The Bully
I am unexpectedly bothered by Donald’s response to the helicopter/plane crash. I shouldn’t be surprised because he’s always abhorrent and ignorant, but today, his words are a particularly vicious blend of stupid and mean.
He started with blaming DEI initiatives for recruiting people with disabilities, and in the next breath, he said he and his administration would refocus FAA hiring on “naturally talented geniuses.” Stunning.
One shouldn’t imply what he would have said in the locker room, behind a closed door, amongst leaning-in friends who salivate over his mean-spirited drivel. One shouldn’t imply, so I’ll openly state what he would have said in those safe spaces: “These bleeding-heart lib-tards hired real-life retards to control air traffic. What did they expect to happen?”
He also brought up, falsely, the Obama-era administration requiring anyone but a white person to be hired. He insulted Pete Buttigeig and slopped some blame his way, as well. But all of that was background noise, a sort of Gaussian blur to the astoundingly large finger pointed at people with disabilities.
Donald’s moronic, apathetic, and improper “ideas” lead all of his public speaking moments. By now, I’m used to his nonsense—sad but true. This response today pushed a button that instantly awakened inside of me a fury: he turned his pathetic bullying ways to fully vulnerable people. People who already receive so much unnecessary cruelty and ostracizing.
I remember being in a DEI meeting at one of my last companies—of course, I’m involved with DEI, who do you think I am—and a person who represented the employee group of people with disabilities told a story about a well-meaning colleague—not a prickhead, unsuitable president—asking her what it was like knowing she challenged all the ideas people had about workers with disabilities because she wasn’t “you know, slow,” with an exaggerated gesture indicating a profound slowness of intellect, not an inability to physically move quickly.
I remember being on the playground in second grade at Morgan Woods elementary, and our friend, Norman, who was developmentally behind, being told by one of the mean boys in class that if he spun in circles enough times he’d catch up to the rest of the kids in reading. The amount of times I saw my poor friend spinning in circles during recess, in lunch line, during art class, in the common area of the classroom pod. We told him it was mean and a lie, but he didn’t believe us. He said there was no reason for Jared to lie to him. And he was right, there wasn’t a reason for Jared to lie to him. He did it with no reason at all, just to be a truly awful little boy, to play out an evil moment of glee at the expense of a human who deserved more grace than torment.
Donald is a truly awful little boy. He has no reason to lie and hurt people, but he does it because it’s fun for him.
“People hired to ensure a more inclusive world are at fault for a fatal crash.” This is a lie. It’s a mean lie. There’s no amount of spinning in circles that’s going to change that.
