They Were Warned. We All Were.
Before the election, in a parenting group I’d been part of for years, a mom posted something that shook her to her core. She’d just read Project 2025, and she was terrified. You could feel it in her words, the fear that the Department of Education would be gutted, that her autistic child would lose everything that mattered, that all the hopes and dreams she carried for her child would be replaced with a future full of uncertainty. The moderator shut the post down, saying “political” posts weren’t allowed, even though this wasn’t about politics. It was about whether her child would still have the accommodations they depended on. Other moms chimed in to dismiss her. Told her she was being dramatic. Reassured each other it would never happen. That “when” Trump was president again, he wouldn’t dare do something like that. After all, he said it himself during the debate: “I have nothing to do with Project 2025... I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
They believed him. And now here we are.
I keep coming back to that post over a year later because her fears were justified, and completely brushed off. People weren’t just in denial. They wrapped themselves in the comfort of willful ignorance, clinging so tightly to loyalty for one man that they refused to see what was standing right in front of them. And now her worst fears have come true. I wonder what those same parents are telling themselves at night. Are they still insisting it was worth it? Are they making excuses, he didn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention, it wasn’t his fault? Or are they finally starting to hear the cost? The cost to their own children. The cost of the very services they once took for granted. The logic that felt like faith then looks now like a bargain gone wrong. And it hurts to think about how many families will pay for that blind trust.
But this is not just a story about who believed what. It matters because those dismissed fears were warnings about the system itself, the quiet echoes of what Project 2025 planned, and is now doing. And it proves that the ones who raised their voices, who waved the red flags and were told they were overreacting, weren’t overreacting at all. They were early. They were right. And now we’re all living in the aftermath of what others refused to see.
And now, amid the government shutdown, the Trump administration brought to fruition the worst-case scenario; they gutted the office inside the Department of Education responsible for overseeing special education. This is the very office charged with ensuring that more than 7 million students with disabilities across this country receive the services they are legally entitled to under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA.
Most Americans don’t know what IDEA actually does. But if you have a child with learning differences, autism, Down syndrome, speech or mobility delays, sensory issues, or a host of other disabilities, IDEA is the reason they get support in school. It’s what creates the Individualized Education Program, or IEP, for each student. That IEP is a legally binding plan that outlines exactly what help a student needs to learn, whether that’s a one-on-one aide, therapy, extra time on tests, a communication device, or a different kind of classroom.
When the system works, that piece of paper turns into real support. Real progress. Real futures. And when it doesn’t work, when schools cut corners, ignore diagnoses, or fail to follow through, IDEA is the law that gives families the power to fight back.
But here’s the thing: laws are only as strong as the people enforcing them. And that’s exactly where the dismantling begins.
Federal special education dollars do not just appear in a budget line. They travel from Congress into the Department of Education and then out to states under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and they arrive with rules, monitoring, and a chain of appeal that turns paper promises into real hours in a classroom. If a school refuses an IEP, a parent does not shrug and go home. They meet the IEP team, they file a state complaint, and if that fails, they can take it up to the federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which can open investigations and force real fixes.
Project 2025 and the changes already underway don’t just shift how schools receive money, they chip away at the system meant to protect disabled students. The plan proposes replacing conditional federal funding with block grants or direct payments to states and districts, which may sound harmless to some parents. But here’s what it really means: it erodes the chain of accountability. Right now, if a school violates a child’s IEP, their Individualized Education Program, which guarantees services under federal law, families can escalate. They can file complaints at the state level and even reach the federal Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which investigates and enforces compliance. That oversight is now at risk. The levers families once pulled are being quietly dismantled. Layoffs have already gutted the federal teams that helped enforce IDEA and support families through the process. Over seven million children in the U.S. rely on IEPs. This isn’t a bureaucratic tweak. It’s a structural shift that weakens the promise of equity, and hands that promise to states or districts that may no longer have to keep it.
And we have to wonder if that’s exactly why Republicans aren’t rushing to end this shutdown, because the longer it drags on, the more damage it does to the federal systems they’ve been itching to dismantle. This isn’t just gridlock. It’s sabotage dressed up as bureaucracy. They’re using the shutdown as both an excuse and a weapon, dismantling agencies and firing staff, and removing resources that help Americans while Congress is pretending their hands are tied. Far too many or our lawmakers are letting this happen. Some are even cheering it on. This is not a malfunction of government, it’s the plan.
