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If you thought US politics could not get more (figuratively) retarded ... you'd be wrong.
Apparently Trump called Tim Walz (among other things) a (figurative) retard. Walz is pretty dumb but is not (medically) a retard. But Michael Bohacek has a daughter with Down's and apparently he's it went over poorly enough to derail the GOP redistricting effort.
[ An interesting parochial aside here is that decades of abortion politics has made Down's a bit of a CW item. And Indiana was among the first to react to Dobbs writing a ban that not only doesn't except Down's (only lethal anomalies count) but in a (laudable) fashion, it specifically un-excepts it. ]
My (subjective) take is that Bohacek's stand seems noble in a wildly-out-of-time kind of way. Like we're back in the 80s/90s and mainstream conservatism was still broadly anti-transgressive while the left was about iconoclasm. But I suppose also that 'family over politics' is not a value that either party is willing to endorse -- certainly not the scolding types gloating about talking down to their transphobic uncle at thanksgiving.
I know it's a lazy question but how normal was it on average before Dobbs to abort fetuses with Down's in the US?
This seems to be a pretty good review paper on the topic, and the average is somewhere upwards of 2/3 of prenatal Down's diagnoses end in abortion, but the range varies by location and time.
One interesting tidbit is that the rate was going down pre-Dobbs:
I'm curious about the causality there and any complicating factors to the analysis.
Iceland's rate is famously close to 100%, and The Beeb suggests the British rate is around 90%.
Of course, Iceland, Britain, etc have much higher rates of prenatal testing.
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God damn. If I had a niece who went all Mathew Arnold* on me like that, she'd be wearing the turkey over her patronising face. Be glad I don't have nieces or celebrate Thanksgiving. "use your listening ears, transphobic uncle". Yeah, well, you try your listening ears with a face full of gravy, woman.
I thought it was brilliant.
Maybe if Uncle Mark didn't want his niece to talk to him like a toddler, he oughtn't have thrown his toys out of the pram when he was told to be polite to people with whom he disagrees.
(Yes, even if he thinks they're delusional. Family dinners are not the time or place to practise amateur psychiatry; if we invited Richard Dawkins, we would expect him to refrain from referring to Cousin Sarah's church as 'fairy-tale club'. Not dead-naming or mis-pronouning Cousin Alice, or bringing up the genitals with which she was born, is the same principle.)
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Major missed opportunity by Bohacek to become a legend by expanding on Vance’s in-roads with respect to leaning into millenial/internet humor. Bohacek could had said something like: “Trump’s ableist slur in calling Walz a ‘retard’ is highly offensive. As a father of a daughter with Down syndrome, I can attest that even a retard wouldn’t tolerate having a bunch of Somalians in his state.”
Instead, Bohacek’s “Notice me!” attempt only associates Republicans more with pearl-clutching and the party with retarded children. This also tees-up leftists/Democrats with jokes like “oh sure, now the fascists suddenly care about slurs toward the vulnerable when the slurs accurately describe their base.” Good excuse, though, for Bohacek to continue the Republican tradition of being on the right side of history in losing gracefully.
A staunch contingent behind the Democratic party may be a Coalition of the Fringes and they may talk a big game about ableism, body positivity, different ways of knowing. However—no bad tactics, only bad targets. See, for example, how quickly the gay, short, small-dick, etc. accusations come out at a moment’s notice.
Ultimately, retarded children give people the ick, including leftists and Democrats.
That being said, Trump flippantly calling Walz a retard strikes me as an unforced error, like his preoccupation with tariffs or antisemitism. For better or worse—to most people’s sensibilities, including those who vote Republican, an unironic deployment of “retard” makes them recoil like an ironic or unironic “nigger” or “faggot,” and Trump’s usage violates the Michael Scott rule of limiting “retard” to when a friend is acting retarded.
We're at a point where you can be incredibly based without even being coarse. Such as: "My daughter has Down syndrome and yet I can attest that even her would not permit Somalis to settle in her state".
