying: too small to defend itself effectively, yet supposedly powerful enough to destroy the country.

This is why every new mosque can be presented as an invasion, every Muslim public official as an infiltrator and every request for equal treatment as a demand for special privileges.

The rhetoric produces real consequences. The Department of Justice recorded 236 reported anti-Muslim hate-crime incidents in 2023, an increase from the previous year. In the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s 2025 survey, 63% of Muslim respondents reported experiencing religious discrimination during the previous year.

Those figures do not describe an invading force. They describe a minority living under suspicion.

And suspicion does not remain confined to television studios or campaign rallies. It follows people into airports, schools, workplaces, banks and encounters with law enforcement. It reaches children who learn that their classmates—or sometimes adults—see their families as something foreign and dangerous.

This is what propaganda does. It takes an imaginary danger and creates actual victims.

Religious freedom also protects atheists

Some atheists may wonder why we should spend our time defending religious people. After all, religious institutions have often worked against secular government, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights and science education.

My answer is simple: defending someone’s rights is not the same as endorsing that person’s beliefs.

In fact, religious liberty protects atheists for precisely the same reason it protects Muslims. It prevents the government from deciding which beliefs are legitimate, which citizens are spiritually acceptable and which identities are sufficiently “American.”

The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion while prohibiting the government from establishing one. Those principles belong together. The government should neither suppress a minority religion nor elevate a majority religion above everyone else.

If the state can decide that a mosque is inherently suspicious, it can decide that atheism is inherently subversive. If politicians can make citizenship conditional on accepting Christian identity, then nonbelievers are standing outside the same gate as Muslims.

The machinery of religious repression does not remain loyal to the people who build it.

Rights are tested at the margins

It is easy to support liberty for people who look like us, vote like us and believe what we believe.

That is not much of a principle.

Rights matter most when they protect someone unpopular. Freedom of religion means little if it applies only to the majority faith. Freedom of speech means little if it covers only agreeable opinions. Equal protection means little if fear can suspend it whenever politicians identify a convenient enemy.

Muslim Americans should be held to the same standard as everyone else: responsibility for their own conduct, not collective responsibility for the actions of strangers.

No Muslim should have to prove that they are “moderate enough” before receiving constitutional rights. No Christian should have to renounce Christianity because a Christian extremist commits violence. No atheist should have to pretend to believe in God to be considered a moral or patriotic American.

Evidence should determine guilt. Conduct should determine responsibility. Citizenship should not come with a religious test.

I am tired of being placed in the position of defending a religion I do not believe in and do not particularly care for.

So let me say it differently.

I am not defending Islam from criticism. I am defending Muslim Americans from being reduced to a political caricature. I am defending the principle that my neighbor’s rights do not depend on my opinion of their theology.

A Muslim American has the right to be devout, doubtful, conservative, progressive, admirable, irritating, correct, mistaken—and free.

Exactly like everyone else.

The real danger is not that roughly 1% of the country will somehow conquer the other 99%. The danger is that enough Americans will accept fear as evidence and make citizenship conditional on belonging to the right religion.

The alarm keeps ringing because fear is useful.

We should stop mistaking its volume for proof.

Sources and Further Reading

1. Smith, Gregory A., Alan Cooperman, Becka A. Alper, Besheer Mohamed, Chip Rotolo, Patricia Tevington, Justin Nortey, Asta Kallo, Jeff Diamant, and Dalia Fahmy. “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off.” Pew Research Center, February 26, 2025. DOI: 10.58094/4kqq-3112.

   Supports the figures showing that 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christian and approximately 1.2% identify as Muslim, as well as information about the racial diversity of Muslim Americans.

2. Public Religion Research Institute. “Christian Nationalism Across All 50 States: Insights from PRRI’s 2024 American Values Atlas.” PRRI, 2025.

   Supports the estimate that 10% of Americans qualify as Christian-nationalist adherents and 20% as sympathizers. It also documents the relationship between Christian nationalism, political affiliation and consumption of far-right media.

3. U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service. “2023 FBI Hate Crimes Statistics.” Updated January 29, 2025.

   Reports 236 anti-Muslim hate-crime incidents during 2023, an increase from the previous year. These figures reflect incidents reported to participating law-enforcement agencies and should not be interpreted as a complete count of every hate crime committed.

4. Selod, Saher, Dalia Mogahed, Erum Ikramullah, and Sarah Baker. “American Muslim Poll 2025: Islamophobia Index.” Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, October 21, 2025. Corrected May 2026.

   Reports that 63% of Muslim respondents experienced religious discrimination during the previous year. It also examines anti-Muslim stereotypes, collective blame and the relationship between Islamophobic attitudes and support for discriminatory policies.

5. Library of Congress. “Overview of the Free Exercise Clause.” Constitution Annotated.

   Provides the constitutional basis for the article’s discussion of religious liberty and the First Amendment’s protection of religious exercise.

Additional supporting research

6. Kearns, Erin M., Allison E. Betus, and Anthony F. Lemieux. “Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others?” Justice Quarterly 36, no. 6 (2019): 985–1022.

   The researchers examined 136 terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015. After controlling for factors including fatalities, arrests and the type of target, attacks committed by Muslim perpetrators received substantially more news coverage than other attacks.

7. Bruneau, Emile, Nour Kteily, and Emily Falk. “Interventions Highlighting Hypocrisy Reduce Collective Blame of Muslims for Individual Acts of Violence and Assuage Anti-Muslim Hostility.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 44, no. 3 (2018): 430–448.

   Examines how Muslims are collectively blamed for violence committed by individual extremists and how that collective blame contributes to anti-Muslim prejudice.

A TikTok user recently called on liberals and Democrats to stop fighting President Donald Trump.

Let him complete his term, they said. Show him support. Unite behind the president for the good of the nation.

My answer?

Why?

Why should Americans put politics aside and rally behind a president who calls political opponents on the left the “enemy from within”? Why should we support a president who attacks his critics, pressures prosecutors to target political enemies, and doubles down on falsehoods that have already been debunked?

Above all, why should the burden of “unity” fall on the people being attacked, demonized, and threatened rather than on the person doing the attacking, demonizing, and threatening?

He won—but he did not win our loyalty

Donald Trump won the 2024 election. That authorized him to serve another four-year term as president, subject to the Constitution and the law.

It does not mean Americans must support his actions or agenda regardless of what he does.

Trump is our president. He is not our king.

The American people do not swear an oath of allegiance to the president. The president swears an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Accepting an election result means accepting who won office. It does not require us to abandon our critical judgment, our principles, or our constitutional right to oppose that person’s policies.

When Republicans criticized President Biden, they did not lose their right to free speech simply because a Democrat occupied the White House. Liberals and Democrats retain that same right under President Trump.

Holding political leaders accountable is not treasonous.

It is patriotic.

Unity requires mutual respect

Trump has a long history of attacking political opponents. Throughout the 2024 campaign, he repeatedly described opponents on the left as the “enemy from within.” He also applied that label to prominent Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.

Remarks like these do not encourage Americans to come together. They divide the country into “real Americans” and internal enemies. They turn political opponents from fellow citizens with different ideas into supposedly dangerous people who must be defeated or punished.

Then, after spending years vilifying the opposition, Trump and his supporters ask those same Americans to put aside their grievances and unite behind him.

But unity must work both ways.

It cannot give one politician permission to demonize half the country while expecting the people being demonized to behave as though nothing is wrong.

Trump can call for unity all he wants. If he genuinely wants to achieve it, he can begin by treating Democrats, liberals, journalists, judges, immigrants, and political opponents as Americans—and as human beings.

Giving a president whatever he wants is not patriotism. Patriotism means holding every president to the standards of honesty, decency, and constitutional restraint that we expect from anyone entrusted with public power.

Criticism is not hatred

There are legitimate reasons to criticize Trump. Doing so does not require hatred, and it does not justify personal threats or political violence.

It requires accountability.

Consider the record.

His repeated falsehoods

Many of Trump’s policies are debatable. Facts are not.

Trump has repeatedly made false or misleading claims about elections, immigration, science, the economy, and other major issues. By 2024, PolitiFact had conducted 1,000 fact-checks of Trump and concluded that he stood apart from other frequently checked politicians in the proportion of claims rated false.

Political leaders sometimes make mistakes. What distinguishes Trump is his willingness to repeat claims long after credible evidence has disproved them.

His pressure on the justice system

In 2025, Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue cases against political opponents, including James Comey, Adam Schiff, and Letitia James. The episode was widely described as an escalation of his campaign of political retribution, according to the Associated Press.

Government power should not be used to settle a president’s personal or political scores.

That principle must apply regardless of which party controls the White House.

His treatment of a reporter with a disability

At a November 2015 rally, Trump appeared to mock New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital condition that limits movement in his arms.

Trump later claimed that he had been imitating a reporter “groveling,” not mocking Kovaleski’s disability. But the video, Trump’s gestures, and the surrounding context led several news organizations and fact-checkers to conclude that mockery was the most reasonable interpretation. PolitiFact examined both the incident and Trump’s denial.

A president helps define what a country considers acceptable. Cruelty does not become harmless simply because it entertains a crowd.

The E. Jean Carroll verdict

In 2023, a federal civil jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

A federal appeals court upheld that judgment. In June 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal. Trump has continued to deny Carroll’s allegation.

Regardless of who occupies the White House, conduct of this kind cannot simply be dismissed as partisan noise.

Trump is president of the United States. He is not above criticism, accountability, or the law.

I can love America without supporting Trump

There is a reason Trump’s critics are repeatedly told to “support the president.” The phrase conflates support for the country with support for a particular politician.

But America is larger than any president.

I can love America without supporting Trump’s leadership. I can hope my country thrives without endorsing his agenda. I can support policies that improve people’s lives without abandoning my principles. I can respect the presidency as an institution while believing Trump is unfit to hold the office.

If Trump proposes a policy that is constitutional, fair, and beneficial, I will consider supporting it on its merits. No one should have to reject a sensible policy merely because it came from the opposing party.

But a willingness to cooperate does not require me to ignore abuses of power, dishonesty, bigotry, misconduct, or attacks on democratic institutions.

Americans do not owe personal loyalty to politicians.

Our loyalty belongs to the country and the Constitution.

What genuine unity would look like

National unity does not require ideological conformity. It does not require liberals to check their values at the door or conservatives to surrender theirs.

It requires a shared democratic foundation.

Genuine unity means recognizing that:

• Elections matter, and allegations of fraud must be supported by credible evidence.

• Every lawful vote should be counted—and candidates must accept verified results even when they lose.

• Opposing a president does not make someone anti-American, an enemy, or a terrorist.

• Government power must not be used to punish political opponents.

• Courts must be allowed to rule according to the law, even when their decisions anger powerful politicians.

• Repeating a claim does not make it true.

