People with Disabilities Need to Stop Being Political Pawns
People ask if I regret supporting Trump in light of everything developing in the federal sector. There are too many executive orders spanning a breadth of issues, so for the sake of time, let’s focus on the question people really want to ask but lack the courage to articulate:
Do I, as a blind and brown person, regret supporting Trump considering the hammer he’s taken to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs?
No.
Why would I come to the defense of a table where my fellow people with disabilities were never given a seat?
Women, LGBTQ, Palestinians, and many others walked by on their way to greater public understanding. People even resorted to donating money to Black people as part of some reparation attempt. I hear it was quite the gathering. The Braille embossers must have stopped working the day invitations were printed. It’s probably better to believe this than to acknowledge the more likely reality that the invitations were never sent out. Count me in for supporting the equal protection of women, LGBTQ and many other underrepresented populations, but don’t look surprised when I refuse to shed a tear for the dismissal of programs that served as one more reminder that people with disabilities in general, and blind people in particular, are still just an afterthought. Where is the back pay for my peers with disabilities who are consistently passed over despite competitive qualifications?
The fact that “accessibility” was included as part of the diversity purge is almost comical. In a twisted way, the current administration did more to acknowledge us in the span of a news cycle than the previous White House could accomplish in the span of four years.
I asked Perplexity: “How much did the employment rate change for people with disabilities under the Biden administration?”
Answer: “The employment rate for people with disabilities significantly improved under the Biden administration, reaching record levels. In 2023, 22.5 percent of people with a disability were employed, which is the highest recorded ratio since comparable data collection began in 2008.” This was according to Labor Force Statistics in 2023.
Even after the hot peak of the diversity wave across the public and corporate sectors, 77.5 percent of my people with disabilities are still looking for a job.
This prompts one of two thoughts: Either the diversity managers at major employers were exceptionally terrible at changing attitudes and should have been fired sooner, or despite the diversity enlightenment, people still refused to give us a chance. Neither thought is comforting, but neither alternative can be laid at the feet of our current president. Let’s not buy into the illusion that Democratic leadership had our best disability interests at heart.
People criticize the president for rhetoric that is supposedly harmful to persons with disabilities.
Have you ever heard the argument that changing laws does not change minds? Sure, I wish Trump would sometimes say things differently. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t say anything at all, but the idea that the president is somehow responsible for setting us back belies the truth that he is merely reflecting what society already felt.
Let’s explore that in the comments if you feel compelled. Before you begin though, consider that in 2025, people still think it’s okay to grab you, yell at you, pity you, and shun you just because you have a severe disability.
Spare me the positive platitudes from the left. Spouting notions of empowerment without policies and actions to follow up the sentiments is like telling us we’re interesting enough to look at but not really good enough to date, and certainly not good enough to hire. The only time I ever hear Democratic leadership go out of their way to give lip service to the needs of the disability community is during the election cycle.
People with disabilities need to stop believing the Democratic party is the only safe place in the American political spectrum. The only thing your loyalty ever got you was one more bullet point in a long list of items Democratic leadership uses to illustrate just how miserable the world is without their empathy. I’m sorry, empathy does not put food on my table.
Just as one example, Democrats love to talk about how unfair it is that blind people are required to have an ID in order to vote. I’m looking around, and I’m not finding much in the way of efforts to help mitigate the conditions that could make that claim true outside of Election Day. After all, if it is supposedly hard to go out and get an ID, then it must also be true that it is hard to pick up groceries, keep medical appointments, take children to school, and a myriad of other tasks blind people do on a daily basis despite the Democratic fantasy that only they can eliminate our oppression. Twelve years of recent Democratic leadership have gone by. We’re still waiting. Isn’t it ironic that the landmark laws responsible for granting the most protections to people with disabilities were passed under Republican presidencies?
I am not suggesting Republicans have all the answers. The philosophy might be well-intentioned, but because we are also human, we do a great job of tripping up the implementation.
I am not persuading you to become a Republican to create a better outlook for people with disabilities. That would be too much like the California exodus attempting to make Texas look more like the state they came from.
I am not even making a case for why the Democratic party is evil. Whatever the man did behind closed doors, Bill Clinton was a far better president than Biden and Obama could have ever hoped to aspire.