Meanwhile, at the CDC, a different kind of erasure is underway. In the middle of a shutdown, the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices that terminated over a thousand disease experts, the very people who track, prevent, and respond to outbreaks before they become full-blown disasters. And then, when the headlines hit, they walked it back. Not all the way. Just enough to take the pressure off. A few rehired. The rest left in limbo or gone for good. But this isn’t the first time. They keep doing this, to our scientists, our researchers, our physicians. They treat our public health teams like they’re disposable. Like they can fire them one day, rehire them the next, and nothing will break. But it does. Because at some point, these experts will stop coming back. You can’t build a world-class response system on a week-to-week contract. Some of these people were offered severance. Paperwork was filed. Lives were uprooted. And now, we’re supposed to pretend it’s no big deal to rehire them? Like you just press a button and it’s fixed? That’s not how it works. This is what Trump-style governance looks like, chaos by design. Gut the teams, break the trust, dangle the uncertainty, and see what they can get away with. And the scary part is, they’re getting away with it. These aren’t administrative mistakes. They’re stress tests. And each time, they take it a step further. Each time, we let them.
And we’re seeing the fallout already. In South Carolina, 153 unvaccinated students are now quarantining after confirmed measles exposure in multiple schools. Measles isn’t a mild childhood illness, it’s highly contagious, spreads before symptoms show, and can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling, even death. This is the nightmare scenario public health workers have tried to prevent for decades, and now it’s unfolding in real time.
This is the worst possible moment to be playing political games with our disease response systems. We are in the middle of active, growing outbreaks, not just in South Carolina, but across Texas, Utah, Minnesota, and more. And yet the very infrastructure designed to track, contain, and stop these threats is being chipped away.
And this is the part no one wants to say out loud: they keep doing this. Again and again, they come after our scientists, our physicians, our health teams, and treat them like political pawns. These are researchers who’ve dedicated their lives to protecting ours, and now they live with one foot out the door, never knowing if their job will still exist tomorrow. At some point, that uncertainty becomes a choice. And we lose them. Maybe they took the severance and ran. Maybe they walked away because they were tired of waiting for leadership that never came. Either way, they’re gone. And rebuilding what was destroyed isn’t as simple as rehiring. It’s paperwork, months of lag, institutional memory erased. That’s the chaos this regime thrives on. These aren’t budget errors, they’re stress tests. And every time we let it happen, they push a little further.
It’s not just education and public health. The U.S. Attorney’s office is being reshaped too, with career prosecutors reassigned or pushed out, replaced by Trump-loyal figures like Lindsey Halligan. It matters because those offices are the ones that hold civil rights violators accountable. They bring the cases that force entire school districts to comply with federal law. And when those prosecutors are sidelined, fewer cases are brought, and systemic injustice is left to fester.
And while all this is happening, while the scaffolding of accountability is being disassembled piece by piece, JD Vance is already warning deeper cuts are coming for federal workers. Every department is under threat. And Pete Hegseth is pushing for the military to purge “heavyset” soldiers, like it’s a casting call instead of a defense force. This is who they are. This is what they’re doing.
And the propaganda just keeps coming, day after day, from the Trump regime.
They told us tariffs would make us stronger, that they would protect American jobs and punish bad actors abroad.
But the truth? We’re the ones paying for it. And it hasn’t done a single thing Trump promised it would.
According to trade analysts, American consumers and companies now shoulder 55% of the cost of Trump’s tariffs. That’s not strength. That’s an added tax slapped onto the already rising prices families are paying because of inflation. It’s theft disguised as patriotism.
Tariffs are a simple man’s answer to problems he doesn’t understand and doesn’t have the competence to solve. They’re economic bludgeons, known to be bad for growth, bad for families, bad for business. And under Trump, they’re just another tool to funnel wealth to the top while leaving the rest of us desperate, isolated, and easier to control.
And now we have proof.
We knew when Trump was re-elected that things would get bad. And they are. But this is only the beginning. Most presidents push their biggest changes in their first year. Trump has the luxury of controlling the entire government, so he gets two. He knows the midterms could change that. He knows his window is short. And he’s using it.
Expect the chaos to accelerate. Expect the destruction to spread. He’s getting away with it, and that only emboldens him more.
So now is the time. To speak up. To show up. To hold each other up.
Saturday is the next No Kings rally. If you’re able, plan to be there. Raise your voice. Find hope and strength in your fellow protesters. We need each other now more than ever. We will get through this together, and when we do, our work won’t be done. We’ll need safeguards. We’ll need rebuilding. We’ll need truth-telling.
But that’s the fight for tomorrow.
Today, our job is to limit the damage. To name what’s happening. To refuse the distraction. And to remind ourselves that every single day is another chance to resist, rebuild, and remember who we are.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather