Every day that the fascist regime remains in power means yet more mounting horror and crimes that crush the lives of people here and around the world, and threaten the very future of humanity and the planet. This nightmare not only continues but is accelerating… and it can soon become too late—unless the fascist Trump regime is driven out now.

In addition to the other outrages of the fascist regime covered in this issue of our website (see here, here, here, here, and here) the following are two more examples from the past week. 

Another Leap in RFK Jr.’s Anti-Scientific Lunacy: CDC Issues False Statement on Vaccine “Link” to Autism

Until last week, the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) included the scientifically accurate and proven statement that “vaccines do not cause autism.” But under a direct order from Trump’s “health czar,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK), the CDC’s official message was reversed to say: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” RFK made this change without even notifying actual scientists who work at the CDC. 

The use of wording “evidence-based” might make this new CDC message sound scientific to some. But this about-face on vaccines is unscientific—and dangerous—bullshit. Dr. Susan J. Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement: "Since 1998, independent researchers across seven countries have conducted more than 40 high-quality studies involving over 5.6 million people. The conclusion is clear and unambiguous: There's no link between vaccines and autism."

The CDC spreading the myth about a supposed “link” between vaccines and autism will have the very harmful effect of sowing even more confusion and doubt among broad numbers of people about vaccines generally. This is at a time when vaccination rates have been dropping, including for vaccines to protect children from measles and other diseases—even as there are outbreaks of measles in parts of the U.S. and Canada. 

Vaccines for measles, smallpox, COVID-19, and other serious diseases have saved 154 million lives globally in the past 50 years—the overwhelming majority of them children younger than five years old. In the face of this fact about the crucial importance of vaccines to humanity, and the solid scientific evidence of their safety, RFK and other anti-vaxxers have mounted grossly unscientific—and life-threatening—attacks on vaccines, and on scientists and health professionals. They are pushing to limit the availability of, and access to, various vaccines, and to undermine scientific research and development of new vaccines. In August, Trump fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, because she refused to go along with RFK’s anti-vaccine crusade.

Now this anti-vaccine madness has taken another leap with the unscientific claim posted on the CDC’s official site about vaccines and autism. The damage that RFK and the Trump fascist regime is doing to vaccines alone (not to speak of all their other attacks on public health and science) will cause many more people in this country—and potentially worldwide—to get seriously ill, and many to die unnecessarily.

The Gutting of Public Education

Last week Trump’s Department of Education (DOE) unveiled a sweeping plan to break up large pieces of the department and shift a number of its responsibilities to other federal agencies. Certain offices serving schools and colleges nationwide will be transferred to the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State. The DOE claims the change is intended to “break up the federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states.” (emphasis added) This comes on top of major cuts that Trump has already carried in the department, including the mass firing of over 1,300 workers. These firings received a green light from the fascist-dominated Supreme Court in June. 

The latest attack on the DOE means that education programs that used to be run by experts in the field will now be in the hands of agencies that have no expertise in education. These include programs that help students with disabilities, manage federal loans for college students, and enforce civil rights laws in schools. Breaking up the DOE will cause widespread chaos and disruption, and harm millions of students.

Congress established the DOE in 1979 with the stated aim of ensuring the enforcement of civil rights laws in education, administering federal aid fairly and effectively, and ensuring equal educational opportunity for all students. These were part of the reforms in education that took place in the wake of the massive struggles for equality and justice that rocked the country from the late 1950s to the 1970s. 

These reforms were partial, hemmed in by the limits of the capitalist system. Public education in this country remains warped by huge disparities between rich and poor areas, especially for Black and other students of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities. But some of the federal programs and funds under the DOE did make a real difference in the lives of many, for decades. Now, that is being decimated with the gutting of the department. And doing it without the approval of Congress is illegal.

The National Education Association said the DOE plan “would send class sizes soaring, gut learning opportunities to focus solely on workforce development, and make post-secondary education even less attainable.” Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the Senate Education Committee, said that “it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened—or even completely broken—in the process."

These latest moves in education are a major leap toward achieving Trump's executive order in March that called for completely wiping out the DOE. That order came right out of Project 2025, the fascist blueprint for government that the Trump regime is systematically carrying out. Project 2025 details the end of federally mandated, secular education so that billions of dollars in public funds can be diverted to private religious education. The official who announced breaking up the DOE is a co-author of the education section of Project 2025. The project makes repeated references to “school choice” and “educational freedom,” along with Trump's vow to “return education to the states.”

We've already seen what “returning education to the states” looks like in states led by Republi-fascists. Making the posting of the Ten Commandments in every K-12 classroom mandatory; rewriting American history to teach the “benefits” of slavery; disgust toward any discussion of or teaching about gender or LGBTQ people; denial of climate change, and more. 

The gutting of public education shows yet again: there is no living with Trump/MAGA fascism.