Wel­come to Inter­views for Resis­tance. Since elec­tion night 2016, the streets of the Unit­ed States have rung with resis­tance. Peo­ple all over the coun­try have wok­en up with the con­vic­tion that they must do some­thing to fight inequal­i­ty in all its forms. But many are won­der­ing what it is they can do. In this series, we’ll be talk­ing with expe­ri­enced orga­niz­ers, trou­ble­mak­ers and thinkers who have been doing the hard work of fight­ing for a long time. They’ll be shar­ing their insights on what works, what does­n’t, what has changed and what is still the same.

We are willing to put our bodies on the line, because our lives and liberty are.

Bruce Dar­ling: I am Bruce Dar­ling. I am an orga­niz­er with ADAPT. We are a group of dis­abled folks from around the coun­try who work to fight to have dis­abled peo­ple not forced into insti­tu­tions, and we defend free­dom for those who are out in the community.

Sarah Jaffe: ADAPT has done a cou­ple of pret­ty dra­mat­ic direct actions around the Repub­li­can health­care pro­pos­al. I under­stand you were a part of the one that went on in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Can you tell us a lit­tle bit about it?

Bruce: Basi­cal­ly, there was a group of almost 60 of us who made the trek to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. with the intent of let­ting Con­gress know exact­ly how bad this bill is and that dis­abled Amer­i­cans are not going to just accept it. We felt that, in part, they were tar­get­ing Med­ic­aid and the ser­vices and sup­ports we need because they think that we are not polit­i­cal­ly active and that they can basi­cal­ly get away with it. We want­ed to send a mes­sage that was not the case. We went to Mitch McConnell’s office, and a group of folks went into the office. A bunch of us could not fit in at that point, so folks got out of their wheel­chairs. Every­one got on the ground who could and we were basi­cal­ly dragged out by the Capi­tol Police.

Sarah: Those pho­tos and videos real­ly got a lot of response. Peo­ple were say­ing that the police drag­ging peo­ple out of their wheel­chairs is an impres­sive visu­al demon­stra­tion of what this health­care bill would do.

Bruce: Exact­ly. Under this bill, dis­abled Amer­i­cans will die. Oth­ers will be forced into insti­tu­tions and increase this ter­ri­ble feed­back loop, because insti­tu­tions are more expen­sive. With capped funds it will dri­ve more mon­ey to the insti­tu­tions, mak­ing less mon­ey avail­able for health­care, ser­vices and sup­ports in the com­mu­ni­ty, so more folks will die and go into insti­tu­tions. We want­ed peo­ple to see it is the equiv­a­lent of basi­cal­ly being dragged off. The way they saw it on the news, that is actu­al­ly what hap­pens, even now with the Med­ic­aid pro­gram as it is. This will just make it far, far, far worse.

Sarah: Med­ic­aid is the main way that home health­care is fund­ed. That is the main thing that allows peo­ple to stay at home and not be put in an institution.

Bruce: Right, and we want­ed to high­light that by using lan­guage that we thought, or hoped, Repub­li­cans would under­stand. There isn’t an aster­isk on the Con­sti­tu­tion that says ​“except dis­abled Amer­i­cans.” We should have a birthright of life and lib­er­ty. Med­ic­aid is the thing that actu­al­ly pays for and sup­ports our lives and our lib­er­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty. So cut­ting that is actu­al­ly cut­ting the lives and lib­er­ty of dis­abled Amer­i­cans. It is killing dis­abled Amer­i­cans. We real­ly want­ed to dri­ve that point home.

Sarah: Can you talk a lit­tle bit more about the spe­cif­ic ser­vices that Med­ic­aid funds that would be dec­i­mat­ed by this bill?

Bruce: The wheel­chairs that peo­ple need to move around. The ven­ti­la­tors and feed­ing tubes that peo­ple use for breath­ing, eat­ing and nutri­tion. The assis­tance — whether it is home health aides or per­son­al care atten­dants — the peo­ple who come into our homes and help us in and out of bed, help us into the bath­room. They do our most per­son­al care. They allow us to live.

Then, on top of that, the med­ica­tions and med­ical care that we rely on. Those things will be cut at the state lev­el, where they make these deci­sions. We don’t fare so well when that hap­pens. Basi­cal­ly, we see now how peo­ple who go with­out assis­tance will get sec­ondary con­di­tions, and they will either end up in an insti­tu­tion or, in some cas­es, die. We watch that hap­pen now, and we just can’t sit back and let that hap­pen to any more of our people.

Sarah: Talk a lit­tle bit about the his­to­ry of ADAPT and the his­to­ry of the inde­pen­dent liv­ing move­ment, the orga­niz­ing and activism that made this fund­ing and con­sid­er­a­tion hap­pen in the first place.

Bruce: ADAPT actu­al­ly began as — and I am old enough to have been involved in that fight — the fight for lifts on bus­es. It is real­ly inter­est­ing when you talk to young peo­ple now. They think, ​“Wow! Lifts on bus­es. Duh. Of course they have lifts.” But back in the day, back in the 1980s, this was a con­tro­ver­sial top­ic. Peo­ple argued whether or not there should be lifts on bus­es and whether dis­abled peo­ple should have access to pub­lic tran­sit and ​“Do we need a spe­cial, sep­a­rate sys­tem so that we weren’t mixed in with the gen­er­al population?”

