Autistic people could teach Donald Trump a thing or two about focus, facts and empathy | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Read more on post.

Donald Trump’s claims about autism deserve as little oxygen as possible, but it’s been a depressing, infuriating week for many autistic people and those of us who love them. His administration unveiled contentious claims about the causes of autism – pregnant women taking Tylenol, also known as paracetamol – and pushed for research to find a “cure”. It got me thinking about how to cope psychologically, and my conclusion – and that of many of my friends in the autism community – is that you have to laugh or you’ll cry.

There’s a saying that when you’ve met one autistic child, you’ve met one autistic child. I’ve never loved the “autism as superpower” narrative, and how it erases those with high-support needs and the challenges autistic people can face. Equally, Trump’s framing of autism as a tragedy and a disease in need of curing is deeply problematic, so I feel it’s important to highlight some of the incredible, brilliant things about autism. The fact is that the autistic children I’ve met have more to teach a man like Trump, more than he is ever capable of learning. Things such as:

A capacity for deep, intense focus

Not a quality that has ever troubled Trump, whose scattergun approach to politics causes predictable chaos. Hyperfocus, or the ability to obsess intensely on one topic or problem, is a trait that has almost certainly advanced humanity’s onward progress in every field imaginable, and it’s one that many autistic people share. I know one autistic seven-year-old whose obsession with the Roman empire means he knows more about politics, history, colonialism and war than the current leader of the so-called free world.

Adherence to facts and logic

Yes, one autistic kid’s devotion to facts may mean having to hear everything possible there is to know about sharks – at length and on an extremely regular basis (who doesn’t love sharks, though?) But know what else it means? There is no hiding, as many parents who have had to endure a thorough cross-examination about Father Christmas will well know. Some autistic people also say they find it difficult to tell lies or be dishonest. Meanwhile, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term.

Empathy and a strong sense of social justice

It’s a myth that autistic people can’t feel empathy – whereas Trump is incapable of showing it. Many autistic people have talked about feeling empathy at such powerful, profound levels that the suffering of other people, or animals, can be deeply distressing. It can also be politically galvanising. A couple of friends’ autistic children have recently been showing intense concern for Palestine, and have been waving flags and banging pots in solidarity (my friend’s son is now taking a little break from thinking about it, because it’s making him “too sad”). Greta Thunberg’s horror at the climate catastrophe, and her deep empathy for people and animals, is what made her become an activist before she’d even left childhood. Meanwhile, Trump spends his time bullying the very people, such as Thunberg, who want to make a change in the world.

Exceptional memory

On the one hand, we have Trump’s unfinished train of thought, and on the other, you have some autistic children’s astonishing ability to remember whole train timetables, film scripts, books, dates or number sequences.

Joy

I’ve always thought that autistic joy is some of the purest joy. I’ll never forget another mum telling me how sad she was when her daughter stopped hand flapping – a way of showing excitement that autistic people call a stim. “She showed her joy with her whole body,” she said. My brother also hand-flapped, and other kids used to make fun of it (doing mocking impressions of people with disabilities is a hobby they share with the US president). How sad that more of us can’t show our happiness while being entirely free of self-consciousness. My brother’s ability to find joy in a song, a waterfall, the movement of a shadow, is something that inspires me every day.

Love

It’s another myth that autistic children can’t be cuddly – some love to be touched. My brother doesn’t, but while he doesn’t show his love through physical affection, he shows it in other ways. He can’t speak fluently, but one of the phrases (called Gestalts) he does say is: “Knock on the door, mum’s coming!” That’s because when she visits him at his care home, she always knocks on the door. My brother may be one of the autistic people who, according to Robert F Kennedy Jr, will never “write a poem” or “go on a date”, but I believe there is more love in that sentence than in any of the Republican party’s vile hate speech. Forget paying taxes, or playing baseball (bizarre criteria from RFK for being a proper member of society, anyway). Ultimately, what makes us human is love.

• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author. Her Republic of Parenthood book is out now.