• Presidents, journalists, activists, judges, and political critics are all subject to scrutiny and accountability.

• Democrats, Republicans, independents, immigrants, dissidents, and everyone else living in America deserve basic human dignity.

• Political violence and threats are unacceptable, regardless of who commits them or which party benefits.

Unity is not something Democrats owe Donald Trump. It is a democratic responsibility shared by every American—including Trump and his supporters.

I want unity—but not at any price

I want my children to grow up in a country where political opponents can compete without treating one another as enemies.

I want Democrats to treat Republicans with respect, and I want Republicans to do the same.

I want a government that delivers meaningful results for the American people, protects their rights, and holds public officials accountable when they put power, greed, or personal ambition ahead of the people they were elected to serve.

I can hope for those things whether Trump is in office or not.

But hope is not enough. Citizenship requires action.

Unity without accountability is not unity.

It is surrender.

If Trump and other leaders on the right want our help uniting America, they must demonstrate that they are prepared to participate in that unity.

Will they respect courts that rule against them? Will they accept election results when they lose? Will they reject political violence even when it comes from their own side? Will they commit themselves to honesty, dignity, and democratic restraint?

Until they do, I will not pretend that attacking political opponents is acceptable. I will not remain silent when Trump or his supporters threaten democratic principles. And I will continue asking our president to become a better, more responsible leader.

That is not opposition to America.

It is one way of defending it.

Donald Trump may be president of the United States, but in America, the president serves the people.

The people do not serve the president.

1. “Enemy from within” remarks: Trump repeatedly used the phrase about American political opponents and specifically identified Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
   Associated Press: Who does Trump see as “enemies from within”?

2. Pressure to prosecute political opponents: Reporting on Trump publicly pressing Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue cases against James Comey, Adam Schiff, and Letitia James.
   Associated Press: Trump ramps up retribution campaign

3. Investigations involving perceived adversaries:
   Associated Press: New subpoenas issued in inquiry involving Trump adversaries

4. False and misleading statements: PolitiFact’s analysis of 1,000 fact-checks found that Trump stood apart from other frequently checked politicians in the share of claims rated false.
   PolitiFact: What PolitiFact learned in 1,000 fact-checks of Donald Trump

5. Falsehoods during the 2024 campaign: FactCheck.org identified more than 60 false, misleading, or unsupported claims in Trump’s closing campaign arguments.
   FactCheck.org: Donald Trump’s Closing Arguments

6. Serge Kovaleski incident: This review examines the rally video, Trump’s explanation, Kovaleski’s disability, and the surrounding context.
   PolitiFact: Trump’s denial that he mocked a disabled reporter

7. Sexual-misconduct accusations: More than a dozen women had publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct by 2019. Trump denied the allegations.
   Reuters factbox: Women who accused Trump of inappropriate conduct

8. E. Jean Carroll verdict: A federal civil jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and awarded her $5 million.
   Reuters: Appeals court upholds the Carroll verdict

9. Official appellate record: The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment in Carroll v. Trump, 124 F.4th 140.
   U.S. Court of Appeals opinion

10. Supreme Court disposition: On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court denied Trump’s petition seeking review of the $5 million Carroll judgment.
    Supreme Court docket No. 25-573

Before we talk about the November midterms, we need to talk about the primaries.

Primaries are not dress rehearsals. They are where political parties choose the candidates who will appear on the general-election ballot.[1] They are often our best opportunity to vote affirmatively: not merely against the person we fear, but for the person whose values, judgment, and vision we genuinely support.

So vote for that person.

Not the candidate the pundits have declared “electable.” Not the candidate with the wealthiest donors, the loudest online following, or the slickest advertising. Vote for the candidate you have researched and truly believe would serve the public well.

A healthy democracy needs voters who are willing to say what they actually want. If we begin every election by surrendering to fear, money, or manufactured inevitability, we help create the very lack of choice we later complain about.

The primary is where we make our case

Primaries allow us to debate what our parties—and our country—should become.

This is the time to ask candidates difficult questions. Will they defend equal treatment under the law? Do they support accessible healthcare, housing, education, transportation, and public services? Will they protect bodily autonomy and the right of people to live openly and safely? Do they treat LGBTQ people and disabled people as full members of the public—or as convenient targets?

Look beyond campaign language. Examine voting records, policy proposals, budgets, endorsements, public statements, and the people a candidate is likely to appoint. Pay attention to whether candidates listen when affected communities speak for themselves.

Then vote according to your convictions.

Primary rules and dates vary by state. Some primaries are open, while others require voters to register with a party in advance. Semi-open and semi-closed systems also exist.[1] Check your registration and your state’s rules well before voting begins.

What if your candidate loses?

Then comes the harder part of democratic responsibility.

If the candidate you supported does not win the primary, disappointment is natural. You may be angry about the result, frustrated by the campaign, or deeply critical of the nominee. You do not have to pretend those disagreements disappeared. You do not owe any politician devotion, silence, or unconditional loyalty.

But the general election presents a new decision.

In November, we will not be choosing among all the candidates we wish had won. We will be choosing among the candidates who are actually on the ballot—and one of them will gain the power to govern.

That distinction matters.

A ballot is not a love letter. It is a tool for influencing real-world outcomes. Voting for the less harmful viable candidate does not mean endorsing every decision that person has made. It means recognizing that different administrations, legislatures, judges, budgets, and regulations produce different consequences.

Harm reduction is not political purity. It is a refusal to treat preventable suffering as an acceptable price for expressing our disappointment.

“Both imperfect” does not mean “equally harmful”

Every candidate is imperfect. That observation is so obvious that it tells us almost nothing.

The important questions are comparative:

• Which candidate is more likely to protect civil rights?

• Which one will preserve or expand access to healthcare and disability services?

• Who supports accessible voting, education, housing, employment, and transportation?

• Who will defend LGBTQ people from discrimination rather than use them as political scapegoats?

• Who respects the autonomy and dignity of disabled people?

• Who will appoint officials and judges who share those commitments?

• Which outcome gives vulnerable communities more room to live, organize, advocate, and survive?

If one candidate is disappointing and another intends to strip people of rights, healthcare, independence, or legal protection, the difference is not cosmetic. It is a difference in the lives people will be able to lead.

Choosing the less harmful candidate is not cowardice. Sometimes it is solidarity.

Pay attention to deliberate harm

Political rhetoric can make cruelty sound abstract. It rarely remains abstract for the people affected.

Policies determine whether someone can obtain medical care, keep a job, enter a public building, receive community-based support, use the bathroom safely, marry the person they love, participate in school, or exist in public without being treated as a threat.

Listen carefully when candidates tell you whom they intend to target. Do not dismiss attacks on transgender people as “culture-war distractions.” Do not treat cuts to Medicaid, home- and community-based services, accessible transportation, special education, or disability benefits as mere budgetary details. Do not overlook proposals that weaken anti-discrimination protections.

And do not assume you can punish a political party for nominating the wrong person without that punishment landing first on people with fewer resources, fewer protections, and fewer ways to escape the consequences.

Some voters can endure a destructive administration as an inconvenience. Others experience it as lost healthcare, lost housing, lost legal recognition, forced institutionalization, family separation, or physical danger.

Our voting decisions should account for that unequal distribution of risk.

November is about power

The 2026 federal general election is November 3.[2] Every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives will be contested, along with approximately one-third of the Senate.[3] Many state and local offices will also appear on ballots. Those less-publicized races can determine policies involving schools, healthcare, housing, policing, elections, transportation, and civil rights.

Vote in the primary for the candidate who most closely represents your hopes.

If that candidate wins, organize for them.

If that candidate loses, grieve the result if you need to. Continue demanding better. Build movements capable of producing stronger candidates in the future. But when November arrives, compare the actual choices and select the candidate who will cause less harm—especially to people whose rights, healthcare, safety, and independence are under direct threat.

Then keep organizing after Election Day.

Voting is not the whole of democracy. It does not replace protest, mutual aid, union organizing, public testimony, community care, or pressure on elected officials. But it affects the conditions under which all that other work must continue.

Make a plan now

Check your registration, party affiliation, primary date, and state identification or mail-ballot requirements. Do it early: registration deadlines differ by state and can fall weeks before an election.[4]

If you need accommodations, ask for them. Disabled voters have a legal right to accessibility accommodations. These can include assistance from another person, accessible voting equipment, alternative-format materials, and physically accessible polling locations.[5] Federal laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Help America Vote Act protect access to registration and voting for people with disabilities.[6]

Research the entire ballot, not only its most prominent race. Bring notes where permitted. Help friends and neighbors find reliable election information. Offer transportation or practical assistance without pressuring anyone to disclose a disability or explain their circumstances.

Most importantly, refuse the two forms of political resignation that keep failing us: abandoning our convictions before the primary and abandoning vulnerable people after it.

Vote for what you truly believe in when the field is open.

When the field narrows, choose the outcome that protects the most people from harm.

Then get back to the work of building something better.

References and voter resources

1. USAGov, “Do you have to vote for the party you are registered with?” Explains how parties use primaries to select candidates and describes open, closed, semi-open, and semi-closed systems.

2. Federal Election Commission, “Election Cycle and Aggregation.” Lists November 3, 2026, as the end date of the 2026 House and Senate election cycles.

3. USAGov, “Congressional Elections and Midterm Elections.” Explains that all 435 House seats and a different third of the Senate are elected during each midterm cycle.

4. Vote.gov, “Register to Vote.” Official state-by-state information about registration, party affiliation, deadlines, and checking registration status.

5. Vote.gov, “Voting With a Disability.” Guidance concerning accessible registration, in-person accommodations, absentee voting, alternative formats, and reporting discrimination.

6. U.S. Election Assistance Commission, “Overview of Federal Election Laws.” Summarizes federal protections governing accessible voting systems, polling locations, registration, and assistance for disabled voters.

I want to be clear from the beginning: I am an atheist.

I believe that people who believe in a deity are mistaken. I do not hide that opinion, and I should not have to. But I also live in America, where freedom of religion must include the freedom to be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist—or anything else.

I will defend your right to believe, even when I strongly disagree with what you believe.

If your faith brings you comfort, gives your life meaning, or inspires you to become a kinder and more compassionate person, I support your right to practice it. What I will not support is coercion. I will not support the idea that religious freedom gives someone the right to force everyone else to participate, listen, or submit.

That is why the recent incident aboard an Alaska Airlines flight leaving Orlando matters.

A Commercial Flight Is Not a Church

On July 30, Florida evangelist Whitney Lynn stood in the aisle of Alaska Airlines Flight 708 during a delay at Orlando International Airport and began preaching to passengers on the San Diego-bound plane. Her recorded message lasted less than a minute.

Alaska Airlines later said the crew became “increasingly concerned” about her behavior, that it was affecting other passengers, and that she was removed for safety reasons. Lynn called the incident “spiritual warfare” and presented her removal as an attack on Christianity and free speech. People and The Washington Post reported the incident.

