Trump Mocks Disabled Reporter

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Yes, it's not as bad as pre-WWII Germany, thankfully. And Americans as a people are more individualistic and less authoritarian than Germans were back then. So I don't think it would be another Holocaust, but I do think that here and there, people would die, and a lot of people would be treated unfairly. If Trump were dictating any appreciable part of the government's policy, I would expect an uptick in police shootings, jail/prison deaths, and hate crimes against minorities of all types--LGBT, racial, religious, disabled, and women primarily. I would not expect Americans to be targeted in any systematic way--the more systematic abuse would probably be perpetrated against immigrants and people who live in countries other than America, especially in the Middle East.

A good way to protect your community against this is to forge connections with those who are likely to be targeted--Muslims, immigrants, LGBT people, etc. I don't mean some kind of weird gotta-catch-em-all token friend group; I just mean get to know your neighbors, know who they are as people. Social isolation makes people vulnerable to abuse (and we know that firsthand!)--so make sure that you connect with people of all sorts, so that nobody can be isolated, cornered, and have no one to go to for help when they are attacked. You don't have to be a social butterfly with dozens of friends; it's enough just to know and be known by others. When a person is known as an individual, it is much harder to dehumanize them.

Many people in the resistance in WWII Germany and surrounding occupied countries weren't politically opinionated or particularly heroic; they were simply helping friends and neighbors. They seem to have done what they did quite naturally. Their connections with people different from themselves saved lives--even in the extreme environment of Nazi Germany.

^ Callista, this is very astute appraisal of the two different situations. Especially what you say about getting to know people as people rather than as members of an ethic group etc is so true - and very necessary in our atomised societies. I love the point about people helping strangers in occupied Europe; for any European this certainly rings true.

Trump and Hitler differ in one particular, perhaps essential way: Adolf Hitler genuinely believed in his doctrine, and had the willpower and charisma to put his twisted ideas into practice. If you have ever seen recordings of any of his speeches, especially at Nuremberg, you'll know what I mean. You don't have to agree with him to be carried away by his presence.

Trump, on the other hand, seems to lack ideas and substance. Put bluntly, he simply has a big mouth.

Trump says he never met the reporter but the reporter who has a joint condition says he met Trump dozens of times over the years and interviewed him a lot especially back when the reporter worked for the New York Daily News. So Trump definitely knew what he was doing when he was waving his arms.

I feel like the freeze frame makes it look worse than it really is, Trump was flailing about and they captured his hand movements in the same position as this guys who I don't believe can flail about. I wouldn't of known Trump was making fun of his disability, I don't even know who the guy is, I would of thought he was mocking his wishy-washy reporting where you report one thing at one time and then try to disown it when it isn't politically expedient for you. I think Trump making fun of McCain for getting caught was more deliberately mean or what he said about Rosie O'Donnell but McCain and Rosie deserve it so no one felt too bad. We're electing a president remember, not a kindergarten teacher.

He was definitely mocking the reporter, if you just listen to the audio instead of the freeze frame of Trump with his hands like that and the photo of the reporter then the context of him mocking the guy was because he wasn't standing by his reporting at least according to Trump so the question to me is can you mock somebody with a disability without being accused of mocking their disability? If the guy was "normal" would anyone be offended by Trump's inflection and hand movements?

The media are like like a bunch of piranhas, they'll run with anything. It's really confusing to see the media act so disingenuous about their bias to the point that you can't trust anything they report at first glance and then know the truth about Trump, I don't think they're trustworthy or have our best interests at heart when they are corporately owned. Political rhetoric and narrative have become so black and white, people are angry and if you force them to "pick a side" then you might not be happy with who they pick. I think there is a 'boy who cried wolf' lesson to be learned. The strategy of divide and conquer cannot be done in perpetuity.

Just imagine how much of a field day Trump would have mocking someone with autism.

If Trump gets elected as the next President, he should be called "President D-Bag."