(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Can we please stop making fun of Ron DeSantis? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-05-15  

Yes, I’m really serious.

We all know that DeSantis is awkward, doesn’t want to touch voters, can’t make eye contact. He doesn’t like retail politics. He’s not relatable, doesn’t make eye contact, wears weird boots in a disaster zone. Is only forceful when he’s totally on script in a tightly staged event.

He’s easy to make fun of. The bobble headed ‘but I’m not a candidate’ response in Japan which went viral. The boots. We all know how atrocious he is. An utter social failure.

As an autistic person, I recognize countless traits of autism in his social awkwardness. It takes two things to get an autism diagnosis; social communication disorder, and repetitive behaviors. without both, you’re not autistic. Of course, there are lots of other manifestations of autism, but you don’t get the diagnosis without those two factors. As the saying goes ‘when you’ve met an autistic person, you’ve met AN autistic person.’

Of course, I’m not a diagnostician, but when you know what to look for, autism is pretty obvious.

That’s why I feel deeply uncomfortable, and even a little triggered, when I read these hilariously presented critiques of DeSantis’ painfully obvious awkwardness. I’m sure people have said many of the same things about me over time. I’ve been told my eye contact is ‘off’. I certainly have trouble with social communication. It’s hard for me to mingle.

I’ve been thinking of writing this diary for a while. I’ve made some comments in this regard. But tonight, I was listening to All in with Chris Hayes, only Mehdi Hasan was substituting. I love Mehdi. He hits hard. I love his accent. He’s unabashedly extremely liberal. All good in my book. But tonight, he was making fun of DeSantis’ weirdness, and I felt it once again; that uncomfortable feeling that we’re making fun of someone’s disability.

The thing about autism, is that you know you’re doing something ‘wrong’, but you really can’t see the cues that would help you learn to do things more ‘right’. It’s profoundly weird. And you don’t outgrow it. It’s a permanent developmental neurological disability.

I HATE Ron DeSantis. He is a fascist bully. He is systematically dismantling democracy in Florida, and it is terrifying to me to think of him as president. Because he’s SO much smarter than TFG, he would be much more effective than TFG could ever dream to be, were he to ascend to the presidency.

Let’s talk about every affront to democracy that he commits. Let’s do it multiple times a day. Let’s not be shy pointing out how what he does so closely parallels what happened in Germany and Italy in the 1930s. Let’s be brutal, and unabashed in our critique of his politics, his fascism, and his bullying. He IS scary and he IS bad.

But please. Let off the making fun of his social awkwardness, his (IMO) disability. We are better than that.

It’s not the awkwardness that makes DeSantis scary. It’s the fascism, stupid. Can we please keep it to that?

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/15/2169599/-Can-we-please-stop-making-fun-of-Ron-DeSantis

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/