What we found was peo­ple were being denied the basic things that they need­ed to live their lives. They had to sched­ule their trans­porta­tion well in advance. Cer­tain peo­ple were like, ​“My aunt didn’t plan to die four­teen days ahead of time. I need a way to get to her funer­al.” That kind of basic thing is what we were work­ing back in the mid-1980s. With that achieved, this part of the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act, which was tied to the his­toric crawl up the steps [of the U.S. Capi­tol demand­ing pas­sage of the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act], ADAPT looked at what the next lev­el issue was, and it was com­mu­ni­ty integration.

We have been fight­ing that fight now for around twen­ty-sev­en years. You would think, hon­est­ly, it seems like it should be a no-brain­er. Should dis­abled peo­ple be allowed to live in the com­mu­ni­ty? Well, yes, of course. But, we have a lot of peo­ple who make mon­ey on the fact that we are locked up in insti­tu­tions, and those peo­ple make con­tri­bu­tions. It has been a real tough road for us to get that issue through to people.

Sarah: In addi­tion to the action in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., there was a sit-in in Sen. Cory Gardner’s office in Col­orado. What are some oth­er actions that ADAPT have been involved in lead­ing up to this health­care bill?

Bruce: We were arrest­ed in the Capi­tol Rotun­da, back ear­li­er in the process. This has been named ​“The Sum­mer of ADAPT” because we have been arrest­ed so many times and in so many dif­fer­ent places that our heads are spin­ning from keep­ing track of all of the court dates and the fines and the pro­cess­ing. Then, ear­li­er in the year, we did a nation­al action and high­light­ed these issues in the White House where we were arrest­ed, as well.

We have tak­en our mes­sage about com­mu­ni­ty inte­gra­tion every­where we can, to say, ​“These cuts to Med­ic­aid will just rein­force the sys­tem that forces us into insti­tu­tions and kills us.” We even went to Ivan­ka Trump’s house. It was a women-run, women-only nation­al action. Basi­cal­ly, what we did was, while we were being processed out of the White House, the women went first and were processed out and the cops said, ​“Oh, that is nice. They are being put in vans to be tak­en back to the hotel.” What they didn’t know was we were send­ing them on to Ivan­ka Trump’s house to car­ry a mes­sage there.

Sarah: Was Ivan­ka home?

Bruce: Actu­al­ly, their son was, and that was real­ly actu­al­ly kind of cool, because I got a bunch of text mes­sages from folks say­ing, ​“The son is wav­ing at us!” Every­one was real­ly excit­ed, and the response from every­one in the street was very sweet. The ener­gy of that group could only have been because a group of women got togeth­er and did this. They did a great job in terms of engag­ing the child who was very excit­ed to see them. But Ivan­ka was not will­ing to talk to them.

Sarah: That is disappointing.

Bruce: It real­ly is, because the issue that we are fight­ing is a women’s issue, real­ly, when you think about it. Women are the infor­mal care­givers, they are the for­mal care­givers. By and large, they are the folks who end up in nurs­ing facil­i­ties. We are fight­ing for the rights of women to live free.

Sarah: Con­gress is on its July 4th recess while we are talk­ing. What are the next steps? What actions do you have com­ing up? That you can tell us about, of course.

Bruce: We are protest­ing every­where. It is incred­i­ble to watch. We have had protests from Fair­banks, Alas­ka to Orlan­do, Flori­da to Port­land, Maine. Right now, as we speak [Wednes­day, July 5], there is a group of peo­ple protest­ing in Sen­a­tor Flake’s office in Phoenix. It seems like, at this point, they are prepar­ing to go to arrest there. The mes­sage is: They are not leav­ing until they get a ​“no” vote. Which is what hap­pened in Port­land, Maine. One of the things peo­ple should know is, when Sen­a­tor Collins said, or her staff said, ​“No is no,” when, they had a no vote, the pro­test­ers essen­tial­ly cel­e­brat­ed their vic­to­ry and left. Cory Gard­ner, on the oth­er hand, wouldn’t actu­al­ly engage the dis­abled pro­tes­tors, so they end­ed up stay­ing days in his office and then end­ed up being arrest­ed. We are will­ing to put our bod­ies on the line, because our lives and lib­er­ty are.

Sarah: Oth­er than Susan Collins, have any oth­er Sen­a­tors engaged with you or had any sort of use­ful dia­logue with you?

Bruce: We have…No. [laughs] We have reached out. We have tried.

Even the lack of dia­logue, how­ev­er, has been use­ful. It is rais­ing the con­scious­ness of folks that this is an attack on Med­ic­aid. It has been lost in the rhetoric about Oba­macare and all of that, which is in and of itself atro­cious; but then, no one had been talk­ing about these attacks on Med­ic­aid. Word has got­ten out to folks that this is cut­ting the basic sup­ports that dis­abled Amer­i­cans need to live, that elder­ly Amer­i­cans need. Peo­ple are pret­ty appalled by that. Even some ardent Trump vot­ers have said, ​“That is not what I vot­ed for.” We are hope­ful about the protests.

Sarah: How can peo­ple keep up with ADAPT and with you?

Bruce: Fol­low us on Twit­ter. We are @NationalADAPT. We have the web­site www​.adapt​.org. The hash­tag that we are using is #adap­tan­dresist. You can see up-to-the-minute infor­ma­tion from folks about protests hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try. This is going to be a busy week for us, so it is a good time to follow.

I am @ADAPTerBruce. That is how you can fol­low me.

Inter­views for Resis­tance is a project of Sarah Jaffe, with assis­tance from Lau­ra Feuille­bois and sup­port from the Nation Insti­tute. It is also avail­able as a pod­cast on iTunes. Not to be reprint­ed with­out permission.