We should be precise: the complete record of what the crew observed has not been made public. If Lynn was removed only because she is Christian, that would be wrong. Federal law prohibits airlines from discriminating against passengers because of their religion. The Department of Transportation explains those protections here.

But religion does not place someone above the rules that apply to everyone else.

The most troubling part of this story is not that Lynn believes in Jesus or wants to share her beliefs. It is the attitude she has expressed about preaching on airplanes. She has reportedly said she uses flights to preach because passengers have “no choice” but to hear her message. She has also described fellow passengers as a captive audience.

That is not religious freedom. That is coercion.

People aboard an airplane cannot simply walk away. They are strapped into seats inside a confined cabin, waiting to reach their destination. They paid for transportation—not admission to a worship service. Turning that space into a personal pulpit ignores the dignity, beliefs, and boundaries of everyone around you.

Your faith is your right. My attention is not.

Free Speech Is Not Freedom From Boundaries

The First Amendment protects both religious exercise and freedom of speech from government interference. It does not give any person an unlimited right to speak anywhere, at any time, in any manner, without consequences. The First Amendment’s text is available from the Library of Congress.

Alaska Airlines is a private carrier, not the government. At the same time, it must comply with federal laws against religious discrimination.

That balance matters.

An airline should not remove a passenger merely for wearing religious clothing, quietly praying, reading scripture, or identifying with a particular faith. But it can respond to conduct that disrupts the cabin or raises legitimate safety concerns—as long as it applies those standards consistently and does not use “safety” as a cover for prejudice.

The same standard should apply to everyone.

I would oppose a Muslim passenger forcing a sermon on the cabin. I would oppose an atheist standing in the aisle and lecturing everyone about why God does not exist. I would oppose a political activist turning the flight into a campaign rally.

This is not about which message is correct. It is about whether people have consented to become the audience.

Religious Freedom Must Include Freedom From Religion

Too often in America, religious freedom is treated as though it belongs only to the loudest Christians. But genuine religious liberty belongs equally to the believer, the doubter, and the nonbeliever.

It protects your right to attend church. It protects my right not to attend.

It protects your right to pray. It protects my right not to be pressured into prayer.

It protects your right to preach in an appropriate place. It does not guarantee you a captive audience wherever you decide to create one.

This distinction becomes even more important when religion and government begin to intertwine. When lawmakers use one religion’s doctrine to control public schools, health care, marriage, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights, or the lives of people who follow other faiths, that is not religious liberty.

It is religious privilege backed by government power.

The attitude is the same: We possess the truth, and you should have no choice but to hear it—or live under it.

That is exactly what a pluralistic democracy must reject.

Believe Freely. Do Not Coerce Others.

I do not need to respect every religious claim in order to respect the civil rights of the person making it.

I can believe someone is fundamentally wrong about the existence of a deity and still defend that person’s right to worship freely, wear religious clothing, speak about faith, and live according to their conscience—provided they do not use that freedom to take away someone else’s.

That is the line we must hold.

Believe what you want. Worship where you want. Share your faith with people who are willing to listen. Let it guide you toward kindness, humility, and service.

But do not confuse the right to speak with the right to force others to listen.

Do not confuse disagreement with persecution.

And do not confuse religious freedom with the power to impose religion on everyone else.

America does not belong only to Christians. It does not belong only to religious people. It belongs to all of us.

Your faith is yours. My conscience is mine. A free country must protect both.

I thought I lost hope a while ago, but here we are. I just got word that my new wheelchair is finally on its way. Only expected within the next week, but it’s on its way.
I know. I haven’t received it yet. But after waiting for months to hear this news, it feels like a victory.
The whole process began back in March. Four whole months I have waited trying to figure out when my chair would be ready and when I would actually get the mobility and independence I need.
I have been waiting for months and now I am literally days away from finally getting it.
Why a New Wheelchair Means So Much to Me
A wheelchair is not just another piece of medical equipment to me. It impacts nearly every aspect of my life.
Where I can go, what I can do, how comfortable I am, and how independently I can live are all affected by my wheelchair. It’s not something that I use every once in a while.
Using a wheelchair is how I move through the world.
That is why waiting four months to hear that it is almost here means so much.
When we have to wait as disabled people, life doesn’t stop for us while we wait. We still have to go to work. We still have doctors appointments.
We have to take care of ourselves, stay involved with our communities, and try to live our lives. But we’re expected to do this and more while we wait for equipment that we need to help us move through our lives.
We’re expected to just keep rolling.
March to Now
As I mentioned before, this whole ordeal began back in March. Since then I have had to patiently wait as things progressed.
I know four months isn’t forever, but when you are waiting on something as necessary as a wheelchair to live your life, every week counts.
Small delays can impact a disabled person’s health, safety, comfort level, freedom, and overall quality of life. These things are not simply inconvenient. They matter.
Which is why hearing that my wheelchair will be here within the week feels like celebrating.
I am ecstatic. I am relieved. And I am grateful to everyone who helped push things along and got me this far.
Preparing for my Fresh Start
Once I know my wheelchair has arrived and I’ve picked it up, I cannot wait to experience life in it. I know it is going to allow me to do more than my old chair could.
I finally will have more mobility, independence, and I will be able to focus less on what is holding me back and more on where I want to go.
But while I know my fresh start is waiting for me once my wheelchair arrives, I can’t help but think of all the other disabled people still waiting on wheelchairs.
Whether they are waiting for repairs to be made, replacement parts, or even just insurance approval; we shouldn’t have to wait months for the things that we need.
Wheelchairs aren’t conveniences. They aren’t luxuries. They are extensions of ourselves and our needs. They allow us to live independent lives and they should be treated that way.
My fresh start is nearly here, but others are still waiting to start fresh.
The Finish Line
It all started in March. Now after waiting four months I can finally say that my new wheelchair will be delivered within the next week.
It’s not quite here yet, so I’m not at the finish line just yet. But for the first time in what feels like forever I can actually see the finish line.
I can’t wait to receive my new chair, enjoy the independence it allows me, and see where this new start takes me.
I’ve been waiting for four months, but now I’m almost ready to roll.

Read more

Last night, I got into an argument with someone about how I parked my vehicle.

I parked across two regular spaces because there were no accessible spaces open at my apartment complex. I use a wheelchair. While a standard parking space may be wide enough to fit my vehicle, that doesn’t mean there is enough room for me to safely get my wheelchair in and out.

I wasn’t looking for preferential treatment.

I was looking for a way to get home.

They followed me online

The person who confronted me was furious. They were so angry that, instead of driving home after our confrontation, they searched for me on social media and continued telling me what a horrible person I was.

I still can’t believe that happened.

This wasn’t some passerby yelling at me in a parking lot and then driving away. This person went looking for me online because they believed what I had done was so wrong that I deserved to be booed and jeered by strangers across the internet.

The problem is that they were angry at the wrong person.

They saw a vehicle taking up two parking spaces. What they didn’t see was a disabled resident trying to solve an accessibility problem I did not create.

And this wasn’t a store or restaurant I could choose never to visit again.

This happened at my apartment complex.

This is my home.

I shouldn’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to exit my vehicle when I return home. I shouldn’t have to sit and hope an accessible space eventually opens. I shouldn’t have to park somewhere that could leave me trapped outside my own vehicle if another tenant parks too close.

I pay rent here just like my neighbors. I should not have to struggle to park safely at my own home.

A parking space isn’t accessible just because my vehicle fits

For many people, parking is as simple as finding an empty space and staying between two painted lines—at least in theory.

Parking is different for me.

Those lines matter, but so does the space beside them.

I need enough room next to my vehicle to safely maneuver my wheelchair and get in and out. The striped area beside an accessible space is called an access aisle. It isn’t there to look nice or give vehicles a little extra breathing room. It is a critical part of what makes that parking space accessible.

Just because every accessible space was taken does not mean every regular space suddenly became accessible.

So what was I supposed to do?

Squeeze into one regular space and risk being unable to get back into my vehicle?

Leave my apartment complex even though I live there?

Sit in my vehicle indefinitely and hope someone eventually moved?

There was no guarantee an accessible space would become available anytime soon.

When I parked across two spaces, it wasn’t because I wanted an easier life than everyone else. I did it because that was the only available option that gave me enough room to get out of my vehicle and into my home.

This is not something I chose. I live with a mobility disability. If you do too, you already understand why accessible parking features are necessary. For people who don’t, I am asking you to listen before you judge.

The problem is at my home

My apartment complex is not some accessible utopia where these problems don’t exist.

The problem is here.

At my home.

I have spoken to property management about the lack of accessible parking. Believe it or not, I did not ignore the issue and suddenly decide to take two spaces for the fun of it.

And before anyone says I simply should not have parked that way, I want to be clear about the law.

Because this is an apartment complex, the issue is not limited to whether the property considers itself “ADA compliant.” The Americans with Disabilities Act may apply to public-facing areas such as a leasing office. However, when we are talking about a disabled resident’s ability to use and enjoy their home, the federal Fair Housing Act is often the more relevant law.

The Fair Housing Act may require housing providers to make reasonable accommodations—changes or exceptions to rules, policies, practices, or services—when they are necessary for a disabled person to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy their home.

Accessible parking is specifically used as an example in federal guidance. If an apartment complex normally offers parking on a first-come, first-served basis, a resident with a mobility disability may request an assigned accessible space near their home as a reasonable accommodation. When the request is reasonable, the housing provider may be required to make an exception to its usual parking policy.

I’m not a lawyer, and every apartment complex and accommodation request is different. But property managers should not be able to end the conversation by saying, “We already have enough accessible spaces.”

Minimum compliance means very little when a disabled resident still cannot park safely or access their home.

Before you attack a disabled person, take a breath

Contrary to what some people may believe, the problem isn’t that I don’t know how to park.

The problem is that the available parking does not meet my disability-related needs.

If you see a disabled person parked across two spaces or otherwise struggling with parking rules, take a breath before attacking them.

Maybe they took two spaces because they needed enough room to get out of their vehicle.

Maybe their accessible-parking permit is damaged or difficult to display.

Maybe every accessible space is already occupied—including spaces being used illegally by people without permits.

Maybe they are doing the best they can in a situation that gave them no good options.

Don’t assume you know the whole story. Above all, don’t attack disabled people who are trying to push back against inaccessible or ableist policies.

Fix the problem instead.

Talk to property management about solutions.

Assign reserved accessible spaces when residents need them.

Enforce existing accessible-parking rules.

Keep access aisles clear.

Push lawmakers to strengthen accessibility requirements that are not working for disabled residents in real life.

I live at my apartment complex just like everyone else does. I should be able to come home, park my vehicle, and have enough room to safely reach my front door.

I asked for one accessible space that I could safely use at my home.

