John Fetterman survived a stroke. It could be an asset if he's elected.
By Keren Landman
In last night’s first and only debate between Pennsylvania Senate candidates John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, Fetterman’s speech was often halting, his thoughts were occasionally incomplete, and the words and phrases he used didn’t always fit their context.
In May, Fetterman survived a stroke caused by a blockage in one of the arteries in his brain, his campaign has said. It has left him with what he calls auditory processing issues (commonly known as an auditory processing disorder) — that is, problems with the brain’s work of processing speech. As a result, Fetterman sounds very different compared to how he sounded before May — and very different from what pundits and many members of the public expect from political campaigners.
Ever since, his campaign has been dogged by questions about what his disability means for his capacity to serve in the Senate — questions loaded with biased assumptions about disabilities, and misunderstandings about how a stroke impacts cognitive capacity.
Two weeks ago, in his first televised interview since the stroke, Fetterman used live captioning technology for assistance. When Fetterman’s interviewer, NBC correspondent Dasha Burns, made pointed observations about his need to read her questions in order to understand them, it touched off an avalanche of questions and bad takes.
Among the swirling questions are ones about whether Fetterman’s stroke has caused cognitive changes that render him unfit to serve in the Senate. On their face, these are not unreasonable — although in both the NBC interview and in a podcast interview recorded October 10 with New York magazine’s Kara Swisher, herself a stroke survivor, Fetterman’s thinking and expression appeared to be intact.
But the questions become ugly when they ask if someone who requires accommodations similar to the ones Fetterman used can do the job of governing. Questions like this conflate the use of language-assistive devices with intellectual delays. More broadly — and especially when they’re weaponized politically, as they have been by the campaign of political rival Mehmet Oz — these questions conflate disability with weakness of character and mind.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2022/10/15/23403699/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-senate-interview-captions-disability-dasha-burns-mehmet-oz
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