Why Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America | Salon.comWhy Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America
A president who thinks before he talks? Bring it on
In the clip, Donald Trump is standing before a throng of his worshippers, musing about character and how it is shaped by circumstances. "Can you imagine if that happened to me?" he asks, throwing out a hypothetical. "Man, would I be a bad guy. I would be the meanest man in history." It is February of 2020, and he is speaking of the man who will defeat him in nine months. "Biden is angry. Biden is angry, everything is anger," Trump continues, adding, "and that's what happens when you can't get the words out. That's what happens when you can't get the words out. You get angry." Donald Trump, who sees himself as a not angry, not bad, not mean individual, is apparently imagining himself here horribly warped by a characteristic the president-elect himself wears with pride: his stutter. That one of the most important communications positions in the world will soon be held by a man who grew up with a speech disorder is, on the surface, an achievement. It definitely takes some of the air out of the mockery,
misunderstanding and snide derision Biden has endured in past several years, notably from Trump's inner circle. In January, Lara Trump declared that "Every time he comes on stage, I'm like, 'Joe, can you get it out? Let's get the words out, Joe." When confronted about it later on CNN, she did not improve the narrative by insisting that what she meant was that Biden has "very clearly a cognitive decline." Similarly, a year ago, Eric Trump sneered to Fox News that "Biden can't get through two sentences without stuttering." CONTINUE READING: Why Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America | Salon.com