It is not quite as bad as misspelling a spelling flame, but I think people alleging retardation in their political opponents have a special responsibility to double-check their grammar.
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Well, at the risk of being the bearer of unwelcome news, I don't think the stout Indiana conservative-conservatives and the edgy alt-right conservatives are gonna ever seen eye to eye. Bohacek can no more respond with ironic detachment than Trump can issue an apology -- it's not in either man's nature. And that's the intra-right generational fissure, which now that the right is ascendant, is arriving exactly on cue.
Of course you're absolutely right that it's an unforced error to do something that exposes that rift in his own coalition.
True, but I think it cuts the other way when the GOP wants to elevate to prominence people that wouldn't terminate over it. Recall the old "what's the different between Sarah Palin's mouth and her vagina" joke.
I'm not sure that it is an error. I think it might be battlespace prep.
Trump strikes me as the kind of guy who is very concerned with his legacy, and handing the GOP over to the Groypers who' rather vote for Zohran Mamdani than Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Sliwa does not strike me as the sort of legacy he wants. Furthermore, if the GOP wants to maintain the in-roads it has made amongst minorities and the working-class the Groypers will need to be either marginalized or crushed, ideally before the 2028 election season.
Aren’t the groypers disproportionately minorities? And maybe working class (?). I would be more worried about losing educated white voters.
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This made the rounds on my Xwitter feed. I was wondering if it was going to show up here as well.
This can't be earnest, right? Like, this is some sort of meta-trolling post-irony in-joke account. Pepe The Frog but for weirdo progressive women to chortle about while wearing Pussy hats, right?
If you spoke to another adult like this in a corporate setting, even the most blue-haired of HR reps would have a meeting invite waiting for you by the time you got back to your desk. In a social setting, this would be suicidal, unless, as I said, you're actually just trolling a person in your outgroup for the lulz.
Alright, I found her on the White Women for Kamala Zoom Call. Here, she comes across a lot more normal - though still grating - HR style corpo speak. Healthy doses of progressive self-flagellation but nothing beyond the pale. This makes me think her gentle parenting schtick is just that; schtick.
Can you link the transphobic uncle at Thanksgiving thing from X? The Instagram page isn't working for me, and Instagram requires a login these days.
Edit: Nevermind, I found it. https://x.com/ms_frazzled/status/1993545667487449402
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Yes, it is obviously rage bait and not the first of it's type. It's a reliable way to earn thousands of dollars on X, the everything app.
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The joke is that she's speaking as she would to a toddler - hence 'gentle parenting.'
The real meta-meta joke is that she talks to children the way she would condescend to adults, instead of regarding them as unformed people that will one day bear profound moral and social responsibility.
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There are few beliefs with such strong bipartisan appeal that I find so contemptible as the idea that calling someone stupid as an insult constitutes cruelty to the disabled.
I'm quite sure Trump refers to things as stupid and idiotic on a weekly basis.
Some parts of the iconoclastic euphemism-treadmill-go-brrrr contingent wants to recast the word 'retarded' as a synonym for 'very stupid'. That doesn't make it so.
Retard is a perfectly acceptable insult from my youth, as is faggot. The loss of good insults due to PC creep is not an affirmative good in any way.
An insult to your buddy is very different from one broadcast to millions.
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"Retard" comes from "mental retardation" which is now officially "intellectual disability". But "idiot" also used to mean "someone profoundly mentally retarded". The idea that mere use of any of these terms (as an insult to someone unafflicted, or otherwise) is somehow cruel to the "intellectually disabled" is idiocy. Or rather, it's a flex by some culture warriors since the n-word wasn't enough for them.
I understand how the euphemism treadmill works.
Using terms that are considered slurs today, regardless of whether it's a slur in decades since or hence, is a flex by the edgy -- an attempt t demonstrate that they don't recognize that social norm and can't be made to.
It was never a slur except in the minds of obnoxious progressives. Normal people don't give a shit and this kind of slur-hunting is way past expiration.
You should probably look at this guy’s entire life.
