Disabled People "Should Just Die"
A Window Inside Donald Trump's Sick, Demented Mind
“I don’t know. He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move to Florida.” Donald Trump gave that advice to his own nephew, Fred C. Trump III. Why? Because Fred called his uncle for help when “the medical fund that paid for [Fred’s] son’s care was running out of money.”
That was the attitude Donald Trump took towards his intellectually and developmentally disabled grandnephew.
It was not a one-off either. Earlier, with the help of Ivanka Trump and Ben Carson, Fred Trump organized a meeting with a group of disability advocates. As they talked, the president “seemed engaged, especially when several in [the] group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members.”
After that meeting, Donald pulled Fred aside and simply said, “maybe those kinds of people should just die,” given “the shape they’re in, all the expenses.”
At around age 3, both my brother and I were diagnosed with what was then called “Autistic Disorder.” We had language delays, echolalia, and many of the other classic symptoms. A Brown neuropsychiatrist once told my parents I could very well end up in an institution. The clinicians made similar predictions for Michael.
So we know: we could have been in the place of Fred Trump’s son. Truly, “there, but for the grace of God, go we.” We are fellow members of the disabled community. Although we almost never pretend to speak for everyone within that community, we can say this for certain:
Shame on you Donald Trump, if you ever had any shame. Shame on you for your disgraceful rhetoric towards our people. Shame on your mockery of President Biden’s stutter. I am proud to have a president who relates to and shares the struggles of people like me. I am glad that a “stuttering kid from Scranton” got the chance to sit behind that Resolute Desk.
Shame on you. Those people who you say “should just die” have more value than you would ever know. If you just once stopped to listen to the people that care for them, they would tell you just as much. They are better fathers and mothers than you will ever be, since you clearly measure the worth of children by what they can give to you.
Shame on you. That kind of talk justified the death of about 200,000 disabled people in Nazi Germany. Disabled people are not “unfit” to live. They have no less of a right to life than you have. They have no less of a right to feel loved and appreciated than you do.
But what would you know about that? All you know is how to mock, to sneer, jeer, and flail around. At the end of the day? Do what you want. The disabled community has a long memory, and so do the many people they know and love. And they will make you pay for your careless and callous rhetoric at the ballot box.
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