by William Trollinger 

If it weren’t so terrifying, the ignorance and incompetence of the Trump Administration would be hilarious.

We have a Secretary of Homeland Security who has no idea what habeas corpus is or where in the Constitution it is detailed. We have a Secretary of Defense who shared details of a secret military operation in Signal group chats that included his wife and an Atlantic editor. We have a Secretary of Education who refers to AI as A-1 (like the steak sauce), and who thinks banning racist Indigenous high school mascots is, well, racist.

This is just the tip of the Iceberg of Ignorance and Incompetence when it comes to officials in the Trump administration. Take, for example, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who – among other things – has claimed that COVID-19 poses little danger to children, and that the real danger to kids is the COVID vaccine itself.

And now Kennedy has weighed in regarding autism. According to Kennedy, autism “destroys families.” Children with autism “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date,” and “many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.” 

More ignorance from the Trump Administration. And when it comes to autism, this is very personal.

My brother Mike was born with autism spectrum disorder. Contrary to RFK’s absurd statement, Mike paid taxes, held multiple jobs, played baseball, wrote short stories, and – I can’t believe I have to say this – used the toilet unassisted. And while his autism challenged our family, it absolutely did not destroy our family. In fact, there are all sorts of ways in which Mike brought our family together.

Mike died May 20, in Denver. The memorial service was last Friday, and I gave one of two eulogies. An abridged and slightly revised version of that eulogy is below.

It is a distinct honor to have this opportunity to say a few words in behalf of my brilliant, creative, hilarious, and sweet – most of all, sweet – younger brother.

Mike was 17 months younger than me. Growing up with him there were times when I felt as if we were attached at the hip. Not only did we walk to and from elementary school together every Monday through Friday, but I roomed with him until I went off to college at the age of 18.  

But from an early age I knew why I was walking to school with Mike and why I was rooming with him. He was different. Mike was born with autism spectrum disorder, which is characterized – as many or most of you know — by difficulties in social interaction and communication, a great need for predictability, a dislike of being touched, a struggle to understand emotions, and more. In 1994 he was diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a type of autism spectrum disorder. He was the second adult so diagnosed in the state of Colorado. 

But that was 1994. When Mike was born in 1956 autism had yet to be defined. There was no autism diagnosis; there were no special services for those with autism; there were no special accommodations. When it came to Mike, the educational and medical authorities were worthless. The result was a child and adolescent who was often isolated from his peers, who was repeatedly called the “r word” (and not just by kids), who was bullied and sometimes beaten up. 

My parents were at a loss as to what to do about Mike. But what my mother figured out – and this was a recurring theme throughout his life – was that he needed to be protected. And while she did that at home, when Mike went off to school, she gave that job to me. What that meant was that I would walk with him to and from elementary school; I would respond when kids taunted him; I would intervene to keep him from being beaten up. I was not the best at that latter task: while I had a very smart mouth, I was not – much to my father’s chagrin – a great fighter.  

But here’s the thing. Through all of this Mike remained an incredibly sweet human being. My friends (especially my dear friend, Jim Bryan) loved him, and did not mind in the least when I brought him along on various excursions, including Denver Bear baseball games or Denver Rocket basketball games. Actually, by junior high I had developed the “Mike Test”: if you couldn’t be kind to Mike, if you couldn’t overcome the fact that he was different, I couldn’t be friends with you. (And I came to regret the couple of times when I did not hold to this test).

Mike followed me to Bethel College (MN), where he was a popular and hilarious fixture in the office of the college newspaper where I was editor (just a few days ago I received an email from my associate editor, telling me how much she liked Mike – and it was clear Mike had a crush on her). And when I graduated from Bethel he went off to Colorado State University, where he happily roomed with Jim and other members of the CSU baseball team. He was protected, he was happy, and he was incredibly sweet. 

Sweetness. This was Mike. The reality is that Mike was not defined by his “disability,” as so many people assumed he was. Such mistaken assumptions are all too common regarding people with disabilities. But the disability is not who they are as human beings. So it was with Mike. He was so much more than his autism.

There are many examples of this, including his happily energetic work as a volunteer at the American Red Cross and at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. But, oddly enough, I think it became most evident that Mike was much, much more than his autism spectrum disorder after his leg injury in 2013 (which happened at our house in Ohio, a day after we took him to the Creation Museum, a place that he experienced as unbelievably bizarre). As a result of this injury Mike spent the last twelve years of his life in assisted living residences. Protected and cared for by folks who loved him (and whom he loved), Mike was free to indulge his brilliant, creative, inexhaustible intellectual energy. 

For example, in these years Mike created and managed (with my brother Paul’s crucial assistance) the website Each Day in History, which includes thousands of birthdays of famous people as well as innumerable historical events. I am a historian, but it’s my computer-science-major brother who created this. Even more remarkably, this man located on the autism spectrum wrote and self-published four books of fiction . . . and just a month or two before he passed he and I had a series of conversations about what was to be his fifth book, another collection of short stories about people who have seemingly (but not totally) disappeared.

Autism absolutely did not define Mike. But he hated that he was on the autism spectrum – he talked about it as his great regret. And in the last few years he asked Paul and myself – more than once, actually – if he would be autistic in heaven. Well, heaven is where he is now: completely protected, and tightly wrapped in love. 

But I am very sad for us. His departure leaves such an enormous hole, such a sweetness deficit. We love you, Mike.

One final comment. Lots of experts on autism have “the data” to demonstrate that Mike – as a person with autism spectrum disorder – was not an anomaly in his rich life and experience. That the creative potential, intellectual and artistic abilities, and social warmth of people with autism would be erased in a few sentences uttered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services is shameful. If you agree, consider signing this petition.