Yet here we are, arguing about why I parked across two.

Sources

• Justice Department and HUD: Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act

• HUD and DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations

• Justice Department: The Fair Housing Act

I’m about to apply for rent assistance in Florida.

I haven’t actually applied yet. Today, I’m compiling information, researching my options, and mentally preparing myself to interact with government programs designed to provide emergency housing assistance during a pandemic.

Tomorrow, I dive in.

It isn’t always easy to talk about how you pay the bills. There can be stigma, insecurity, and embarrassment.

But seeking assistance shouldn’t be shameful.

I live in Florida—a red state where the Republican Party and the MAGA movement couldn’t care less about people who look like me or live where I live. At best, Republicans would like you to believe they care. In practice, they mostly prove themselves deeply indifferent—even hostile.

Before I begin this process, I want to be clear about why I’m sharing my experience and what I intend to share.

I haven’t applied for help yet, but I’m getting ready. I will continue researching and preparing until I submit my application. That will be entry two.

After submitting my application, I will document my interactions with the program—good or bad—and publish them as entries three, four, five, and beyond. I will continue until I know whether I’ll receive assistance.

Florida Republicans love to talk about freedom and personal responsibility. I want to know what happens when people in my community can’t afford their rent.

Will the government help?

Or will it blame me for needing help?

I haven’t applied yet, but here’s what I know for sure:

• Application processes should be easy to navigate.

• Public benefits should be accessible to the people who need them.

• Everyone seeking assistance deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

We will see whether Florida’s rent-assistance program lives up to those standards.

After I apply, I’ll be back with more.

Until then, stay safe, Florida

Disabled Americans do not need another election-year promise to be “included.” They need political power.

More than 70 million American adults—over one in four—reported having a disability in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest national data.[1] Ahead of the 2024 election, Rutgers University estimated that 40.2 million disabled people were eligible to vote, including 7.1 million in seven closely contested states.[2]

That is not a marginal constituency. It is a potentially decisive political community.

Yet disabled people are still frequently treated as an afterthought by both major parties. Candidates may commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act or promise to protect benefits, but disability policy rarely becomes central to debates over health care, housing, employment, transportation or democracy.

The Democratic Socialists of America offers a different framework—one that could be especially meaningful to disabled Americans. Its appeal does not rest simply on expanding assistance. At its best, democratic socialism proposes something more empowering: a society in which health, housing, mobility and community participation are understood as foundations of freedom.

That is a positive vision for disabled people because it replaces pity with power and conditional support with social rights.

The disability community is already a political force

Disabled Americans are not one ideological bloc. They live in every region, belong to every racial and religious community and vote across the political spectrum. No party or organization can claim to speak for all of them.

But disabled people share experience with systems that routinely make independence more difficult than it needs to be.

That experience may help explain why an alternative political organization can feel compelling. Gallup found in 2025 that 62 percent of Americans believed the Republican and Democratic parties were doing such a poor job that the country needed a third party.[3] DSA is not technically that party—it describes itself as a nonprofit activist organization—but it gives people a political identity and organizing structure outside traditional party leadership.[4]

Its candidates often compete in Democratic primaries, using an established ballot line while relying on DSA chapters for volunteers, endorsements and policy direction. By July 2026, Reuters reported that DSA said it had grown beyond 100,000 members and endorsed approximately 150 candidates during the election cycle.[5]

For disabled people who have spent decades navigating fragmented agencies, inaccessible public meetings and politicians who discuss them without consulting them, a member-led organization presents an intriguing possibility: not merely being represented, but participating directly.

The disability-rights principle is ultimately a democratic demand. It insists that the people most affected by policy must have meaningful power over it.

A genuinely accessible, member-led political movement could put that principle into practice.

Independence requires public support

American culture often treats independence as the ability to survive without assistance. Disabled people know that this definition is false.

Everyone depends on infrastructure, institutions and other people. Roads, schools, hospitals, communications systems and public utilities make modern life possible. Disability simply makes some forms of interdependence more visible.

Real independence is not the absence of support. It is having reliable support without surrendering control over your life.

That distinction is where democratic-socialist policies can become liberating. Universal health care would mean that access to doctors, medication, mobility equipment and treatment would not depend on employment, marital status or an insurer’s approval. Publicly supported housing could give people accessible homes in their communities. Well-funded transit could make work, education and civic participation possible for people who cannot drive.

Home- and community-based services can determine whether someone chooses when to get out of bed, what to eat and where to live. Medicaid currently pays for much of this support, but access varies enormously by state. KFF estimated that 5.1 million Medicaid enrollees use home care. In 2025, more than 600,000 people were on state waiting or interest lists for waiver services, with an average wait of 32 months.[6]

A politics committed to freedom should not accept years of waiting for the assistance that makes community life possible.

The positive democratic-socialist case is therefore not that disabled people should become more dependent on government. It is that essential support should become dependable, democratically accountable and controlled by the people who use it.

Human worth is bigger than employment

Disabled people also expose a contradiction at the heart of American economic life.

Our political culture insists that everyone has inherent dignity, yet access to health insurance, income and social standing remains heavily connected to paid employment. People who cannot work consistently—or who require flexible schedules and accommodations—are often forced to prove that they are sufficiently impaired before receiving support.

Even then, the system can punish attempts to save money or become more economically secure.

In 2025, the maximum federal Supplemental Security Income payment was $967 per month for an individual, while the program’s individual resource limit remained $2,000.[7] These restrictions can make saving for an emergency, adapting a home or planning for the future extraordinarily difficult.

Disabled people who want employment face a different set of barriers. In 2025, the employment rate among working-age people with disabilities was 38.1 percent. The unemployment rate for disabled people was 8.3 percent—approximately twice the rate for people without disabilities.[8] That disparity exists alongside inaccessible workplaces, discriminatory assumptions and benefit rules that can make accepting work financially or medically risky.

A disability-centered economic movement would reject the idea that a person’s value is determined by how much profit their labor can produce.

That does not mean abandoning employment as a goal. Many disabled people want meaningful, fairly compensated work. It means building a society in which people can contribute in different ways, work according to their capacity and live with dignity whether or not conventional employment is possible.

DSA’s current program calls for universal health care, a shorter workweek with full benefits, a living wage, accessible public spaces, public housing, stronger unions and compensation for care work.[9] These proposals could give disabled workers greater bargaining power while protecting people whose lives do not fit a standard forty-hour schedule.

The underlying promise is powerful: survival should not depend on performing productivity for an employer, insurance company or benefits examiner.

Housing is disability policy

America’s housing crisis is especially acute when affordability and accessibility must be found in the same home.

The Government Accountability Office has documented the difficulty low-income disabled households face in locating affordable, accessible rentals. Much of the existing affordable housing supply is aging and requires modification to accommodate residents.[10]

Housing policy therefore cannot be disability-neutral.

Building public or social housing could expand freedom for disabled people—but only if accessibility is included from the beginning. New housing should follow universal-design principles, offer a meaningful range of accessible units and connect residents to transportation, health care and community services.

Accessibility must mean more than adding a ramp after construction. It includes entrances, bathrooms, kitchens, lighting, acoustics, air quality, emergency systems and communication technology that work for people with different physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities.

When housing is treated as a public good, disabled residents can help define what good housing actually means.

From political audience to political leadership

Zohran Mamdani’s successful 2025 campaign for mayor of New York demonstrated the electoral potential of combining grassroots organizing with a clear affordability message. More than two million New Yorkers voted—the city’s highest mayoral turnout in over half a century.[11]

For the disability community, however, the most important question is not whether a candidate identifies as a democratic socialist. It is whether the movement itself is accessible.

Can a person participate in chapter meetings remotely during a pain flare or period of reduced immunity? Are videos captioned? Are documents compatible with screen readers and available in plain language? Is American Sign Language interpretation provided? Are meeting spaces physically accessible? Are disabled members supported in becoming candidates and organizational leaders?

These are not administrative details. They determine who gets to exercise power.

If DSA wants to become a genuine political home for disabled people, it should make disability justice more explicit in both its program and its practices. That means organizing for:

• Universal, accessible health care that includes long-term services, mental health care, assistive technology and reproductive care.

• Home- and community-based services as a guaranteed right rather than an optional benefit with multiyear waiting lists.

• Higher wages, training and labor protections for personal-care and direct-support workers.

• Reform of SSI and SSDI rules that discourage saving, employment, marriage or shared living arrangements.

• An end to subminimum wages and segregated employment.

• Accessible, affordable housing and universally designed public transportation.

• Hybrid meetings, captions, interpretation, plain-language materials and accessible campaign technology.

• Disabled leadership at every stage of policy development and candidate endorsement.

DSA’s universal programs provide a promising foundation, but universalism alone does not guarantee accessibility. A program can be available to everyone on paper and still exclude people through its design.

The answer is not merely to add disabled people to an existing agenda. It is to let disability justice transform the agenda.

A more expansive idea of freedom

The most hopeful contribution disabled people can make to American politics is a more honest understanding of freedom.

Freedom is not simply being left alone. It is being able to leave your home, communicate, receive care, earn an income, build relationships, participate in public life and make decisions about your own future.

Freedom requires access.

Democratic socialism can speak to the disability community because it treats many of the conditions necessary for freedom—health care, housing, education, transportation and income security—as shared responsibilities rather than private luxuries.

That does not mean DSA has already earned the disability community’s allegiance. Disabled people are too diverse and politically independent to be assigned to any movement. DSA must demonstrate that it will share power, design accessible organizations and listen when disabled members challenge its assumptions.

But the opportunity is real.

The disability community is not a burden on American democracy. It is one of the country’s largest sources of political insight, organizing experience and untapped leadership.

A movement that recognizes this will not simply create a better politics for disabled people. It will create a more humane, flexible and genuinely democratic society for everyone.

The goal is not a system that takes care of disabled people from above.

It is a society disabled people help lead.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “CDC Data Shows Over 70 Million U.S. Adults Reported Having a Disability,” July 16, 2024.

2. Rutgers University, “The Number of People With Disabilities Is Growing and They Are Voting in Greater Numbers,” Oct. 15, 2024.

3. Gallup, “Americans See Need for Third Party, but Offer Soft Support,” 2025.

4. Democratic Socialists of America, “Frequently Asked Questions.”

5. Reuters, “Who Are the Democratic Socialists of America?,” July 7, 2026. Membership and endorsement totals were attributed to DSA.

6. KFF, “A Look at Waiting Lists for Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services from 2016 to 2025,” Nov. 20, 2025.

7. Social Security Administration, “Fast Facts & Figures About Social Security, 2025.”

8. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “People With a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics—2025,” March 3, 2026.

9. Democratic Socialists of America, “Workers Deserve More: DSA Program,” 2026.

10. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “HUD Rental Assistance: Serving Households With Disabilities,” Aug. 15, 2023.