Whatever Bohacek is, “progressive” ain’t it. You’ve lost the plot.
Oh sorry, obnoxious progressives and this one GOP guy with a retarded child. Nonetheless, this was never a real slur.
And this is where we get to see how much the edgy millennials get to determine conservative discourse in opposition to the kind of old school Christian types
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The social norm was created by their opponents (the culture warriors in question). Breaking it (and ultimately denormalizing it) is a positive good. The existence of the norm, however, does not make the use of the word into actual cruelty to the retarded.
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Lately, I've noticed many disabled babies and children on Twitter. While I want them to be happy, I'm not sure to what extent they can have enriching and productive lives. I wish I could push a button and make them all better (and make the billions of abled people better too, and myself. We sinful creatures all fall short of our abilities and obligations.) It took me a while to realize this was anti-abortion advocacy.
Theology tells us we existed before birth. As a wretched modern, I wrestle with the temptation to overcome disabilities with technology. Ultimately, it seems the key's when the soul's coupled to a body - past that point its murder. But if we could get rid of bad bodies before hand, more souls would have a chance. Is that akin to Talmudic legalism trying to one up God and ignoring the spirit, that for whatever reason these souls/people are born with different potential and context than us? I know nothing. But I feel very uncomfortable.
Modern Christianity has painted itself into a corner. It would be better to abort the downs baby than let it live, at least that way they go to heaven immediately instead of suffering on this hell plane.
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We also have Luke 1:41, where unborn John the Baptist reacted to Mary and unborn Jesus:
"And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:"
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Before conception, or in early-to-mid-XX-Century terms, 'before you were a twinkle in your father's eye'.
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I'm not really sure it is. Or at least I think the pro-choice advocacy position here is that they too wish they could push a button to make them all better. I think you part ways only on what to do when we cannot do so -- when the kid is not going to be all better no matter our best efforts.
Ehh... it's hard to avoid that conclusion, I think, given the options and statistics in other countries. Having a kid with Downs, and especially making it "a thing" on social media, is a statement.
Like, yeah, pro-choice people aren't going to Hitler-rant about final solutions or anything, but they might offer termination 15 times or make some... less than carefully worded comments about just how late you can abort a kid with deformities.
I'm not entirely sure they do, given certain progressive opinions regarding disability (the Deaf community and people being opposed to cures for autism come to mind), but that's a weird side effect of big-tent progressivism.
Alternatively, they do have a button they can push, but that's an Anakin/Padme meme.
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Small to zero.
Anywhere from colossal to infinite.
Actual true story: my first best friend in childhood had something like severe downs syndrome. It wasn't actually downs but something very specific and rare. Her verbal ability was close to zero but because of kid brain plasticity or whatever, I could figure her out better than anyone besides her parents. We didn't have conversations per se, but we emoted, we played, we had a friendship. Around the time I was 12 or so, she and her family moved away.
I kept in touch with her and her family for 20+ years until she died very tragically and unexpectedly. My entire life was made better by knowing her and being her friend.
This is a common story for all special needs / developmentally disabled / retarded kids' family and friends. While measuring life quality in net GDP contribution is, charitably, overly metric based, imho, many to all of these kind of people have outsized contribution in terms of joy, fellow felling, and the nurturing of higher virtue emotions in others.
"But, but, but!" some will say, "Raising special needs kids is actually so fucking hard on the parents! You got to go home every day and didn't have to deal with the screaming fits and toilet mishaps etc." The challenges are indeed unique (and, on a practical level, I believe in generous subsidies for families dealing with them), I believe that any family who puts in the effort will find the rewards substantial. And the families who decide to
murdercancel the body and soul in utero will, maybe, have a somewhat materially more pleasant life at the expense of another human's entire existence.You don't believe that people who are already bad parents, and are only made more resentful when saddled with a child who will remain a toddler for decades, exist?
Not only is it "hard", it is fruitless. You're breaking your back tilling a field that will not bring forth the harvest. Some people enjoy physical labor without expectation of reward. Usually in small portions and as a diversion from monotony. Not as the monotony.
