Editor’s Note: About the Children

You may be wondering why—as federal jobs, institutions, and grants are cut to the bone, as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and initiatives evaporate across both the private and public sectors, as nonviolent citizens are forcibly dragged from town hall meetings by security personnel in plainclothes, as the newspaper of the nation’s capital city is remade to the liking of the world’s second richest man—is The Progressive turning our focus in this April/May issue to the state of children in the United States? To that question I return another: Have you seen who’s running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?

A crew of six young men, barely out of college, recruited by Elon Musk as DOGE operatives, have been “sweeping into agency headquarters with black backpacks and ambitious marching orders”—plunging the federal workforce into chaos for the broken promise of $2 trillion in federal cuts. As I write this, in an apparent effort to make it look all better now, President Donald Trump has announced that Musk will not be empowered to make decisions over Cabinet leaders—despite clearly stating continued support for the efforts of DOGE. That the youngest of these DOGE aides, nineteen-year-old Edward Coristine, became a “ubiquitous presence” in online platforms that trafficked in bigotry and cybercrime as a high schooler reflects a sobering national reality. In a story for this issue that echoes Coristine’s own, Melissa Ryan takes us inside the online communities of young extremists that have resulted in school shootings across the country—including one in The Progressive’s hometown of Madison, Wisconsin.

The well-being of children in the United States is not a niche nor a women’s issue, as it is often presented, but one that directly measures the health of our economy and our democracy. In these pages, you’ll find a range of stories about what happens when we abandon our social responsibilities on a generational level, and what is possible when we embrace the political power of young people. Bryce Covert covers the child care crash, in which providers are closing doors after losing the federal funds that have been keeping them afloat since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Navin Kariyawasam and Eric Zhao dive deep into how the United States v. Skrmetti case before the U.S. Supreme Court—which will decide the constitutionality of a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth in Tennessee and is set for a ruling by summer 2025—will harm all youth nationwide. Longtime Chicago Public Schools teacher Xian Franzinger Barrett shares the heartbreak of being unable, in this political climate, to ensure a safe classroom for their students. Psychotherapist Nahid Fattahi discusses her work with patients “whose anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress stem from childhood experiences of immigration enforcement,” and how mass deportations and family separation continue to perpetuate this harm. Author Brea Baker reflects on her own family’s history with the U.S. land policy that prevents Black descendants from inheriting their relatives’ property.

Opening this issue with a hefty dose of optimism, seventeen-year-old Emma Weber the of Sunrise Movement tells us how she and other students in Boulder, Colorado, won a Green New Deal for Schools resolution in their school district, and are now organizing at the state level. Also speaking out are Iowa student Kayde Martin and a teacher at his high school, Kat Power, who share Martin’s experience giving testimony on his eighteenth birthday before Iowa lawmakers against the proposed removal of protections for transgender people in the state’s Civil Rights Act.

Youth bear the brunt of a society on the verge of collapse. This much is clear when even U.S. Representative Brittany Pettersen, Democrat of Colorado—blocked from voting remotely—had to cut short her maternity leave at the end of February to fly to Washington, D.C., and vote no on a series of disastrously anti-family budget cuts with her four-week-old baby in her arms. “All of our major movements in American history have failed,” child advocate and author of Spare the Kids Stacey Patton told me via email as we prepared this issue of the magazine, “because we haven’t centered and radically transformed our treatment of the young.”

What happens when a democracy crumbles? We begin at the beginning.

In solidarity,

Alexandra Tempus