Donald Trump Adding to an ugly record, Trump mocks Biden’s stutter (again)

Donald Trump

A couple of months ago, while on the campaign trail in Iowa, Donald Trump had plenty to say about President Joe Biden, though there was one line of attack that stood out: The Republican thought it’d be appropriate to take aim at the Democrat’s childhood speaking impediment.

Just hours after Biden’s remarks on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, the former president told supporters, “Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing. He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy. ‘He’s a threat to d-d-democracy.’”

The rhetoric wasn’t just cheap, it was also false: At no point in Biden’s Jan. 6 remarks did he struggle with the word “democracy.”

But Trump’s line generated some laughter from his supporters, which no doubt contributed to the former president returning to the attack over the weekend. The Washington Post reported:

As a video clip of the comments showed, this, too, sparked some chuckles from the Georgia crowd.

For the record, Biden did not actually struggle with the word “together” during his national address, though that’s hardly the most important detail.

To be sure, there may not be much of a point anymore to writing reports like these. “Trump is a crass man of poor character” has been a familiar headline for many years, and few seriously dispute the fact that the former president lacks anything resembling honor or dignity. For that matter, the Republican’s embrace of offensive nonsense, which he seems to enjoy peddling to his unsuspecting followers, also isn’t exactly new.

But this specific line of attack from Trump stood out for me for a couple of reasons.

The first is the fact the Republican’s fractured relationship with human decency is especially evident when it comes to those with disabilities.

In 2015, for example, the late conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who used a wheelchair, offered some mild criticism of Trump. The then-candidate responded by labeling Krauthammer “a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.”

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A year later, Trump mocked New York Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski’s disability.

While in office, according to his own White House chief of staff, Trump didn’t want to be seen with disabled military veterans.

After leaving office, Trump publicly mocked the injuries the late Sen. John McCain sustained while he was a prisoner of war. Now he’s taking aim at Biden’s stutter.

It’s one thing to see the former president lash out wildly at those he perceives as foes, but there’s something qualitatively different about coming to terms with Trump’s disgust for those with disabilities. It’s as if the presumptive Republican nominee too often rejects the very idea of empathy.

But let’s not overlook an underappreciated angle to this: Trump’s audience.

Writing in The Atlantic, John Hendrickson, who has described himself as a lifelong stutterer, noted, “More than Trump’s ugly taunt, one thing stands out to me about these moments: the sound of Trump’s supporters laughing right along with him. This is a building block of Trumpism. The man at the top gives his followers permission to be the worst version of themselves.”

If the GOP candidate’s followers gasped in repulsion when Trump went after those with disabilities, he’d stop — not because it’s morally repulsive, but because he often uses his audience as a political barometer of sorts, letting him know what he can and can’t get away with.

But like a schoolyard bully who gets worse after being egged on by his friends, the former president taunts those with disabilities because he likes the cheap laughs he receives.

It’s a vicious circle: Trump uses repulsive rhetoric, which his crowds like, which causes him to use more repulsive rhetoric. It’s precisely why we probably haven’t heard the last of his comments about Biden and stuttering.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics.”

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