11. Associated Press, “Zohran Mamdani Wins NYC Mayor’s Race,” Nov. 4, 2025.

I know this article may upset some of my followers.

Artificial intelligence has become one of those subjects where people expect you to choose a side. You are supposed to be completely for it or completely against it. You must either celebrate every new model or reject the entire technology.

But the disabled community cannot afford such a simplistic debate.

For many disabled creators, AI is not a novelty. It is not merely a shortcut, a trend, or a way to avoid learning a craft. It can be an accessibility tool—a bridge between what someone imagines and what their body allows them to produce.

That is why I believe AI is perfect for this moment.

I do not mean that every AI system is flawless. They clearly are not. I mean that AI is remarkably well suited to a problem society has neglected for generations: giving people more ways to express ideas that traditional tools may place beyond their physical, sensory, cognitive, or neurological reach.

At the same time, AI needs serious regulation. Its benefits do not excuse the environmental and human costs of the massive data centers being built to support it.

We should not have to choose between disabled creativity and healthy communities.

The imagination was never the problem

Disabled people have always been creative.

The problem was never a shortage of ideas. It was a shortage of tools, investment, access, and imagination from the institutions designing those tools.

A person may be able to picture a detailed painting but be unable to hold a brush steadily. Someone may hear an entire composition internally but struggle to operate a conventional instrument or production interface. A writer may know exactly what they want to communicate while fatigue, pain, dyslexia, paralysis, or a speech disability makes the physical process exhausting.

Disability can create a gap between artistic intention and physical execution.

AI can help close that gap.

A creator can describe a visual scene and begin shaping it without controlling every movement of a pencil. A person with limited speech can experiment with language, tone, and voice. Someone who cannot spend ten uninterrupted hours editing a video can use AI to organize footage, create captions, remove background noise, or test different versions of an idea.

The human being still supplies the vision.

AI helps translate that vision into a form other people can experience.

For too long, society treated the traditional method of producing art as if it were part of the art itself. If you could not hold the brush, operate the camera, type quickly, or navigate complicated software, your idea might never leave your mind.

That was not artistic integrity. It was an accessibility failure.

AI can expand who gets to create

The greatest promise of AI is not that it will make art without people. It is that more people may finally be able to participate in making art.

For disabled creators, AI can offer:

• New ways to turn language into images, music, animation, and video.

• Assistance with captions, audio descriptions, transcription, and translation.

• Interfaces controlled through speech, eye movement, or simplified prompts.

• Help organizing ideas when executive functioning or memory creates barriers.

• Faster experimentation for people with limited energy or unpredictable health.

• Greater independence from assistants, expensive equipment, and inaccessible software.

These benefits are not minor conveniences. They can affect whether someone is able to create at all.

AI can also give disabled people more control over how their stories are told. Instead of waiting for a company, publisher, studio, or nondisabled collaborator to decide that a project is commercially worthwhile, creators can begin developing their own concepts.

That kind of agency matters.

But access cannot depend on exploitation

Supporting AI does not mean giving technology companies unlimited permission to build whatever they want, wherever they want.

AI may feel almost weightless when we use it through a phone or computer, but the infrastructure behind it is physical. Data centers occupy land. They consume electricity and water. They can generate noise, require new transmission infrastructure, and place pressure on surrounding communities.

The benefits may be distributed globally while the burdens remain painfully local.

A disabled artist might gain an extraordinary creative tool, while another disabled person lives near an industrial facility that increases noise, strains local resources, or contributes to higher utility costs. People with chronic illnesses may be especially vulnerable to environmental changes, extreme heat, pollution, and interruptions in essential services.

Accessibility cannot be built by making another community less safe.

My position is simple: we should stop approving new stand-alone AI data centers on public or private land until enforceable protections are in place. Public land should not be surrendered to private technological expansion. The fact that a company can purchase or lease private property should not give it the right to impose unlimited costs on neighbors, water systems, or regional power grids.

If the technology industry is as innovative as it claims to be, it can find better solutions.

Companies should be required to prioritize existing industrial sites, previously developed land, retrofitted buildings, smaller distributed systems, and more efficient computing. They should demonstrate that a project will not take essential water or affordable electricity away from the people who already live nearby.

“We need more AI” is not a sufficient environmental policy.

Regulation is not rejection

Some people hear the word regulation and assume it means stopping progress.

I see it differently. Regulation is how we decide what kind of progress deserves to continue.

AI regulation should address both the technology and the infrastructure supporting it.

We need firm standards for energy efficiency, water consumption, emissions, noise, land use, and community consultation. Companies should disclose how much power and water their facilities consume instead of hiding those costs behind vague sustainability promises.

Communities should have a meaningful right to refuse projects—not simply an invitation to attend a meeting after the important decisions have already been made.

We also need protections for the people using AI.

Disabled users should not have to surrender sensitive medical, biometric, or personal information to access creative tools. AI systems should be tested for disability bias. Accessible features should not be treated as expensive premium upgrades. Creators should have meaningful control over their work, likeness, voice, and data.

Artists whose work helps train commercial systems deserve transparency, consent, and fair treatment.

None of these safeguards makes AI less useful. They make it more worthy of our trust.

“Perfect” does not mean unaccountable

When I call AI perfect, I am not giving the industry a blank check.

I am saying that AI may be the right kind of tool for people whose imaginations have repeatedly collided with inaccessible systems. It can adapt to the creator instead of forcing the creator to adapt to one rigid method.

That is revolutionary.

But a tool can be exactly what people need and still require boundaries. Medicine needs regulation. Transportation needs safety standards. Buildings need accessibility requirements. AI should be no different.

We can support the technology while rejecting reckless construction.

We can celebrate disabled creators without accepting the environmental costs of every proposed data center.

We can demand innovation from the companies that constantly demand adaptation from us.

Disabled people must help shape what comes next

Decisions about AI and accessibility should not be made exclusively by technology executives, investors, environmental consultants, or nondisabled policymakers.

Disabled people must be involved from the beginning.

That includes disabled artists, workers, students, advocates, technologists, and people living near proposed data-center sites. It includes those who are excited about AI and those who are deeply skeptical of it.

For generations, disabled people were told to accept the limits of existing tools. If we could not use those tools, the failure was treated as ours.

AI gives us an opportunity to reject that assumption.

But we should not replace one form of exclusion with another. We should not gain creative freedom by surrendering our land, water, privacy, labor, or community health.

The future I want is not anti-AI. It is pro-access, pro-accountability, and pro-human.

Let disabled creators use AI to make the art they have always carried inside them. Let us invest in tools that respond to different bodies and minds. Let us finally take their creative ambitions seriously.

And let us require the companies profiting from those ambitions to build a cleaner, safer, fairer system.

We have the technology.

Now we have to do better.

By Ryan Talley, Founder and Host of the Mr. Wheels Podcast
July 22, 2026

As a disabled person and wheelchair user, I want to be clear: Medicaid fraud is not harmless. Every dollar stolen from Medicaid is a dollar that was meant to help someone get medical care, personal assistance, therapy, transportation, medication, or the support needed to remain at home.

But fighting fraud requires evidence, due process, transparency, and targeted enforcement. It should not begin with a dramatic announcement that puts more than $1 billion in health-care funding on hold while the public is told to accept suspicion as proof.

On July 21, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was deferring approximately $867.5 million in federal Medicaid payments to California and $199 million to Minnesota—roughly $1.07 billion combined. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the money would not be released until the states supplied documentation showing that the claims complied with federal Medicaid requirements. (HHS)

That is a serious action. It is also important to describe it accurately.

This is a deferral, not yet a permanent cut

The administration has not formally canceled Medicaid eligibility or benefits for residents of either state. It has deferred federal matching payments connected to claims that CMS says require more review. If California and Minnesota provide satisfactory documentation, the payments can be released. (Reuters)

Federal regulations permit CMS to defer a claim when the agency questions whether it is allowable and needs more information. The notice must identify the type and amount of the claim and explain the reason for the deferral. A state generally has 60 days to submit the requested material and may request an extension. (42 C.F.R. § 430.40)

A deferral, however, is not the same thing as a finding that fraud occurred. The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission describes deferral as a way for CMS to seek additional information before deciding whether a state expenditure was allowable. A separate disallowance comes after CMS determines that an expense was not allowable. (MACPAC)

That difference matters. An allegation is not a conviction. An unusual billing pattern is not automatically a stolen dollar. And a request for records is not proof that an entire program is corrupt.

What the administration says it found

For California, HHS says CMS reviewed claims involving certain in-home care programs and found spending growth above national trends, along with claims needing more documentation.

For Minnesota, HHS says CMS examined claims across 14 “high-risk” service areas and identified expenditures connected to flagged providers, as well as possible eligibility or billing problems. (HHS)

Those issues deserve a real investigation.

But at the news conference announcing the deferrals, Kennedy and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz cited data anomalies and outlier billing patterns without publicly offering proof that the deferred claims were fraudulent, according to Reuters. Minnesota had already returned documents that CMS was reviewing. (Reuters)

California has also offered nonfraud explanations for at least part of its in-home-care spending growth. In a February response to CMS, the state said the number of In-Home Supportive Services recipients nearly doubled between fiscal years 2015–16 and 2025–26. It also pointed to higher caregiver wages, increased authorized hours, an aging population, and the need to recruit and retain workers during a provider shortage. (California Department of Health Care Services)

Those explanations do not prove that every claim was proper. But increased spending is not, by itself, proof of fraud. If more people need care and caregiver pay rises, a program can become more expensive for legitimate reasons.

Did Democrats “open the floodgates” to theft?

Kennedy has framed this crackdown as a response to failures by Democratic-led states. That makes for a powerful political slogan, but the evidence released so far does not establish that Democratic policies caused the entire amount under review to be fraudulent.

There is no honest reason to deny that Medicaid fraud exists. Minnesota has faced major fraud scandals, and state officials themselves have acknowledged vulnerabilities. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison says his office has secured more than 300 Medicaid-fraud convictions and $80 million in judgments and restitution during his tenure. (Minnesota Attorney General)

Those facts support aggressive enforcement against fraudsters. They do not prove that every deferred claim is fraudulent, that every person receiving services is ineligible, or that an entire state’s Medicaid population should be treated as suspect.

The honest answer is this: There is evidence of real fraud and oversight failures, especially in Minnesota, but there is not yet publicly available proof supporting the full $1.07 billion now being deferred.

Anyone claiming otherwise is jumping ahead of the evidence.

Why the disability community should be alarmed

The California review focuses heavily on in-home services—the very services that can determine whether a disabled person lives independently or is pushed toward an institution.

