Trump Mocking Disabled Reporter Is Not What You Or Meryl Streep Think It Is [Opinion]

Video of Donald Trump mocking disabled reporter shows, well, Donald Trump mocking a disabled reporter. However, what most people are failing to realize is that he was mocking the reporter himself, not the reporter’s disability.

You may be thinking, is there a difference? I think there is because I don’t equate mocking a person’s words and/or viewpoint with mocking something about them they cannot change, nor does it have anything to do with why Trump chose to mock the guy in the first place.

Can you separate the person from the disability, or is the disability all you see?

You can disagree with me. I’m sure there’s many out there who do, and that’s fine. I just ask that you hear me out because unlike the majority of the articles out there covering this topic, this one will give you a fresh perspective you’re unlikely to find in the mainstream press.

When Trump mocked a disabled reporter during a South Carolina campaign rally in late 2015, he was mocking Serge Kovaleski, who, according to Heavy, currently writes for the New York Times and has in the past written for the Washington Post and the New York Daily News. Kovaleski is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Serge suffers from an uncommon condition known as arthrogryposis, full name arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, which occurs when a baby is still in the womb, and it’s obvious to detect once he/she is born, according to AMCSupport.org.

“Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita is a condition that causes many joints to be stiff and crooked at birth. A newborn with Arthrogryposis lacks the normal range of motion in one or more joints.”

The Trump mocking disabled journalist picture shows Donald with one arm bent at the elbow, pointing up with his wrist cocked down, much, if not exactly, like Kovaleski’s arm is positioned permanently. However, that’s a millisecond in time, and Trump’s arms were moving all over the place when he mocked Serge.

In pictures, it absolutely looks as if Trump mocking disabled Kovaleski is mocking his disability, but that assumption goes out the window when you watch the original mocking video compared with a different video of Trump mocking not a disabled reporter, but former Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz.

https://youtu.be/M4604reEqk0

Cruz does not have arthrogryposis or any similar disability, yet Trump makes the same arm and body movements as he did when mocking the disabled reporter.

What does this tell us? For starters, it tells us that when mocking others, Donald Trump isn’t necessarily mocking anything relevant in regards to their actual demeanor. If Trump had only moved like that when mocking the disabled reporter, I’d agree he’d be mocking his disability and not his words or attitude.

It also tells us that this instance of Trump mocking a disabled journalist is not what people think it is and what the media is portraying it to be. The fact that Kovaleski is disabled and that his disability forces him to have to hold his arm in the exact same position Trump uses for a millisecond when he mocks others is most likely nothing more than a coincidence.

This is a great example of why Trump doesn’t trust the media.

The pro-Trump organization Catholics4Trump pointed out more reasons for why the Trump mocking disabled reporter video is misleading, and it has to do with Serge’s former employer, Washington Post, as well as facts regarding the mechanical physiology of Kovaleski’s disability, arthrogryposis.

First off, Catholics4Trump claim that the Post found themselves in a bit of a pickle when they published an article debunking Donald Trump’s claim that he saw people of Middle Eastern descent celebrating the Twin Towers falling on 9/11 because not long after that article hit newsstands, Kovaleski, who worked for them at the time, wrote an article in which he claimed to have seen the same thing Trump had.

Put simply, Catholics4Trump believe that when Trump brought up that he saw people celebrating 9/11 during the primary campaign season, the Post didn’t want people asking too many questions and exposing their contradiction, so when they noticed that Trump looked as if he was mocking a disabled reporter, they thought, “Bingo.”

The second thing wrong with the Trump mocking disabled reporter narrative lies in the fact that per his condition, Kovaleski cannot move his hand and arm the way Donald did when mocking him, which anyone would figure out by spending more than a few seconds with the journalist.

“Arthrogryposis causes restricted movement in the joints but does not cause spasms or uncontrolled moving of the limbs like cerebral palsy does. Thus, if Trump truly wanted to mock Kovaleski’s disability, he would have had to stand perfectly still with a flexed right hand and not flail his arms.”

This, they claim, is why the media has only supplied the public with pictures of Kovaleski and not videos because videos would make it seem less likely Trump mocked the disabled reporter.

So, did Trump mocking a disabled reporter really happen? Perhaps this is an “eye of the beholder” type of situation, or maybe you should be asking yourself if Trump meant to mock Serge Kovaleski the person, or the disability he happens to have. If you pay attention to Trump’s words and not just his actions, I think you’ll figure out the truth of the matter.

Featured Image by Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal/Handout/Getty Images]