You must understand that I am directly disagreeing with this. "The harvest" is that you will experience the joy of parenthood even in such trying circumstances. You will experience profound love. That's it. That's the point.
I do believe they exist. I also believe there are awful parents of amazing children who go on to do wonderful things for all of society. Why should parents being bad only come into play when talking about a disabled child? Bad parents are bad parents period and should be called out as such. Think about what you're saying here; "Oh, these parents are so bad that we should kill a child so that they don't have a tough time of it."
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I’ve had similar anecdotal experiences. I don’t know that they really tip the scale.
Forget the material benefits, forget the disability at all. Either it’s murder or it’s not. The pleasantness is incidental.
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Like a lot of these things the compassion made more sense before the development of an advanced medical apparatus that can give cases like this their personal Golden Throne for decades of low quality life and family sizes are a lot smaller than they used to be.
Plus the entire existence argument has to take into account that longterm disability is generally massively impacting either the family or causing massive intervention by the state
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I'm reasonably sure (at least as far as these things go) that one of our close friends didn't have a planned 3rd and 4th kid after the 2nd was profoundly disabled.
Anecdote isn't data of course.
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I can't find it in me to believe that this is anything but performative pearl-clutching on Bohacek's part used as a reason to do what he wanted to do anyway. I suspect his recent DUI conviction has probably made it look impossible to get re-elected and he's doing what he believes is right outside of party lines or he's just lashing out because the GOP was going to primary him because of the DUI or something like that. The alternative is that he's seriously retarded.
Anyway, here's Bohacek's response to questions on redistricting(?) that started all this:
No, I didn't skip anything there. I know dems are making hay about the "slur" but the fact that a politician of any kind is deflecting policy questions this blatantly is pretty embarrassing. Both from a standpoint that he could (and did) get away with it, but also how unbelievably lazy and obvious it was as a deflection.
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I've heard that this woman was actually involved in Kamala's campaign. Can anyone confirm? What's her name?
Edit: apparently her name is Arielle Fodor and she joined a "white women for Kamala" Zoom call.
Harris just had absolutely no luck, did she? Picked Walz for VP, and now this scandal in Minnesota pops up just in time for when she's pondering a run for governor of California, and the white women voters she got were this type of person who alienates her entire family (where they'd end up voting for anyone else just to spite her).
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That would be hilariously tragic or tragically hilarious.
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It's too bad the Republicans have to lose seats over no-no words, but we've seen what happens when they yield to this kind of thing, and it's no different than losing.
The mechanism for offense seems pretty tenuous anyway.
It’s both very small and very large at the same time. Are talking about the man’s daughter.
No, we are not, and thinking Trump was is retarded.
Maybe. But this was a man whose vote was apparently needed. So retarded or not, his view on it matters.
It really would be nice if our leaders could decide not to shoot themselves in the foot. Just once.
"why are the people who perpetually go out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot, shooting themselves in the foot so much??? I voted for President 'i love shooting my foot to own the libs' so he could get shit done, not shoot off his own feet!"
Elect clowns, expect a circus
Or in this case, elect a reality TV star, expect amusing antics
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Nobody was talking about the man's daughter. His daughter has Down's syndrome, Trump called Tim Walz a retard. There's the sometimes-joked-about mechanism of offense, which is that he was offended by the comparison of that loser Tim Walz to actual retards like his daughter. And there's the real mechanism, which is just that "retard" is considered a no-no word because it can be used derisively to refer to people with Down's and others with actual mental retardation.
When I was a schoolboy, the slur for Down's syndrome kids was "mong", not "retard". "Mong" was also used to describe kids of normal intelligence who did something unconsionably dumb in a moment of weakness.
That's British English, though, an American would not say that. An American might say 'retard' or just 'tard' or 'downie'(not always a slur). An older American might say 'moron' or 'idiot' as a slur but nowadays that wouldn't be used for an actually retarded person, it's used for other drivers.
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