Home- and community-based services help people with significant physical or cognitive disabilities live in their own homes and remain part of their communities. Medicaid is the nation’s largest payer of long-term services and supports; federal data show that it served 9.7 million people using home-based or institutional long-term care in 2023. (Medicaid.gov; MACPAC)

For those of us in the disability community, “in-home care” is not an abstract budget category. It can mean help getting out of bed, bathing, dressing, preparing food, taking medication, transferring into a wheelchair, and getting safely through the day.

The current deferrals do not automatically end anyone’s coverage. That reassurance belongs in every accurate account of this story.

But it would also be irresponsible to pretend that holding back such large sums carries no risk. If the dispute drags on, state budgets, providers, caregivers, and the programs serving vulnerable people may face pressure.

Minnesota made that argument when it sued over an earlier attempt to withhold $243 million. The state said the loss represented about 7% of its quarterly Medicaid funding and could force reductions in health care or other public services. (Minnesota Attorney General)

That is why the disability community should watch what happens next—not panic, but demand transparency.

What real accountability should look like

If Kennedy and Oz have evidence of fraud, they should release as much of it as legally possible without compromising active investigations or patient privacy.

CMS should identify the categories of claims involved, explain its methodology, state how much is merely undocumented versus affirmatively suspected of fraud, and provide a clear timeline for review.

The federal government should:

• Release payment for claims that are verified and uncontested.

• Target fraudulent providers and organized schemes instead of smearing beneficiaries.

• Give both states a fair opportunity to provide records and correct errors.

• Report how many deferred claims are approved, denied, or referred for prosecution.

• Protect beneficiaries and lawful caregivers from disruptions while reviews continue.

• Apply the same standards to every state, regardless of which political party controls it.

California and Minnesota also have responsibilities. They must provide the required documentation, strengthen provider screening, respond quickly to suspicious billing, recover misspent money, and stop treating weak oversight as a minor administrative problem.

Fraud prevention and disability rights are not opposing goals. Protecting Medicaid from theft protects disabled people—when enforcement is careful, evidence-based, and aimed at the people stealing the money.

Disabled people are not political leverage

What I reject is the idea that disabled people, older adults, low-income families, and caregivers should carry the uncertainty while politicians trade accusations in front of cameras.

Investigate fraud. Prosecute fraud. Recover stolen money. Permanently remove providers who exploit vulnerable people.

But do not use the word “fraud” as a shortcut around evidence. Do not turn a technical payment-review process into partisan theater. And do not forget that behind every Medicaid claim is a human being who may depend on that service to live safely, independently, and with dignity.

The public deserves accountability from California and Minnesota. We also deserve accountability from RFK Jr., CMS, and the Trump administration.

Show us the evidence. Follow the law. Protect the people Medicaid was created to serve.

References

1. HHS deferral announcement, July 21, 2026.

2. Reuters reporting on the payment pause, July 21, 2026.

3. Federal regulations governing Medicaid payment deferrals.

4. MACPAC explanation of federal Medicaid claims oversight.

5. California’s response to CMS’s program-integrity request.

6. CMS report on Medicaid long-term services and supports.

7. MACPAC overview of home- and community-based services.

8. Minnesota’s earlier Medicaid-withholding lawsuit.

Editor’s note: This article reflects information publicly available as of July 22, 2026. The payment reviews and related litigation are ongoing.

By Ryan Talley, Founder and Host of the Mr. Wheels Podcast

I want to be clear: disabled people are not inventory to be stored, line items to be moved, or bodies to be hidden away because supporting us in our own communities requires effort and investment.

We are human beings. We have families, relationships, jobs, dreams, routines, and the right to decide where and how we live.

On July 20, 2026, the United States Department of Justice published a notice in the Federal Register declaring that it will no longer rely on its long-standing Olmstead guidance when enforcing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Department also said it plans to reconsider that guidance under a narrower interpretation of federal law.

Let’s call this what it is: a calculated retreat from disability civil-rights enforcement.

The DOJ may dress this up as a technical legal “clarification.” Disabled people know better. When the federal agency responsible for enforcing the ADA announces that it will stop relying on guidance designed to explain and enforce one of the law’s most important protections, that is not harmless housekeeping. It is a warning.

First, let’s correct the record

The July 20 announcement was not a court ruling, and it did not overturn Olmstead v. L.C.

That distinction matters. Olmstead is still Supreme Court precedent. The ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are still law. The federal regulation requiring public services to be administered in the most integrated setting appropriate still exists. Disabled people can still bring Olmstead claims.

But none of that makes the DOJ’s action harmless.

In its July 20 Federal Register notice, the Department said the guidance is “not enforceable” and that it “will not rely upon” it in Title II enforcement. The notice even acknowledges that numerous federal courts have treated the guidance as authoritative.

The guidance itself never pretended to be a new statute or a substitute for a court decision. It explicitly stated that it did not create legal duties beyond existing statutes, regulations, and binding precedent. Its purpose was to explain what those authorities mean in practice—to disabled people, families, lawyers, service providers, states, and local governments.

So the real story is not that the DOJ discovered guidance documents are not statutes. Everyone already knew that.

The real story is that the Justice Department is choosing to stop using its own road map for protecting disabled people from unnecessary segregation.

What Olmstead actually protects

The 1999 Supreme Court case began with two disabled women, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, who remained confined in a Georgia state hospital even after professionals determined that they could live in the community.

The Supreme Court held that unjustified isolation is a form of disability discrimination under Title II of the ADA. The decision required community-based services when those services are appropriate, the person does not oppose community placement, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated while considering available resources and the needs of others receiving disability services.

That was not a special favor. It was a recognition of equal citizenship.

The Court understood that unnecessary institutionalization sends a poisonous message: that disabled people are incapable of participating in community life, or unworthy of doing so. It also recognized what segregation takes away—family relationships, social connections, work, education, independence, and ordinary control over one’s own life.

For disabled people, “the most integrated setting” is not an abstract legal phrase. It can mean living in our own home instead of a nursing facility. It can mean receiving personal-care services that allow us to get out of bed, bathe, eat, work, and participate in public life. It can mean getting mental-health support without being locked away. It can mean having a choice about when we wake up, what we eat, who visits us, and where we go.

In other words, it means having a life.

A retreat disguised as legal housekeeping

The July notice follows a June 18 opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel claiming that neither Title II of the ADA nor Section 504 imposed an integration mandate on states—and asserting that Olmstead did not hold otherwise.

Again, that memo is an executive-branch legal opinion. It is not a Supreme Court decision. It cannot wave a pen and erase Olmstead.

But the sequence is impossible to ignore: first, the Department adopts a radically narrower view of the ADA and Section 504. Then it announces that it will stop relying on the guidance that explained when segregation, service cuts, and institutionalization risks may violate federal law.

This is not neutral.

The existing DOJ guidance explains that the integration mandate can protect people who face a serious risk of institutionalization—not only those who have already been confined. It explains that cuts to community services may violate the ADA when those cuts put people at risk of being forced into institutions. It addresses state funding decisions, Medicaid services, remedies, Olmstead plans, private lawsuits, and complaints to the federal government.

These are not theoretical questions. They are the difference between a person receiving help at home and being pushed into a facility. They are the difference between preventing segregation and waiting until someone has already lost their freedom.

The DOJ now wants to step away from that framework while pretending it is merely cleaning up paperwork.

I do not accept that explanation.

This is how rights are weakened without being repealed

Civil rights do not disappear only when Congress repeals a law or the Supreme Court reverses a case.

They can also be hollowed out through legal memos, withdrawn guidance, abandoned investigations, weaker settlements, narrower enforcement priorities, and agencies that simply stop showing up.

A right without meaningful enforcement can become a promise written in disappearing ink.

Yes, disabled people can still sue. But lawsuits require lawyers, time, money, evidence, emotional stamina, and often years of fighting against government systems with far greater resources. A person at risk of institutionalization should not have to become a constitutional scholar and a full-time plaintiff just to remain in their own home.

The Arc correctly warns that if federal enforcement recedes, disabled people may have to depend more heavily on private litigation, state advocacy, and disability-rights organizations. That shifts the burden away from the government charged with enforcing civil-rights law and onto the very people endangered by its retreat.

There is also a message being sent to states: the federal watchdog may be backing away.

And when budgets tighten, waiting lists grow, or officials search for cuts, disabled people know exactly what can happen. Home- and community-based services are labeled optional. Hours of personal assistance are reduced. Families are pushed beyond exhaustion. People are told that the support they need is available—but only if they surrender their independence and enter a facility.

Institutionalization does not always begin with a locked door. Sometimes it begins with a home-care worker who never arrives, a waiver slot that never opens, a transportation service that disappears, or a bureaucrat deciding that community life costs too much.

Disabled people are not disposable

The attack on Olmstead is especially insulting because disabled people have spent generations fighting to be seen as full members of society.

We fought against institutions where people were isolated, neglected, abused, and forgotten. We fought for the right to attend school, work, vote, travel, form relationships, and live in our communities. We fought for the ADA because access and freedom were never going to be handed to us out of kindness.

Now the Justice Department is signaling that one of the federal government’s strongest tools for defending community living is negotiable.

It is not.

My freedom as a disabled person should not depend on whether an administration finds my civil rights convenient. My right to live in my community should not disappear when a state wants to balance its budget. No disabled person should be forced into segregation simply because government officials find institutional care easier to control.

We are not asking for charity. We are demanding enforcement of civil-rights protections that disabled people fought for and the Supreme Court recognized more than a quarter-century ago.

What must happen now

The disability community and our allies cannot afford to treat this as an obscure legal debate.

We must demand that the Department of Justice explain how it intends to protect people from unnecessary institutionalization if it refuses to rely on the guidance built for that purpose. Congress must strengthen and clearly codify the integration mandate. Federal and state lawmakers must protect and expand home- and community-based services instead of treating them as expendable budget items. Governors, attorneys general, and Medicaid agencies must publicly commit to community integration regardless of the DOJ’s retreat.

We must also support the disability-rights organizations, protection and advocacy agencies, attorneys, families, and self-advocates who will be forced to carry even more of the enforcement burden.

Most importantly, disabled people must be heard at every stage of this fight.

Nothing about us without us.

Olmstead is still the law. Community living is still a civil right. And disabled people will not quietly accept an administration trying to weaken that right through bureaucratic language and selective enforcement.

We know what is at stake.

Our homes. Our families. Our freedom. Our lives.

And we are not going back.

Sources and further reading

• U.S. Department of Justice Federal Register notice, July 20, 2026

• DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion, June 18, 2026

• Supreme Court opinion in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999)

• DOJ statement and technical guidance on the ADA integration mandate

• The Arc: DOJ actions threaten disability community-living rights

Federal findings, lawsuits, public accusations, and the human cost of treating mobility equipment like ordinary cargo.

By Ryan Talley | Mr. Wheels Podcast Show | Fact-checked July 21, 2026

I want to be clear: a wheelchair is not baggage.

