Of all the hideous traits that darken the soul of Donald Trump, his continuing delight in mocking physical disabilities, including President Biden’s lifelong struggle with a stutter, is among the creepiest.
Not to mention that by implication he has mocked some three million other Americans who contend with the same problem, succeeding in life despite the taunting they sometimes endure, especially while growing up.
If anyone belied Trump’s attitude that stuttering deserves ridicule, it was the NBA’s talented and entertaining Bill Walton, who died recently of cancer at age 71.
A basketball Hall-of-Famer, the dominant, 6’11” Walton was a star for UCLA before his 13 years in the NBA, including his championship season with the 1986 Celtics.
Walton played for years through dozens of painful injuries and surgeries. And though it seemed improbable when he was young, he later became a successful sports broadcaster known for outspokenness and zany, outrageous eccentricity.
This from a once-awkward youngster who stuttered so badly that he often took comfort in silence.
He once recalled, “I was a skinny, scrawny guy. I stuttered horrendously, couldn’t speak at all. I was a very shy, reserved player and a very shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball.”
Later, using tips from a fellow broadcaster, Walton was able to control his speech, once telling an interviewer, “I’m a lifelong stutterer. It’s the greatest accomplishment of my life, learning how to speak… Now they’re scouring the earth trying to find the person who can get me to stop talking.”
One can look far into the past and find success among people who stuttered.
In fact, if history were not just a rumor to Trump, he might also mock the ancient-Greek orator and statesman Demosthenes. Or, going back to Biblical times, even Moses, who tells God in the Torah, “I am a man of impeded speech.”
According to the nonprofit Stuttering Association, which offers support and education on the subject, the list of more contemporary stutterers is prodigious.
On it are the likes of Winston Churchill, President Gerald Ford, actors James Earl Jones, Jimmy Stewart, Anthony Quinn, and Nicole Kidman; bluesman B. B. King, opera star Robert Merrill, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, golfer Tiger Woods,novelist John Updike, and basketball monster Shaquille O’Neal (go ahead, Mr. Trump, mock him).
Playwright David Seidler, a stutterer himself, wrote scripts for both the stage and movie versions of The King’s Speech, the award-winning story of King George’s VI’s speech impediment.
In a talk to those who stutter, Seidler offered not empathy for a problem, but a reaffirmation of strength:
“If you can live through a childhood of stuttering, you can live through anything. And if you go into adulthood still stuttering, you can handle anything. You have been tempered by the fire.”
For stutterers repulsed by the venom that drips constantly from the lips of Donald J. Trump, here’s a buoyant observation often attributed to the late Stephen B. Hood, speech pathologist and teacher at several universities:
“Stuttering is OK, because what I say is worth repeating.”
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
How stupid is this article in light of recent events?
It doesn’t change the fact that he says horrible things about people