For Some Stuttering May Turn Out To Be The Deciding Factor
I’m so old that I remember when public figures, like politicians, were held to high standards of behavior and language. When I was growing up, comments that may have been considered mocking or disrespectful would generate negative reactions from the public, regardless of political affiliations. That election of politicians being held to higher standards was rooted in the expectations of leadership, responsibility and representation of diverse populations. Leaders were expected to model civility, respect and professionalism in their words and actions. That changed drastically when Donald Trump took over the GOP. There are now different perspectives on what constitutes “acceptable” behavior from public figures. Trump’s approach to communication has been characterized by a departure from traditional norms of political discourse. He uses crass, unconventional language, employing ugly school yard rhetoric, and engages in public disputes, which, for some, challenged established expectations of presidential behavior. Public reactions have been varied, with MAGAts appreciating his “unfiltered” communication style, while normal people are generally concerned about its impact on public discourse and political culture. Trump is always held to the lowest possible standards, redefining what the Republican Party is today. Over the weekend, Trump and some of his lackeys mocked Biden for a mild stutter.
Matt Viser and Isaac Arnsdorf reported that Señor Trumpanzee, at a MAGA rally in Iowa on Friday, Trump resounded to Biden having denounced him as a sore loser and a threat to American democracy by making fun of Biden’s childhood speaking impediment.
As always, Trump counts on the ignorance of his ultra-low info followers— and they never let him down. Hard to believe that in 2016 62,984,828 people voted for him and that 4 years later 74,223,975 did the same.
“Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing,” Trump said to a chuckling crowd on Friday in Sioux Center, Iowa. “He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy.”
“’He’s a threat to d-d-democracy,’” he continued, pretending to stutter. “Couldn’t read the word.”
The remark was not true; Biden said the word “democracy” 29 times in his speech, never stuttering over it. Trump’s comment also marked a particularly crass form of politics that he has exhibited throughout his career that places politeness and human decency at the center of the 2024 presidential election.
Biden’s stutter is something that he has talked about openly, referencing it as something he attempted to overcome. He has used it to connect with others who stutter, and he has also spoken about how being made fun of for it gave him a window into dealing with bullies.
After a nun at his school gave him a hard time— referring to him as “Mr. Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Biden”— his mother drove to the school and confronted her. “If you ever speak to my son like that again, I’ll come back and rip that bonnet off your head,” she said, according to Biden’s memoir. “Do you understand me?”
He was called “Dash” and “Joe Impedimenta” by some of his classmates because of the way he stumbled over his words. As a high school freshman, he was exempted from a public speaking presentation because of his stutter.
He detailed his battle with stuttering in an article in The Atlantic, and he has talked about the shame and deep humiliation— and how he would rehearse conversations ahead of time so he could say the correct phrases— but also how it gave him lifelong insights.
“In our family … we’re never allowed to make fun of anyone, no matter how mean they were to us if they had something they couldn’t overcome,” Biden said in a recent interview with Conan O’Brien where he talked about his stutter.
“If you think about it, the only handicap everybody thinks they can still laugh at is stuttering,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in October. “It taught me a lot. It taught me a lot, to have a lot of tolerance for people.”
Biden has a practice of clipping sentences into shorter segments, something he has talked about doing as a way to avoid stuttering. And one of his favorite movies is The King’s Speech, which depicts the unlikely ascension to the throne of King George VI, who must overcome a speech impediment and address Britain as it enters World War II.
His speeches now are filled with quotes from Irish poets, a relic of a childhood reciting William Butler Yeats in the mirror to overcome his stutter.
“Yesterday President Biden had the courage to say what Donald Trump won’t: that America rejects political violence and ‘is still a country that believes in decency, dignity, honesty, honor, truth,'” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Biden’s campaign. “Donald Trump continues to prove that he stands against all of those things. Mocking Americans with challenges only does violence to Donald Trump’s own dignity, and the American people stand as one against it.”
Trump’s mockery of Biden came several hours after Biden delivered his first campaign speech of the election year, attempting to define the race as a battle for the future of American democracy. Biden repeatedly criticized Trump in the speech, calling him “a loser” who has attempted to rewrite the events of Jan. 6, 2021, with false claims that he won the election.
“Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election,” he said. “We saw it with our own eyes. Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots.”
…Trump has repeatedly mocked people’s disabilities. In 2015 he derisively imitated New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital condition affecting joints known as arthrogryposis. Trump has denied knowing about Kovaleski’s condition.
As president, Trump resisted appearing alongside wounded veterans, as first reported by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider, and later confirmed by former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly. “I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.” Trump has disputed Kelly’s account.
In a 2015 television interview, Trump responded to criticism from conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who used a wheelchair, by calling him “a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.”
Long before Trump’s first successful campaign, his 2011 book Time to Get Tough called Social Security’s disability insurance program a “racket.”
Trump’s attacks on Biden’s stutter and intelligence, as opposed to his age alone, reflect Trump’s sensitivity about his own age, 77. “What is he, 82 or 81?” Trump said of Biden, who is 81. “Look, I’m not that far behind. But I’m 100 percent up here. I feel I’m better than I was 25 years ago. I think I’d know it.”
Trump’s latest campaign ad also shows Biden falling on the steps up Air Force One. On Saturday, he posted on Truth Social an image of Biden with his mouth agape and a poll suggesting few find him mentally fit for the presidency.
“His speeches last about three minutes, you know why? Because he runs out of fuel,” Trump said during a campaign event in Newton, Iowa, on Saturday. (Biden’s speech on Friday was 32 minutes.)
During a Democratic primary debate in 2019, Biden appeared to stutter while speaking about connecting with children who stutter.
Shortly after, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former press secretary for Trump who is now the governor of Arkansas, sent a tweet that contained a typographical insult aimed at Biden. [Biden didn't respond, though he could have, by noting that Huckabee Sanders is the ugliest governor in America that would be cruel.]
“I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about,” she tweeted, adding the tag #DemDebate.
Biden responded in a tweet, writing, “I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up.”
Sanders later apologized, and Biden used the encounter to raise money.
“If you believe we need to bring empathy back to the White House,” Biden said in a tweet that quotes Sanders and included a fundraising link, “chip in $5.”
As you probably know, stuttering is a relatively common speech disorder that affects people of all ages and backgrounds, maybe 1% of the population stutters. Mild stuttering involves occasional disruptions in speech fluency, such as hesitations, repetitions, or prolongations of sounds.
Some people who stutter— or whose family members stutter— or those who have experience with speech disorders, may find Trump’s mocking offensive, disrespectful and stigmatizing. A public figure like Señor T openly mocking someone's stutter contributes to negative stereotypes and reinforces stigma. And then there are the MAGAts. Not even a stuttering MAGAt will feel offended by Trump. His followers don’t expect him to promote respectful and empathetic communication that fosters a more inclusive and understanding society— that’s too woke for them… and doubly so when discussing personal characteristics or conditions such as speech disorders.
Moving on, take a look at this interview on CNN with Robert Pape, Director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, who said that "fully half of the individuals who stormed the Capitol" were "doctors, lawyers, architects, business owners, CEO's, executives from Intel ... mainstream, even affluent individuals." He says many such people were among those engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Capitol police, citing one unnamed woman gynecologist from what he calls a prestigious Boston hospital. Pape says the media have misled us by concentrating on the Q-Anon shaman, and on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in their military regalia. Many of them are ordinary and seemingly respectable people who are so deeply into the Trump-MAGA Cult that they've lost any realistic perspective on politics and are willing to use violence to gert their way.