#CripTheVote and Dante: Priorities USA Cuts a New Ad Featuring Disabled Child of Color Speaking for Himself

This is the new Priorities USA ad - Dante. It features a young disabled African-American boy speaking directly to the camera about Donald Trump.

A few weeks ago, Priorities USA released the ad Grace, which features who nice white parents of a disabled child criticizing Donald Trump for making fun of people with disabilities. I wrote about the ad, here, for The Atlantic, praising the intent but concerned about disability stereotypes. I also spoke to Alice Wong, Dominick Evans, and Vilissa Thompson, three disability rights leaders on whom I rely on most heavily, to get their opinions. Here's a few quotes:

Dominick: “It feels really exploitative to use this issue and speak about a disabled child and about disability and never include us in the discussion, at all.”

Alice said the parents framed their daughter as, "this vulnerable person who needs protection when disabled people have agency."

Vilissa: “Disabled children's images and stories are always used to evoke the sympathy feels among members in society.” The images used are almost always of white children. She said she understands why Priorities USA turned to a nice white family for this ad—they want to sway the hearts and minds of moderate, white voters who might be offended by Trump—but it “says a lot about what face is used to get to the hearts of America.”

Dante addresses all of these concerns, pretty much to the letter. The disabled child, a person of color, speaks for himself. There are no adults in the ad. I think he comes off as strong and independent, calling out Trump for his bigotry. #CripTheVote indeed.

Disability and Politics: Grace

Yesterday, The Atlantic published my essay on "Grace," the new anti-Trump ad put out by Priorities USA, a pro-left Super PAC. On another Sunday, I would have spent a lot of the day publicizing it, but given the massacre in Orlando, it felt inappropriate. Still, I think there are important themes here.

"Grace" uses the moment when Trump made fun of a disabled New York Times reporter last fall to condemn the candidate, but in doing so trades on some disability stereotypes that make me a bit uncomfortable. I reached out to a diverse group of disability activists for their comments:

Disability has a peculiar place in American society. Disabled individuals often evoke sympathy, but they also experience intense discrimination. Disabled children are routinely bullied, especially as they age. Disabled adults have widespread civil-rights protections under the ADA but still encounter enormous obstacles to work, independence, and community integration. Disability is an aspect of the human condition, yet “the disabled” are often isolated and marginalized.

It’s not clear that “Grace” will help with these problems. I spoke to a number of disability-rights activists about the ad. Each condemned Trump’s conduct and are glad to see him held accountable for it. They like the idea of using his insults as a campaign issue. Yet no one was entirely comfortable with the imagery.

Please read the whole thing, especially the remarks from Alice Wong, Dominick Evans, and Vilissa Thompson.

Trump and Disability: A New Ad from Priorities USA

When Donald Trump mocked a New York Times reporter who has a physical disability, he was instantly and roundly criticized from across the political spectrum. In a campaign marred by his sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and other hate speech, the disability insult picked up condemnation from people less concerned about Trump's other remarks. Trump, of course, denied having insulted his disability and continues his pattern of claiming to have done more for <Insert marginalized group he's insulted> than anyone else. Trump's true record is here.

Now Priorities USA, the pro-Clinton superPAC, has released "Grace," an ad featuring a family that includes a girl with spina bifida. Let's watch.

Note: The family here are friends of friends.

This ad trades on a number of tropes about disabled children and their families that bother me in many ways. My son is not more precious to me than my daughter. Insulting disability is not more offensive to me than insulting Muslims, Mexicans, Women, or all the other Trump Targets.

However, disability - and specifically sympathy for disabled children - does occupy a particular place in American culture and discourse. There are presumably millions of white, moderate, voters who really don't care so much about non-white, non-Christian, people, and yet who might care about disability.

I think it's likely to be an effective ad, and it's no more offensive to me than all the other political ads that leverage ideas about America in order to criticize an opponent. But it does show the ways in which ideas around disability remain very narrow.