Fear and Loathing—of Disability on the Campaign Trail

Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society Jun 2021 RSS

Fear and Loathing—of Disability on the Campaign Trail

Abstract

My argument is that the ableist rhetorical framing of disability in the 2020 campaign trail has predominantly been used to delegitimize candidates for alleged disabilities—and in doing so, has contributed to an ableist project further stigmatizing disabled people and situating them as outside of the possibility of democratic agency. Furthermore, I argue that this ablenationalist project by which disabled bodyminds are delegitimized is more difficult to critique in a political culture of demagoguery which ultimately dismisses critiques of ableism as partisan critiques against a political party as well as uses authoritarian dismissal of disabled people as rhetorically suspect.

Journal: Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society
Published: 2021-06-22
Topics: disability studies multilingual writers

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