Do Trump Supporters Mind When He Mocks Biden's Stutter? [View all]

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/03/do-trump-supporters-mind-when-he-mocks-bidens-stutter/677900/

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https://archive.li/wZIby

Recently the Atlantic political reporter John Hendrickson and I set out on a kind of social experiment. A friend of Hendrickson’s had sent him a video of Donald Trump mocking President Joe Biden’s stutter. In the hierarchy of Trump insults, this one did not rate especially high. But it resonated with Hendrickson, who wrote a book about his own stuttering. And what especially resonated with him was the audience’s laughter. “They don’t have to laugh,” Hendrickson told me. “They’re either choosing to laugh or it’s an involuntary reaction, and they’re naturally laughing.”

Hendrickson had a theory that disability was politically neutral, or should be, so he decided to test it out. How do Trump’s supporters actually feel about him making fun of people with disabilities?
In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Hendrickson and I attend a Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio, to ask his supporters that question. Almost none of them like how Trump demeans people. And yet they all plan to vote for him anyway. The gap between those two sentiments reveals a lot about how people come to terms with their own decisions, values, and obvious contradictions.

*snip*

Audio & transcript at links