“We’ve dropped (the price of) the infertility drugs to make lots of Trump babies, I’m hoping by the midterms.” That bizarre remark was made recently by Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

After four years of the first Trump administration and nearly one year into the second, many of us have become desensitized to this kind of commentary – but not Black women. We know the quiet part spoken out loud when we hear it.

Dr. Oz’s remarks may get written off as a joke, but there is nothing funny about the undercurrent of what his words actually mean. This administration will stop at nothing to ensure the political dominance of White people in this country.

By eliminating federal social safety nets, gutting Medicaid, increasing barriers to maternal health care and much more, this administration is creating the perfect storm to control who is able to have children, and who is not.

“Trump babies” born ahead of the midterm elections in 2026 won’t vote until 2044, but after decades of listening to phrases like “welfare queens,” we know a dog whistle when we hear one. To understand this moment, it helps to look across generations.

More than 60 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act. One cannot underestimate the impact of that generation’s monumental moment on what’s happening today.

This seminal 1965 pair of laws “democratized the idea of who could be an American” and who could vote, as recently reported by The New........

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