Weāre not supposed to care about Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fettermanās recovery from a stroke because weāre being āableist,ā according to some Democrats.
Heāll be fine, weāre told ā although his team wonāt release his medical records and originally underplayed the seriousness of his condition dramatically. Donāt ask questions, even when he has to conduct an interview via closed captioning.
Not that the closed captioning is because he lost hearing due to the May stroke. According to Fox News, when Fetterman sat down with NBC Newsā Dasha Burns, he needed the closed captioning ābecause he still has lingering auditory processing issues as a result of the stroke, which means he has a hard time understanding what heās hearing.ā
āNow, once he reads the question, heās able to understand. Youāll hear he also still has some problems, some challenges with speech,ā Burns added.
āIāll say that just in some of the small talk prior to the interview, before the closed captioning was up and running, it did seem that he had a hard time understanding our conversations.ā
This hardly sounds minor or reassuring. But weāre told weāre not supposed to care about this, else weāre āableists.ā
As Fox Newsā Tucker Carlson noted, however, this sounded a lot like what we heard back during the 2020 campaign, when now-President Joe Bidenās gaffes were passed off as a āchildhood stutterā and that anyone who suggested he was cognitively diminished was bullying the man.
Now, itās clear to anyone who listens to the president that his speech issues have nothing to do with stuttering. It should have been clear then, too, but nobody wanted to raise the issue. Why would anyone take the gamble in the first place, though?
The same reason the Democrats are doubling down on Fetterman, Carlson said on Wednesday: If someone is āflatlining mentally,ā theyāre easier for party hacks to ācontrol.ā
Carlson noted at the top of the commentary that Fetterman āhad a bad stroke, and we feel bad about that. Everyone does, but because of that stroke, Fetterman now needs electronic assistance in order to communicate with other people.
āHe canāt talk on his own. Itās not a right-wing conspiracy theory,ā he said. āItās not QAnon. Itās real. In fact, itās so real, his campaign concedes that itās real. That itās true. Fetterman uses a software program to understand the words of those around him and to formulate his responses to those words.ā
For Pennsylvania voters deciding between Fetterman and GOP nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz, āit does raise some obvious questions. For example, where exactly does the software end and John Fetterman consciousness begin?ā
āWe donāt know. We canāt know, but itās obvious that Pennsylvania could very well be sending a computer program to the U.S. Senate, where inevitably it will be hacked.ā
Carlson also played part of the interview where Burns pressed him on whether heād be āable to do this job on day oneā and āon the road to full recovery.ā Fetterman ā who, again, wonāt release his health records ā pointed to a letter from his doctor.
āI mean, respectfully, that letter from your physician, that was six months ago. Donāt voters deserve to know your status now?ā Burns asked.
āBeing on, in front of thousands and thousands of people and having interviews and getting around all across Pennsylvania, that gives everybody and the voters decide, you know, if they think that itās really the issue,ā Fetterman responded.
Thatās not exactly the most convincing string of words.
And, Carlson noted, āheās reading that off a screen.ā
āAnd by the way, weāre taking him at his word that thereās not a staffer backstage typing out the answers because he himself canāt formulate them,ā he speculated.
āNow, again, you can feel deeply sympathetic to John Fetterman. Thatās sad to watch, but this is a guy who wants to run the federal government in a body of 100, the most powerful legislative body in the world, and he wants to be a member of it.ā
But point out the obvious ā that Fettermanās health should be an issue ā and you would be labeled a bigot, Carlson said.
āAs New York City Councilwoman Rita Joseph put it, questions about Fettermanās profound brain damage are, āincredibly ableist,āā Carlson noted.
āAbleist? āWe desperately need more diversity in elected office, and that includes people with speech impediments.ā Well, we desperately need that. That is absolutely right, but actually weāre not talking about a speech impediment.
āSheās telling us heās got a stutter just like Joe Biden,ā he continued. āRemember when they told you that Joe Bidenās dementia was just a stutter? But of course, a speech impediment would not prevent Fetterman or Biden from understanding other peopleās speech. Huh?
āInvestigative reporter Hunter Walker, who writes for Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, answered that question with a question of his own: āWould they treat a deaf person like this for needing assistance?'ā he continued ā noting that, āagain, itās not really relevant to the Senate race in Pennsylvania because once again, John Fetterman doesnāt have hearing problems. Heās not deaf. This isnāt deafness. This is brain damage.ā
Then again, this shouldnāt be surprising. As Carlson also noted, some commentators called Bidenās detractors āageistā after his āWhereās Jackie?ā gaffe in September. In that incident, he scanned the room to acknowledge a congresswoman who had died a month prior ā and who was to be honored at the event with a tribute video.
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āThis country has a problem with age, so if you donāt like the fact the commander-in-chief, the guy who commands our nuclear arsenal, is deranged because of age ā which he is ā then youāre the bigot,ā Carlson said.
āBut underneath all of this is this single most cynical political move in the history of this country, and that is elevating Joe Biden precisely because he is fading away, because he is demented. Thatās why they chose him ⦠They picked a guy who had nothing going on upstairs, was flatlining mentally, so they could control him.ā
Whether or not thatās the connection is impossible to say, although itās clear Democrats arenāt going to sacrifice a potential pickup in the evenly divided Senate by allowing too much questioning of whether Fetterman can discharge his duties.
Fetterman leads Oz in the RealClearPolitics polling average by 3.7 points as of Wednesday morning, although that number has been shrinking. The winner would replace outgoing GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.
However, the fear is that Fetterman may merely be a body in an empty chair that the Democrats and White House officials can fill with their ideas.
These are hardly concerns about āableism,ā not when Fetterman has to conduct an interview like this and refuses to release his medical records. Pennsylvanians are electing a senator to represent the unique interests of their state, not a blank slate that essentially says .
Weāve already seen how badly that works out in practice at the White House. We donāt need a rehash of that situation with a swing seat in the upper chamber of Congress, too. Without total transparency about Fettermanās medical state, voters shouldnāt extend him the benefit of the doubt.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
