Disability As Political Performance Art
What’s Your Excuse?
Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I was losing my ability to walk. My walking has slowly degraded since before my MS diagnosis, but being homebound and less active was beginning to take its toll. To be clear, MRIs have shown little to no physiological progression of my disease, but my day-to-day reality was changing nonetheless.
My parents must have noticed too—not to mention hearing my many complaints—and gifted me a rowing machine as a two-month-early Christmas present. The rower is by no means a cure-all (nor has it turned me into a runner), but physical, quasi-athletic progress has worked wonders for my well-being.
When sifting through racing thoughts, as I and many often do post-workout, I settled somehow on the speech Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) gave at the Republican National Convention.
After briefly describing a car accident in 2014 where he lost his ability to walk, Cawthorn says, “I see you, I hear you.” Later, he briefly invokes (read: name drops) Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and expresses a desire to hear all ideas from all people.
“In this new town square, you don’t have to apologize for your beliefs or cower to a mob. You can kneel before God but stand for our flag… I say to Americans who love our country, young and old, be a radical for freedom. Be a radical for liberty. And, be a radical for our republic, for which I stand.”
As he says, “for which I stand,” Cawthorn, with the aid of a walker, rises to his feet before ending the speech.
This struck me initially as merely tone-deaf, but I quickly realized who the audience really was. Was this really a message of unity and inclusion? Or, was it an act designed to appeal to fantasies among the Republican base? The message is, in fact. even more cynical.
The image of strength, of being a fighter, is red meat for the sorts of people who would eventually storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He spoke at the rally prior to the riot, too.
He speaks earlier in his RNC address of being blessed not to lose his mental faculties. Why then must a display of physical strength be required to justify his stature among the RNC audience? Shouldn’t his ideas or rhetorical ability be justifications enough? Instead, Cawthorn’s act of standing rings of, “look at me, I can’t walk and yet even I stand for the flag. What’s your excuse?”
