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Saturday, June 18, 2016

Trump v Disability

Jonathan Young writes at The Hill:
Trump is notorious for noxious statements about Latinos (“criminals,” “rapists”), women (“ugly,” “pigs”), Muslims (“terrorists”), and others. Trump sows divisions between “us” and “them.” Trump divides people based on their bodies. Only “hot” women have value in Trump’s world. He presumes that all people with shared racial or ethnic backgrounds or religious beliefs can be defined as groups rather than their individual merits: the textbook definition of racism one might say. 
This categorical thinking threatens disability rights even though Trump rarely speaks of disability. Trump speaks about a discredited claim that vaccines cause autism. He derides the “disability racket” in Time to Get Tough. “On and on, scam after scam it goes,” says the founder of Trump University about income support for people with disabilities. Trump apparently would simply prefer that disabled people weren’t around to take his money.