What I am proposing is that people with disabilities shake off the group think that there is only one path to a better life. Clinging to one school of thought is like obsessing over a celebrity who feeds off the royalties you help generate but who would likely not spare you a second glance on the street. Buying fully into the diversity campaign of the past several years was like dancing merrily to the tune until you found yourself without a seat in a game of musical chair.
Critics will say the problem is not Republicans. The problem is President Trump, which should make you question why liberals worked so hard to keep him in the public eye long after the end of his first term, but as long as we’re laying it all out, President Trump drives headlines. It is easier to rack up positive reactions to a post bashing the guy than it is coming up with alternative solutions. I find left wing journalists irksome for getting lost in their feelings after their efforts are what largely turned 45 into 47. The more dominant liberal media cared more about pushing its agenda than it cared to use its influence to promote advancements in social causes like disability rights.
Putting aside the way President Trump says things, can you honestly tell me the things he says are always wrong?
It’s like the opinionated loud mouth you refuse to drop from your circle because … reasons. I would rather reduce my circle of friends to one companion who gives it to me straight than to indulge in a sea of acquaintances who consistently kiss my ass. Or, to put it more clearly, I would rather buy into the party that is transparent about its lack of disability rights advancements than to get swept up in the voyage to the moon the other side is selling.
Do I enjoy hearing about federal employees losing their jobs? Of course not, but since when did it become okay to maintain an institution widely known to make it difficult to fire people? That hardly seems fair to the fast-food worker who can be fired on a whim. No one should feel entitled to a job. Surely that goes against every disability advocacy principle that says we should be treated equally. This logic should consistently hold true for both the hiring and the firing. Anything less is wallowing in the special treatment we supposedly want to crush. We can’t have it both ways.
Blaming the current president for negatively affecting people with disabilities is lazy. Walmart, Lowe’s, and Meta, among scores of other major companies, did not have to drop their DEI programs. What this ought to say to you is that their hearts were never in it. How does it feel to be dumped for the next hottest thing?
My prediction is that things will not change a whole lot for people with disabilities, no matter how much the news bites scream otherwise. The media will continue to make money hand over fist by peddling their alarmist sensationalism. Disability rights organizations will use the same momentum to remain relevant, and as for we, the average people with disabilities, the high performers will continue to excel, but make no mistake, even the hard chargers will continue to face the grim reality that obtaining the next job could be even harder than it was to get hired for the last. I am under no illusion that the DEI wave has dramatically improved the employment landscape should I find myself escorted out of my own office building. How we should go about reversing this skeptical outlook is probably the subject for another post.
For now, I choose to be pragmatic. President Trump made it possible for me to get paid when I was out on parental leave and offered a tax credit to businesses that offered similar paid leave to their employees. Middle income families saw their standard deductions and child tax credits double under his first term. The Trump administration expanded the use of 529 plans to cover elementary and secondary expenses, and because of President Trump, hospitals are now obligated to provide itemized invoices in an industry that is wildly obscene about its billing practices. These are issues that matter to me as a financially conscious individual, regardless of disability, and yes, I can admit I feel safer under President Trump from foreign attacks and feel our economy will prosper under his direction.
I’m not an apologist for the president’s more controversial statements. I can support someone and not fall in line with all their views. The world is a lot grayer than both sides of the aisle care to acknowledge, and a lot of what gets debated in the news will not have a direct impact on my daily worries regardless of who is sitting in the oval office.
I did not sell out on the disability community by supporting the current administration. It’s astonishing to look back on my adolescence and feel as though I had to be a Democrat just because I was a Hispanic immigrant with a disability. I actually felt a measure of guilt when I registered as a Republican after earning my citizenship. It wasn’t until college that I recognized I was no less American for casting my support with the other side. On the contrary, the Republican party makes me feel like a patriot first and a person with a disability somewhere below other characteristics, and in the end, isn’t that how we should feel regardless of our political affiliation?
I’m not anyone’s pawn to build their political agenda. I’m tired of having my intelligence questioned because of how I may have voted. I am not a traitor for thinking for myself. It is just as detrimental to silence dissenting voices in the disability community as it is to allow any one ideology to tell the community how to feel. Though we still have a long way to go, we have come too far to trade one set of custodial views for a set of patronizing ones.
