Pennsylvania Lt. Governor and Democratic senatorial candidate John Fetterman, who is running against New Jersey’s favorite TV snake oil salesman, Mehmet Oz, gave an interview to NBC News that created a shitstorm.
This week, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for the Senate from Pennsylvania, appeared in what NBC News billed as his first on-camera, one-on-one interview since he had a stroke in May. The interview went well and was conducted with Mr. Fetterman and the reporter, Dasha Burns, sitting in the same room, as Mr. Fetterman used a captioning system on a computer screen to assist him with his auditory processing, something he has needed help with since the stroke.
Ms. Burns introduced the interview to the news anchor Lester Holt by saying, “In small talk before the interview without captioning, it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation.” With that one statement, Ms. Burns shifted the conversation away from a necessary adaptation to implying that NBC was doing Mr. Fetterman a favor by using captioning and that it was a problem for the candidate that he needed technology to reliably converse.
Others who interviewed Fetterman dispute Burns’ assertion, stating they found no issue with Fetterman’s ability to communicate. Which is true, or more true? Who knows. Pick your more credible journalist. But it generated a defense of Fetterman,under the assumption it was true, along the lines of “so what if he’s got a disability?’
Franklin Roosevelt tried to keep the press from photographing him being transferred into and out of his wheelchair. In 1964, the cover of Fact Magazine read, “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit to Be President!” with one calling him a “dangerous lunatic.” In 1972, Thomas Eagleton was kicked off the Democratic ticket as vice president when it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for depression. In 1975, the columnist Garry Wills argued that George Wallace was unfit for office not because of his history of racism, but because he had a physical disability as a result of being shot.
But does the fact that it’s happened make it a good thing? There are elected politicians in wheel chairs, but their constituents elected them knowing they were in wheel chairs. We’ve gotten past the harshly negative view that caused FDR to conceal his disability.
But when it comes to invisible disabilities, and in particular ones that involve communication or mental function, stigma is trickier to detect and dispel.
But aren’t some disabilities sufficient to preclude someone from competently doing a job?
Some jobs require specific abilities that may not be replicable — yet — through technology or other adaptation. Spell-check will not help me be a fighter pilot since, as part of my dyslexia, I often can’t perceive up from down. A roofer needs to be able to climb a ladder. A condition like Alzheimer’s may have rendered Ronald Reagan unable to perform his duties as president long before his second term expired.
Whether it’s true that Fetterman, as a result of his stroke, suffers from an auditory processing disability is unclear. Whether assistive technology, like captioning, will enable him to perform the job of senator competently is unclear. Whether Fetterman, with this disability, the need for assistive technology and with limitations in his ability to perform the function of senator competently, and would nonetheless be a better choice for Senator from Pennsylvania than Oz are legitimate questions to be answered.
The question should be put to the voters and neither argued by disputing pundits nor activists against stigmatization. It may very well turn out that the voters of Pennsylvania will elect Fetterman regardless of a disability that will impact his ability as senator, but that should be the voters’ choice based on a factual understanding of Fetterman’s real condition, whatever that may be. We were very lucky that FDR’s concealed disability didn’t render him unable to serve as president. We may not be so lucky next time.
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Why all of this noise about cognitive / intellectual disability caused by a medical injury, be it obesity and sedentary lifestyle induced stroke or career football cracking brain injuries?
Fetterman and Herschel Walker are disabled. Its not like that should prevent them from becoming a US Senator. This considering one privileged white guy drove his car over a bride and left his female passenger for dead. Yet look how useful he was for spreading defamation, incivility and polarization.
Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.
– Ted Kennedy
According to joke from the world of medicine, a double blind study is two orthopedic surgeons trying to read an EKG. Also, it’s been decades since I was in medical school. With those caveats, let me share this: the buzzwords “auditory processing disability” are, I believe, very misleading. This phrase implies that the only problem here is hearing. Rather, after a stroke, auditory processing difficulties usually are part of a larger family of problems called ‘receptive aphasia’ (the ability to grasp the meaning of what’s been said). The Fetterman campaign is trying to liken this to deafness, but that analogy is more understated than likening Fetterman’s a implanted pacemaker/defibrillator to a stent.
My guess is that the campaign is copping to the “auditory processing disability” because it’s undeniable, but there may be much more there. Strokes can also impair memory and cognition; less well known, a stroke involving the prefrontal cortex or the limbic system can alter personality and temperament. (The last time I saw somebody 6’9″ 300 pounds ‘going limbic’ was at a WWE event. That could be interesting.) Moreover, having a stroke of any flavor is itself a risk factor for having another one.
There very well may be a majority of Pennsylvanians (esp if there is a Shapiro wave) who prefer all of that to a possible Republican majority. The example of the (very) senior senator from California has shown that neurological impairment is not incompatible with party-line voting.
Voters get to choose between a literal snake oil salesman endorsed by Trump and a mentally impaired stroke victim endorsed by the withered husk of Joe Biden. Another exciting election! It really makes me want to go out and vote, for the first time since I voted and campaigned for Obama.
If it’s any consolation, the choices aren’t all that much better on my side of the fence.
Having dealt directly with politicians of both persuasions in city and county governments for almost two decades the conclusion that anyone seeking elective office is de facto mentally impaired became overwhelming.
I often wonder whether people consider what sort of psychological issues drive a person to seek public office.
Narcissistic personality disorder, not otherwise specified.
Yes.
In one case, an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court diagnosed with senile dementia.
See McComb v. Commission on Judicial Performance, 19 Cal. 3d (Spec. Trib. Supp.) 1, 138 Cal. Rptr. 459, 564 P.2d 1 (1977).
The issue isn’t about a disability. The issue is about disclosure. Fetterman has not released his medical records and refuses to discuss it. He may he cognitively impaired or he may not be – who knows?
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