The thoroughly odious Donald Trump has now added belittling the disabled to his disgusting bag of tricks. Serge Kovaleski is a New York Times reporter, formerly with the Washington Post, who has a physical disability that causes him to have awkward arm movements. Back in 2001, when he was working for the Washington Post, he reported on the rumors about Muslims in Jersey City celebrating the events of 9/11, and debunked those reports. He recently repeated his recollection of the interviews that led him to the conclusion the rumors were false.
That was enough for Donald Trump to attempt to mimic Mr. Kovaleski’s disability while he attacked his reporting: money.cnn.com/…
More than 45 years ago, in the summer after my freshman year in college, I was working in the mailing room of the University of Illinois College of Agriculture. The University of Illinois had a large program for physically disabled students which originated in its programs for disabled veterans after WWII. I was having lunch at the Student Union when the attendant for a graduate student with severe cerebral palsy got a call regarding a family emergency, and asked me, who happened to be standing in line behind them in the cafeteria, whether I could help the graduate student get to his table, and cut up his food for him, which he was unable to do for himself. I gladly agreed to do so, and through the lunch I learned more about this amazing man, while behind him, one of my coworkers was imitating his lurching and spastic movements. After lunch, this graduate student took me to the office where he was painstakingly typing his dissertation for a physics doctorate, letter by letter, with a stylus on a typewriter with keys perhaps 4 times bigger than an ordinary typewriter. To this day, I have NEVER been so impressed with what someone has achieved against overwhelming odds.
When I got back to the mailing room, my coworker who had spent his lunch hour ridiculing his guy, made some comment about my “spaz friend,” and for the last time in my life, I physically went after somebody in my fury about his comment and his actions at lunch. Our coworkers managed to separate us before anything serious happened (which was probably a good thing for me, since his guy was bigger and fitter than me), but I will never forget my contempt for anybody who could belittle somebody for a physical disability.
Donald Trump is a hideous, disgusting, barely human being. I will never understand how people who claim to be ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ could possibly bring themselves to bless him. And I am appalled at the fact that somewhere around 30% of the members of one of our two major political parties support him for the Presidency.
Count me decidedly out of those who hope Trump will be the Republican nominee because he would be the easiest candidate to beat. I’m not even certain he would be the easiest Republican to beat, and even if he was, with only one election since the Truman administration in which the same political party has held the White House in four consecutive elections, I’m unwilling to take the chance that Trump might actually become President.