The Magic Eraser
May I just say that any distinction between President Trump’s personal whining and official government policy was erased this past weekend with the launch of “an official government webpage dedicated to publicly calling out journalists and news outlets whose reporting the president disputes” (Aaron Parnas).
Trump thinks that by changing narratives he can change history. Example? He’s described events of January 6 (2021) as wonderful expressions of patriotism by tourists visiting the nation’s Capitol. He’s therefore issued pardons for those responsible for damage in the millions, five deaths and injuries sustained by 174 police officers defending the Capitol.
So Trump now has a government-sanctioned website offering a handy tool by which to deny reality and offer “alternative truths.” It reeks of Germany 1937.
Since 1988, today – December 1st – has been observed globally and in the U.S. as World AIDS Day. It’s one day each year when we look clear-eyed at where we stand in the decades’ long fight against AIDS, what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost. It’s a day committed to remembering and promising.
But not this year. You’ll need to forgive me if I take personally Trump’s decision to wield his magic eraser, rid us of that nasty word “AIDS” and instruct all government employees to “refrain from publicly promoting World AIDS Day through any communication channels including social media, media engagements, speeches or other public-facing messaging” (The New York Times).
World AIDS Day is too much for Donald Trump. He’s heroically issued proclamations for National Manufacturing Day and World Intellectual Property Day. But not AIDS. No sir. Despite 44 million AIDS deaths globally, 700,000 deaths in America, and 1.2 million Americans living with HIV today. Despite the numbers and the dying, Trump blocks World AIDS Day and sticks with a National Manufacturing Day.
2025 is our first year in nearly four decades that we’ll not officially, as a nation, acknowledge the struggle with AIDS. It’s also the year I published Uneasy Silence, my testimony to the truth about the AIDS epidemic and my claim to an enduring purpose. As I said there:
When in 1991 I joined the AIDS community, I was joining a company of the sick and dying. …Nearly 100% of those infected would die within less than a decade. What drew us closer and closer to one another was the virus that was killing us. We were a community wrapped in grief over a constant stream of agonizing losses.”
[Today], give me a platform or pulpit and you’ll hear me bearing witness to the slaughter of mostly young lives in the American AIDS epidemic. Bearing witness. Telling the story. Refusing to allow the nation to forget. That’s my reason to still be alive, still speak out, still keep my promise to so many who died before me.
I’ll not go quietly, because I’ve promised that they will not be forgotten (pp. 128-129).
Donald Trump may dislike the truth about AIDS. That’s a shame, his shame. He should read again the story of the brilliant New York Times journalist Jeffrey Schmalz.
We were close, close friends for the year (1992) between his first interview of me and the week he died (November 1993). …In his final article ‘he remembered hoping for a cure. “A miracle is possible…and for a long time, I thought one would happen. But let’s face it, a miracle isn’t going to happen. One day soon I will simply become one of the ninety people in America to die that day of AIDS.” And so he did.’
…In Jeffrey’s death I found the urgency of telling others how his life, how he, mattered. My life had meaning so long as I could bear witness to the constant brutalities and hourly losses along the road to AIDS. By being a witness to Jeffrey’s life and death, I’ve had a purpose to fulfill, a meaning to give another eulogy, another speech. I’ve promised it to Jeffrey and to hundreds of thousands of others who shared his fate. I’ve promised it to families suffering the losses I know too well. I’ve promised it to my children and grandchildren. I’ve promised it to myself (pp. 129-130).
And I’ve promised it to Donald Trump. He may imagine he can magically erase my promises. I’m here to say he can’t. The truth about AIDS and World AIDS Day is written all over the epidemic’s history and my personal journey. It’s a very good day to remember the losses, yield to the grief, rise to the occasion and bear witness to the truth.
History will remember a president’s imaginary eraser and the reality of millions of deaths. It will remember and it will judge those who turned a blind eye to the brutal truth.