If I were to go around saying, with the degree of confidence that many of you guys seem to have, that Trump was definitely mocking someone’s disability, I feel like I would be lying. And it sounds like you’re saying, “It’s OK to spread that lie because Trump’s a bad person.” I can’t get behind that.
At the end of the day I just don’t think he was mocking the guy for being disabled, and believe me, that’s not my pulling partisan mental gymnastics. I simply watched the video that Fox News put together with an open mind and found it convincing, and I’m not going to deny what I’ve seen with my own eyeballs just because it’s Trump.
I watched that video. Trump never grew up. He continues to act like a childish bully. His pantomime of someone mentally or physically handicapped, compared to previous examples, was more amplified and deliberate (IMO) in the case of the reporter. What’s more, if you go around saying anti-semitic things all your life, but never to a jew, and then one time you slip up and say it to or about a specific jewish person, are you excused because you’ve said similar things in the past in different contexts?
Making a “big nose” joke in reference to a specific Jew might very well be anti-Semitic, but if it can reasonably be pointed out that the offender just has a penchant for “big nose” jokes against people from all ethnic backgrounds, and the target in a specific case was incidentally Jewish, I don’t think we need to declare that the person is definitely an anti-Semite in spite of the facts at hand just because big nose jokes are childish.
Trump has a habit of pantomiming mannerisms typically associated with physically and/or mentally handicapped people. He got away with it, until he was recorded doing it to mock an individual with a physical handicap. Which made it that much worse.
Explain how previous incidents exonerate him from this one.
Personally I don’t think his pantomime is intended to be a physically and/or mentally handicapped person. I think it kinda looks a little bit like what my classmates and I used to do before we knew better, but not really. I don’t think anyone would have assumed it was supposed to be a dig on handicapped until he happened to use it to depict a handicapped person, and then applying that depiction to all previous examples.
I think he’s just doing a “flustered person” thing.
You’re certainly welcome to believe that someone you yourself describe as “a loathsome individual, petty and narcissistic” who is hell-bent on mocking someone would be careful to make a distinction between a person with arthrogryposis and “someone who was epileptic, or had cerebral palsy, or was prone to uncontrollable physical motions in some way.”
I believe that a blowhard bully addressing a crowd would never be satisfied simply bending a wrist when he could play for a bigger laugh by playing a bigger disability.
I was going to cite this personal anecdote as an example in an earlier post but removed it. But it seems appropriate in light of your response above.
When I was a younger teen, it was cool to call someone out as being a “fag” or a “retard”. Had nothing to do with their sexual identity or developmental handicap. It was just an automatic insult to throw out. It was common back then.
But then I matured and discovered the world around me and became more sensitive and aware that these words and sentiments have meaning beyond just a casual insult. They are hurtful. To continue to use them is to be a willful asshole.
Trump is 70+. When the fuck is he going to grow up and stop being a willful asshole? (Rhetorical question)
Given his well recorded behavior, I remain unconvinced he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
If your 10 year old son did this same sort of pantomime when talking about a disabled student at his school, would you give him a pass? Hell, it doesn’t even have to be about a disabled student: Would you give him a pass for doing that for a non-disabled student?
If you won’t give your 10 year old son a pass, why would you give our 70 year old dipshit president a pass?
steronz makes the point that there is recorded evidence of him doing so in other contexts. Presumably he wasn’t mocking the reported in those instances. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a habit of pantomiming disabled people.
So, you’re saying that he chose that particular mockery routine completely at random and happened to hit on one that resembled the man’s disability. (Trump has several different mockery routines in his repertoire, it seems oddly coincidental that he didn’t call him by a nasty nickname, or any of his other common methods of mockery.)
There’s two possibilities, the way I see it. One, Trump sees some sort of connection between people who get flustered after being caught in a lie, and people with cerebral palsy. Or two, yes, it’s just a coincidence. Occam’s razor makes me go with #2.
My opinion: yes Trump was actually mocking the reporter specifically for his disability, and it was obvious, and (I thought) not debatable. I’m surprised to see the debate here.
