Saturday, August 10, 2019

When comparing callousness, did Vos trump Trump?

Let's match up Donald Trump and Robin Vos 
Robin Vos speaks at Racine Tea Party event (8378614585).jpg

to determine whose disrespect for people with disabilities is worse. 

As Assembly Speaker, Republican Vos has refused to allow the wheelchair-bound and paralyzed Democratic state legislator Jimmy Anderson to phone into some committee meetings.
Vos' dis of Rep. Anderson: shallow political ploy, or the shallowest? 
Which got me thinking again about then-candidate Trump's widely-reported mocking of Serge Kovaleski, a disabled reporter from The New York Times. That filmed and widely-reported incident was laid out in detail in this comprehensive report from Snopes.com, the fact-checking website.
Donald Trump Criticized for Mocking Disabled Reporter 
And this section of the Snopes analysis which includes a defensive Tweet from Trump caught my eye (emphasis added):
Somebody at the financially failing and totally biased New York Times said that, over the years, I have met Mr. Kovaleski. Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago — if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did. He should stop using his disability to grandstand get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes.
About grandstanding: Where have I just seen something very similar hurled at someone with a disability by a very disrespectful and unapologetic Republican?

Oh, here:

MADISON - Assembly Speaker Robin Vos accused a lawmaker who uses a wheelchair of "political grandstanding" Thursday for criticizing legislative rules that prevent him from participating in committee meetings by phone.  
You can see why deciding which of these grossly cruel and callously indifferent Republican leaders should be declared the winner in a contemptability competition which normal politicians or everyday people would do or say anything to avoid.

I have to conclude in this comparison that they're equally repellent.


Trump for using a public platform from which to show his deplorability, then lie about it, and Assembly Speaker Vos for using a powerful public office to block Anderson and his constituency from their rights in a representative democracy. 

Through their toxic grandstanding, both have shown they're unfit to govern, though from a legal standpoint, it's Vos whose blunder may have greater consequences - - made even more damaging because legal fees which are already probably on the meter, and any financial settlement would be paid by taxpayers, including Anderson himself and his district's constituents whose representation Vos had diminished.

How FUBAR is that?

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