NO YOU ARE!

 

Last night’s Trump tirade wasn’t just ugly—it was revealing. Not because he said something new, but because he said something that exposes the emptiness of this man who holds power. A decent human being — much less the President of the United States — should understand basic empathy. Yet we continue to watch an individual who weaponizes cruelty and then sues anyone who repeats his words or expresses opinions about them. And somehow… he often wins.

Why? Does he blackmail people? Threaten them? Has he surrounded himself with individuals who are terrified of crossing him because they know retaliation will follow? Those questions aren’t paranoid — they’re logical. Look at the pattern. Look at the silence. Look at the fear.

Meanwhile, here is what life looks like for the rest of us:

We are working class family that lives paycheck to paycheck. Our medical financial burden is extreme, even with the help of Medicaid. We would be homeless without it. We have no golf days. We have no ballroom galas, even though Abby’s dad used to be a ballroom dance instructor. We don’t “pop into court hearings” or “host foreign oil executives.”

We wake up every morning and instead of checking stock portfolios or legal threats, the first thing we check is that our intellectually disabled daughter — who Trump and Elon Musk casually refer to as “retarded” — is still alive. We’ve done that every day for nineteen years.

And we are not alone.

There are millions of families like ours — silent, exhausted, vigilant, loving, compassionate — living the reality Trump doesn’t even know exists.

This is the same man who expressed awe and confusion at the concept of groceries. The same man who couldn’t believe that popcorn comes in a bag. It was like someone explained quantum mechanics to him in Sanskrit. Watching him marvel at normal life was like watching a man confused by doorknobs.

This is also the man who has refused transparency on grades, taxes, medical records — things every other president has always done as a matter of accountability. Transparency is not meeting secretly with the Taliban. It is not whisper-deals with Putin. It is not repaying Saudi favors behind closed doors.

And I need to speak plainly now.

Every time Trump or Elon — two of the most powerful men in the world — uses the word “retarded,” it is a punch in the gut to every person who has loved someone with a disability. It is cruelty. It is ignorance. It is dehumanization.

Let me tell you the story of when I first spoke up.

I was in Walmart, Abby in the cart, younger and small and drooling and eating her hands — a hallmark of her condition. A teenager and his father were nearby, laughing, shoving each other, calling each other “retarded.”

I leaned in and said, “Hi. I’d like to tell you how offensive that word is. It is as offensive as any other degrading term. By medical definition, my daughter is retarded. By society’s definition, that would be you.”

As I walked away, other customers applauded.

I was shaking, crying — but I had spoken up.

And now? It’s time.

It is time for this country to speak up.

Trump, Greene, Hegseth, Kennedy — God help me I hate even having to put a Kennedy in that category — and the whole carnival of self-serving propaganda politicians need to go. Because when they do, the dominoes fall:

Education reinstated

Departments restored

Civil norms return

Competence returns

Diplomacy returns

Truth returns

This era — God willing less than four years — must someday be remembered as the point where America said “Enough.” Where hate met resistance. Where cruelty met conscience. Where ignorance met reality.

Let this be the lesson written into history:

Hate never wins. Compassion does. Humanity does. Truth does.

— Terri V