As a wheelchair user, I know that a chair is not simply a piece of equipment. It is mobility, safety, bodily support, independence, and access to the world. Yet airline systems routinely treat wheelchairs as cargo—and sometimes treat the people who use them as inconveniences.

The results can be devastating. Wheelchairs are damaged, delayed, or lost. Passengers are dropped or injured during transfers. People are left without safe access to toilets. Some are denied boarding because an airline has failed to plan for disabled customers at all.

Calling every failure “abuse” may be legally imprecise. Some cases have produced formal government findings and monetary penalties. Others remain allegations in lawsuits or public accounts that have not yet been decided by a court or regulator. But the documented pattern is undeniable: disabled passengers continue to report unsafe, degrading, and discriminatory treatment across multiple airlines and countries.

The evidence also shows that this is not a collection of isolated accidents. It is a structural failure involving equipment design, staff training, contractor oversight, rushed operations, inaccessible aircraft, weak accountability, and a culture that too often treats disability access as optional.

When an airline breaks a wheelchair, it does not merely damage property. It can take away someone’s freedom, health, work, and ability to care for themselves.

The numbers expose an industry-wide problem

U.S. airlines are required to report how many wheelchairs and scooters they transport and how many are “mishandled”—a category that includes devices reported as lost, delayed, damaged, or stolen.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, reporting carriers mishandled 1.26 percent of checked wheelchairs and scooters in 2024. The rate was 1.38 percent in 2023. In December 2024 alone, airlines checked 76,630 mobility devices and mishandled 925 of them. That was a rate of 1.21 percent. By comparison, the reported mishandled-baggage rate for all of 2024 was 0.55 percent. In other words, a wheelchair or scooter was reported mishandled at more than twice the rate of ordinary baggage. (Bureau of Transportation Statistics)

Even these numbers do not measure the full harm. A report that says a chair was “damaged” does not tell us whether a bent frame left a person unable to work, whether a broken control system eliminated independent mobility, or whether an inappropriate loaner chair caused pain or pressure injuries. It does not count the meals, appointments, income, sleep, dignity, and freedom lost while someone fights for repairs.

In 2024, wheelchairs and scooters were reported mishandled at more than twice the rate of ordinary baggage.

The Department of Transportation separately requires U.S. and foreign airlines operating to, from, or within the United States to report disability-related complaints received by the carriers. The department publishes those airline-reported figures, although a complaint is not automatically proof of a violation. (DOT complaint-data hub)

American Airlines: federal findings, injuries, and a $50 million penalty

The strongest documented U.S. enforcement case involves American Airlines.

In October 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a consent order assessing a $50 million civil penalty against American for violations involving disabled passengers between 2019 and 2023. This was not merely a social-media accusation. DOT formally found that American failed in numerous cases to provide adequate boarding, deplaning, connecting, and terminal assistance to wheelchair users. The department described untimely, unsafe, and undignified assistance and said some passengers were injured.

DOT also found that passengers reported thousands of wheelchairs and scooters damaged or returned late. The department said American had been among the worst U.S. carriers in both the number and rate of wheelchair- and scooter-mishandling claims. The investigation considered consumer complaints, three formal complaints from Paralyzed Veterans of America, and a widely circulated video showing workers sending a wheelchair down a baggage ramp at Miami International Airport. (DOT enforcement announcement; official consent order)

The consent order required American to cease similar violations. Half of the original $50 million was structured as a Treasury payment, while the other half could be credited for accessibility investments and compensation, including wheelchair-handling equipment, tagging and tracking systems, and operational coordination.

A penalty is only meaningful if it changes what happens to the next disabled passenger at the gate, inside the aircraft, and on the tarmac.

In December 2025, DOT modified the settlement and waived $16.7 million in remaining Treasury payments in exchange for additional accessibility investments. American was required to fund more wheelchair lifts and movers and develop wheelchair tracking. The Trump administration argued that the changes would produce direct benefits for travelers; critics could reasonably ask whether reducing a monetary penalty weakens deterrence. (Reuters)

American has said it is committed to improving service and has invested in equipment and tracking. Those investments matter. But they do not erase the federal findings or the harm passengers experienced. Accountability must be measured not by announcements, but by whether disabled people and their wheelchairs consistently arrive safely.

Air Canada: official accessibility penalties

Canada’s transportation regulator has also documented violations involving disabled passengers and mobility aids.

In December 2023, the Canadian Transportation Agency assessed a $52,500 penalty against Air Canada for two violations involving a wheelchair user. The agency found that the airline failed to allow the passenger to preboard in Toronto despite a request for boarding and transfer assistance. It also found that Air Canada failed to return the passenger’s mobility aid without delay after arrival in Vancouver. (Canadian Transportation Agency enforcement record)

Later that month, the agency assessed a separate $97,500 penalty involving another disabled passenger. It found that Air Canada failed to provide prompt disembarkation and transfer assistance and failed to ensure staff periodically checked the needs of a passenger waiting in a wheelchair during a connection.

These were regulator findings, not unresolved accusations. They illustrate that mistreatment can involve more than a visibly broken chair. Leaving someone waiting, failing to provide safe transfer assistance, or withholding a person’s mobility device can all strip away independence and expose the traveler to physical danger.

Air Transat: a lost mobility aid and an inadequate temporary replacement response

The Canadian Transportation Agency fined Air Transat $11,000 in February 2024 after finding that it failed to immediately provide a suitable temporary mobility aid to a passenger whose device was lost upon arrival in Venice in July 2023.

The regulator explained that the penalty was limited by the rules applying to Air Transat at the time. The company became subject to Canada’s more extensive Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations in January 2024 after reaching the applicable passenger-volume threshold. (Canadian Transportation Agency explanation)

The word “suitable” is critical. A generic airport chair is not automatically a safe substitute for a customized manual or power wheelchair. A replacement must be evaluated in relation to the person’s posture, pressure relief, controls, mobility, and health needs.

KLM: Paralympian says she was denied an onboard wheelchair

In May 2026, Nigerian Paralympic athlete Hannah Babalola said KLM crew members denied her the use of an onboard aisle chair during an approximately 11-hour flight from Cape Town to Amsterdam.

Babalola, who is paraplegic, said she was told to use the toilet without the chair or leave the aircraft. She remained on the flight but reportedly restricted food and liquids because she could not safely reach the restroom. KLM later apologized and said it would review the incident. (The Guardian)

An apology is significant because it moves the story beyond a one-sided accusation, but it does not by itself establish every disputed detail or resolve the systemic question. Why was a passenger put in a position where hydration, nutrition, and toilet access became risks? Why did the crew appear unprepared to provide a disability accommodation aboard a long-haul aircraft?

U.S. rules illustrate the basic standard. DOT’s Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights says covered airlines must provide requested assistance moving to and from a lavatory, including use of an onboard wheelchair when required. The precise legal rules in Babalola’s case depend on the flight, aircraft, jurisdiction, and applicable European and international requirements. The human principle is much simpler: access to a toilet should not depend on whether a disabled passenger can somehow walk.

Aer Lingus: a pending lawsuit over an allegedly lost and damaged power wheelchair

Voice-over artist Precious Holloway sued Aer Lingus in 2026, alleging that the airline lost and damaged her motorized wheelchair during a September 2025 trip from Los Angeles to Dublin.

According to reporting based on the complaint, Holloway had requested assistance in advance, and airline staff completed a checklist for the battery-powered chair before departure. She alleges that the chair was missing when she reached Dublin, leaving her in an inadequate airport wheelchair while staff searched for it. When it was returned, she says it malfunctioned and required more than $1,100 in repairs. She also alleges health effects, missed appointments, lost income, and other financial damage. (People; federal docket summary)

Aer Lingus reportedly denied liability while offering partial compensation and said it had provided assistance consistent with its obligations. Because the lawsuit is pending, Holloway’s claims should be described as allegations, not established findings.

Still, the case exposes a frequent gap in airline responses: calculating the cost of a repair does not necessarily account for lost independence, substitute transportation, medical complications, or income lost while a chair remains unusable.

Allegiant Air: a wrongful-death allegation involving unsafe assistance

One of the most serious recent allegations appears in a wrongful-death lawsuit against Allegiant Air.

The family of Hunter Adkins, a 24-year-old man with muscular dystrophy, alleges that he fell while being assisted during boarding at Huntington Tri-State Airport in West Virginia in March 2024. According to reporting on the lawsuit, the family claims he was in a motorized wheelchair that was not properly secured and that the transfer did not use the required personnel and appropriate equipment. Adkins reportedly suffered blunt-force injuries and died hours later. Allegiant expressed condolences but declined to discuss the pending litigation. (New York Post report on the lawsuit)

These are grave allegations, not final judicial findings. A court must determine liability and disputed facts. But the case illustrates why transfer and boarding procedures cannot be improvised or rushed. Unsafe assistance can injure or kill. Training, staffing, appropriate equipment, and listening to the passenger are essential safety requirements—not customer-service extras.

Southern Airways: Marissa Bode alleges she was denied boarding

In April 2026, Wicked actor and wheelchair user Marissa Bode publicly accused Southern Airways of denying her boarding for a connecting flight to a speaking engagement in Pennsylvania.

Bode said gate staff asked whether she could stand and then told her she could not board because the aircraft required stairs. She said her team had confirmed accommodations in advance. According to her account, staff later raised the combined weight of luggage and her approximately 35-pound wheelchair. She ultimately traveled more than three hours by car. Southern Airways did not initially respond to several media requests. Bode later said an airline mobility executive apologized and discussed improvements. (Entertainment Weekly; People)

The case contains an important legal complication. Some very small aircraft are exempt from particular equipment requirements. An exemption from one technical requirement, however, is not a blanket license to discriminate. DOT says that where level-entry bridges are unavailable, lifting devices are generally required at most U.S. airports, with exceptions for aircraft with fewer than 19 seats. For smaller aircraft and certain airports, airlines must still ensure boarding and deplaning assistance by an available means acceptable to the passenger. (DOT Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights)

Bode’s allegation raises a fundamental question: if an airline sells tickets to the public but has no workable plan for a passenger who cannot climb stairs, is that transportation truly public?

The legal protections—and the enforcement gap

In the United States, airline disability rights are governed primarily by the Air Carrier Access Act and DOT’s implementing regulation, 14 CFR Part 382. The Americans with Disabilities Act may apply to parts of an airport, but it generally is not the main statute governing airline service.

DOT’s Bill of Rights summarizes ten protections, including the rights to dignity and respect, airport and aircraft assistance, travel with an assistive device, accessible aircraft features, and resolution of disability-related problems. Airlines are responsible for the conduct of contractors providing services to passengers.

The federal government adopted a stronger wheelchair rule in December 2024. It included safe-and-dignified-assistance standards, prompt assistance requirements, hands-on training, better handling and return of mobility devices, appropriate loaners, repair and replacement options, and reimbursement provisions. (Final rule)

But implementation has been complicated. In September 2025, DOT announced that it was delaying enforcement of certain provisions while considering whether to modify them through a new rulemaking. The notice did not erase older protections that existed before the wheelchair rule, but it created uncertainty around some of the new requirements. (September 2025 enforcement-discretion notice)

That distinction matters. Airlines still have longstanding obligations under Part 382. But delayed or inconsistent enforcement tells companies that some violations may carry less immediate risk. A civil right without reliable enforcement can become a promise disabled people are forced to enforce one exhausting complaint at a time.

A civil right without reliable enforcement becomes a promise disabled people are forced to enforce one exhausting complaint at a time.

Why “just repair it” is not enough

Airlines and insurers often frame wheelchair damage as a property claim. That approach misses the person attached to the equipment.

A custom wheelchair may include positioning supports, pressure-relieving cushions, headrests, power tilt or recline, specialized controls, respiratory-equipment mounts, or communication technology. Damage may be invisible at first. A cracked frame, compromised wiring, weakened caster, or intermittent control failure can create a later safety risk.

An inappropriate loaner can also cause harm. If it does not fit, a passenger may be unable to propel independently, transfer safely, maintain posture, relieve pressure, or perform personal care. Reimbursement delayed for weeks can force a disabled person to absorb costs that should never have been theirs.

The correct measure of harm is not merely the repair invoice. It is the total interruption of health, work, travel, care, and independent living.

What accountability should look like

Airlines already know how to manage high-value, safety-critical equipment. The problem is whether they apply that seriousness to disabled passengers and their mobility devices.

Real accountability should include:

Hands-on, competency-based training. Workers and contractors must demonstrate that they can safely transfer passengers and handle different mobility devices.

Passenger-directed handling. The wheelchair user knows the equipment. Staff should follow the person’s instructions rather than assuming every chair works the same way.

Adequate staffing and time. Accessibility procedures fail when companies under-staff operations or pressure workers to rush.

End-to-end tracking. Passengers should be able to see when and where a wheelchair was loaded, transferred, and returned.

Appropriate loaners and immediate support. A substitute must meet the passenger’s functional and medical needs as closely as possible.

Full compensation for foreseeable harm. Repair costs alone may not cover transportation, medical consequences, personal assistance, lodging, or lost income.

Transparent public reporting. Consumers should be able to compare airlines by mishandling rates, complaint types, resolution times, and enforcement history.

Penalties large enough to change behavior. A fine that is cheaper than reform becomes a cost of doing business.

Aircraft designed for disabled bodies. The long-term goal must include safe ways for more passengers to remain in their own wheelchairs aboard aircraft.

Disabled leadership. Airlines and regulators must involve wheelchair users in training, equipment design, policy, investigations, and oversight.

What a disabled traveler can do after an incident

The burden of preventing abuse should not fall on disabled travelers. Still, documentation can strengthen a claim and help regulators identify patterns.

Photograph and video the wheelchair before and immediately after the flight.

Record the make, model, serial number, dimensions, weight, battery type, and handling instructions.

Report damage, delay, unsafe assistance, or denial of service before leaving the airport when possible.

Ask for the airline’s Complaint Resolution Official, or CRO. U.S. airlines must make one available while operating at an airport.

Get the incident number and the names or identifying information of involved personnel.

Keep repair estimates, medical records, receipts, correspondence, and evidence of lost work or other consequences.

Submit a written complaint to the airline promptly. Under current U.S. guidance, airlines must address disability-related complaints in writing within 30 days, though they generally are not required to address complaints submitted more than 45 days after the event unless DOT refers the matter.

File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation. DOT says it investigates disability-related complaints to determine whether the Air Carrier Access Act was violated.

Consider speaking with a qualified disability-rights or aviation attorney about serious injury, major financial loss, or unresolved violations.

Disabled people are passengers—not problems to be managed

American Airlines, Air Canada, and Air Transat have faced formal findings or penalties involving wheelchair users or mobility aids. KLM apologized after a Paralympian said she was denied access to an onboard chair. Aer Lingus and Allegiant face unresolved lawsuits. Southern Airways was publicly accused of denying boarding to a wheelchair user.

The details and legal status differ, and fairness requires us to say so. But the common thread is unmistakable: disabled travelers repeatedly enter systems that were not designed around their safety, dignity, or independence.

We should not have to become investigators every time we fly. We should not have to photograph every inch of our wheelchairs because we expect damage. We should not have to dehydrate ourselves to avoid inaccessible toilets. We should not have to go viral to be heard.

A wheelchair is not baggage. A disabled passenger is not a delay. Accessibility is not charity, and dignity is not an upgrade.

Airlines must be held accountable—not only after a chair is broken or a passenger is injured, but before the next disabled traveler reaches the gate.

If you believe disabled travelers deserve safe and dignified treatment, please share this article. Public pressure matters, documented complaints matter, and disabled voices matter.

If you have experienced wheelchair damage, unsafe assistance, inaccessible toilets, or discriminatory treatment while flying, you are welcome to share your experience in the comments—but only if you feel comfortable doing so. Your story belongs to you.

Subscribe to the Mr. Wheels Substack for disability news, accountability reporting, and advocacy that centers the people most affected.

Sources and further reading

U.S. DOT: Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights

U.S. DOT: Disability rules, guidance, and enforcement orders

BTS: Full-year 2024 wheelchair and scooter mishandling data

U.S. DOT: American Airlines $50 million enforcement announcement

U.S. DOT: American Airlines consent order

Federal Register: 2024 wheelchair rule

Federal Register: September 2025 enforcement-discretion notice

Canadian Transportation Agency: Air Canada enforcement records

Canadian Transportation Agency: Accessibility enforcement questions and answers

The Guardian: KLM apology to Hannah Babalola

People: Precious Holloway’s allegations against Aer Lingus

Entertainment Weekly: Marissa Bode’s allegations against Southern Airways

Mr. Wheels Podcast Show: mrwheels76.com

Subscribe on Substack: mrwheels76.substack.com

key topics

Violence against disabled individuals

Section 504 and civil rights

Accessibility and infrastructure issues

Ableism and societal perceptions

Mental health and disability

Hate crimes and bias incidents

resources

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title29/html/USCODE-2011-title29-chap16.htm

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - https://www.ada.gov/

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) - https://dredf.org/

Tampa Sidewalk Fund - https://www.tampagov.net/

Damian’s YouTube Channel - Label Dolly Diva -

disability, violence, civil rights, Section 504, accessibility, ableism, mental health, hate crimes, infrastructure, advocacy

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Here’s the truth: Medicare offers stability that private insurance often can’t. When you depend on healthcare to function, unpredictability can be devastating.

I made the tough choice to go part-time just to qualify for Medicare. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary for my health and independence.

For many of us, healthcare is not just an occasional need; it’s woven into every corner of our lives. Medicare covers essential equipment and services that allow us to live independently, while private insurance can change year-to-year, leaving us vulnerable.

The struggle is real: delays in obtaining necessary equipment or care can turn into crises. And the system should not force us to choose between working and maintaining our health.

Medicare isn’t perfect, but for many disabled people, it offers a lifeline. Let’s push for a healthcare system that supports independence and well-being, not one that creates barriers.

What’s your take on this issue?

Stay informed

#Medicare #DisabilityAwareness #HealthcareReform #MrWheelsPodcast #Accessibility

I want to be clear: all human life has value. But we are under no obligation to mourn people who used their lives to harm others.

Lately, I have seen people on social media chastising others for not crying, posting condolences, or expressing sadness when a cruel or destructive person dies. Suddenly, everyone is expected to become a professional mourner. If you do not post the right words, lower your voice, or pretend the person’s history disappeared at the moment of death, someone will accuse you of lacking compassion.

I reject that idea.

Death does not automatically turn a harmful person into a hero. It does not erase the policies they supported, the pain they caused, the communities they attacked, or the people who suffered because of their choices.

A person’s death may end their life, but it does not rewrite their record.

There is an important difference between celebrating someone’s death and refusing to mourn them. I do not believe we should encourage violence or wish death on people. But I also do not believe anyone is entitled to my grief.

Grief is personal. It cannot be demanded, assigned, or performed for an audience.

When someone spends years attacking disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, people of color, poor families, or anyone else they consider disposable, those communities may not feel sadness when that person dies. Some may feel relief. Some may feel anger. Some may feel nothing at all.

Those reactions do not make them monsters.

Sometimes relief comes from knowing that a powerful person can no longer cause additional harm. Sometimes silence comes from exhaustion. Sometimes people have already spent years grieving the damage that person created while they were still alive.

We must stop demanding tenderness from victims while ignoring the cruelty of the people who harmed them.

Too often, society becomes more concerned about protecting the reputation of a dead powerful person than acknowledging the living people who are still dealing with the consequences of that person’s actions.

We hear:

“Do not speak badly of the dead.”

“Show some respect.”

“Think about the family.”

But where was that concern when families lost health care?

Where was that compassion when disabled people feared losing access to home- and community-based services?

Where was that demand for civility when politicians mocked marginalized communities, spread hatred, or voted for policies that placed lives in danger?

Respect should not become a curtain pulled over accountability.

We can recognize that every person was human without pretending every person lived honorably. Humanity explains that someone had a life. It does not excuse how they used it.

There is also something deeply unfair about demanding that marginalized people publicly mourn individuals who worked against their rights. Disabled people should not be forced to offer sentimental tributes to those who supported stripping away their health care, independence, dignity, or civil rights.

LGBTQ+ people should not be shamed for refusing to mourn public figures who treated their existence as a political weapon.

Victims should not have to comfort the reputations of those who victimized them.

Compassion without accountability becomes permission.

We can show compassion to grieving relatives without lying about the person who died. We can acknowledge a family’s pain while still telling the truth about the harm their loved one caused. Those ideas can exist together.

Someone may have been a beloved parent, spouse, sibling, or friend in private. They may also have been cruel, dangerous, or destructive in public. One truth does not erase the other.

Nobody should be harassed for grieving. But nobody should be bullied into grieving, either.

My silence is not violence.

My refusal to post a tribute is not hatred.

My unwillingness to rewrite history is not cruelty.

And my lack of sadness does not mean I have abandoned my humanity.

It means I remember the people who were harmed.

When a powerful or harmful person dies, the conversation should not focus only on whether strangers offered enough sympathy. We should also ask what that person leaves behind. What policies remain? What damage still needs to be repaired? Which communities are still hurting? What lessons must we carry forward?

That is not disrespect.

That is honesty.

All human life matters. But not every life was lived with compassion, integrity, or respect for others. Death deserves acknowledgment, but it does not automatically deserve admiration.

You may choose to mourn.

You may choose to pray for the family.

You may choose to say nothing.

You may choose to remember the victims instead.

Your grief belongs to you. Nobody else gets to demand it.