RFK Jr. Is Gaslighting America

In a recent debate on Facebook, a conservative asked me why I was so opposed to RFK Jr. and his pledge to find the cause of autism. What was I afraid of? Shouldn’t this be something we look into? Aren’t I just letting my political opinions blind me on a subject that impacts both of us personally?

And here we have the essential elements of nearly every argument made by Trump and his supporters — gaslighting. They 1) combine their concern or curiosity about a subject with anecdotal data, they 2) refuse to do any research or listen to experts, they 3) combine their ignorance and their concern to create a conspiracy, and then they 4) turn that conspiracy into a political hatched.

I don’t know a single American who opposes autism research. OF COURSE autism needs to be studied. That’s why the Obama administration, working with both Republicans and Democrats, passed the Autism CARES Act in 2014, which allotted significant funding to autism research—roughly $1.3 billion over five years boosting research capacity across agencies like the NIH and CDC. Then in 2019, a bipartisan bill allocated $1.8 billion over five years, and just last fall it was reauthorized for another $2 billion.

This bill was simply a major addition to the already substantial research into autism that was already going on at many government agencies, universities, and research centers all across the country, and indeed the planet. Agencies like the CDC, NIH, HHS, and the Department of Education also dedicate significant resources to understanding autism—from studying potential causes to improving how we support autistic children and adults so they can live meaningful, fulfilling lives. I personally know people who have worked in those programs. This is real science, funded by real government investment, producing real results.

This is what Trump has tried to gut. In 2017, his proposed budget would have slashed the NIH by $5.8 billion, or about 20%, and later proposals aimed for cuts exceeding 40%, down to $27 billion from $47.4 billion. Under Trump-aligned figures like RFK Jr., we’ve seen growing hostility to public health institutions. Health and education budgets—at agencies like HHS and the Department of Education—have faced repeated threats of massive cuts. Universities that conduct critical autism and developmental research are under attack, not supported.

RFK Jr. isn’t trying to uncover the truth about autism. He’s helping dismantle the careers of the very experts who have spent decades studying it. RFK Jr. says he’ll find the cause of autism in the next six months, but not a penny has been allocated for this search and the people who study autism are losing their jobs. There is zero, ZERO, evidence suggesting that RFK Jr. is doing anything except continuing his witch hunt against vaccines that we already know do not cause autism.

And here’s the kicker—those researchers, doctors, and educators? They’re not just helping families cope with autism, they’re also a key part of our economy. Highly educated professionals support local businesses, pay taxes, and yes, buy homes. When you destroy public investment in science and health, the economic effects ripple outward—undermining communities far beyond academia.

This matters personally, too. I was working in an autism classroom at a public elementary school when I was barely out of high school. My father worked in the high school special ed department for 15 years. My brother worked with many of the same kids years later. I saw firsthand how fragile and underfunded those programs were in the beginning—and how much they improved through hard work and proper funding. Those gains were made possible by the Department of Education and other public investments. Now they’re under direct attack by the very people claiming to care about these issues.

A Crackpot Is Gaslighting America

And let’s not kid ourselves about RFK Jr. either. Decades ago, when my mother was involved with the Kennedy Library, they wouldn’t even invite him to events—even ones honoring his own father. When she asked why, the answer was clear: he was known even then to be antisemitic, racist, misogynistic, and deeply conspiratorial. This was long before he made headlines for spreading anti-vaccine lies or running as a spoiler candidate. He’s not a truth-seeker. He’s been working with bigots and cranks for decades—and now he’s bringing their ideas into the mainstream.

So why is he doing this? The answer seems pretty clear. Many prominent members of the Trump administration, including RFK Jr., Elon Musk, and Trump himself, subscribe to a new school of eugenics (they’d never use that name). They believe, the white Christian nationalists believe, the white supremacists believe, that some Americans pollute the gene pool: African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, immigrants, LGBTQ+, people who don’t have children, liberals, foreigners, disabled people, and even women. Don’t believe me? Hold this theory in your mind and look at nearly every action taken by this administration. They can all fall fairly neatly into two categories: attacking the groups that are “less than” or ensuring those groups don’t compete against white, Christian nationalist men. It is why there is an assault on “DEI.” It is why Trump is attacking immigrants. It’s also why JD Vance wants to dis-empower women who don’t have kids, or why the administration wants to make it harder for women to vote. It’s why Elon Musk has so many children. These ideologies are very similar or in many cases the same as the “replacement theory” espoused by white supremacists, the idea that ethnic and religious minorities will make white Christian Nationalists a minority. It’s also why they hate successful non-whites and women, foreign exchange students, or foreigners who work in the sciences. Remember, it was Barack Obama’s ascendancy that drove Trump into the national political conversation, not because Trump challenged Obama’s policies but because Trump challenged Obama’s Americanness. RFK Jr.’s attacks against autism, Trump’s imitation of a disabled journalist, Elon Musk’s use of a discontinued ableist slur (R word), and the attempts to defund programs that benefit the disabled are all part of the new eugenics movement.

So yes, it’s a valid question to ask why we study autism and how we can do better. But turning that question into a political argument—without even bothering to Google what’s already been done—isn’t curiosity. It’s gaslighting. This pattern of willful ignorance turned into outrage is what keeps dragging our national discourse backward.

That’s why some of us say this movement is unsafe—not necessarily because every individual is malicious, but because blind loyalty to people like Trump and RFK Jr. enables policies that cause real harm. And the bitter irony is that the people hurt most by these cuts and conspiracies are often the very same people who put these politicians into power in the first place.