Administration: ASL Interpreters At Briefings Would Prevent Trump From ‘Controlling His Image’

from the shitheels-get-even-shittier dept

Once again, this administration is demonstrating it has zero interest in serving the public. The administration acts together to serve a single person: Donald Trump. Anything that looks like it might benefit the public more than it benefits Trump is unacceptable. The man at the top considers everything to be zero sum. And that means he must always win, because anything else is just losing.

No administration prior to this one would even dare to suggest it shouldn’t take all reasonable steps to accommodate people with disabilities. This administration, however, will go to court to prevent even the simplest of accommodations from being put in place.

The Trump administration is arguing that requiring real-time American Sign Language interpretation of events like White House press briefings “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” part of a lawsuit seeking to require the White House to provide the services.

Department of Justice attorneys haven’t elaborated on how doing so might hamper the portrayal President Donald Trump seeks to present to the public. But overturning policies encompassing diversity, equity and inclusion have become a hallmark of his second administration, starting with his very first week back in the White House.

The National Association for the Deaf sued Donald Trump after he ditched the use of ASL (American Sign Language) interpreters during briefings and other semi-impromptu meetings with the press. The previous administration had generally tried to ensure a live ASL interpreter was on hand any time Joe Biden addressed the public. This administration has overturned decades of presidential precedent, choosing to force deaf citizens to rely on close-captioned recordings or, if attending any of these events in person, doing their best to read lips.

The DOJ’s filing [PDF] says some stupid and disturbing stuff about Trump and his “image.” In a filing that should have simply been a concession to the norm and the end of this litigation, the administration instead says this:

Most problematically, the preliminary injunction would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public.

Do what now?

If there’s anything “problematic” about the complaint, it’s the faint suggestion that the White House would need to ignore logistics issues if, say, the president decides to address reporters while boarding Air Force One. Adding an ASL interpreter to the traveling staff may present difficulties that should not immediately be considered an active effort to keep deaf people out of the national conversation, but this statement from the DOJ says something else entirely. It says the president should be allowed to “control his image,” which is something that’s impossible even when not actively trying to prevent a certain percentage of the population from engaging in real-time dissemination of information by the White House.

The president can certainly try to “control his image,” but those efforts are not allowed to circumvent the First Amendment right of access. And the president’s “image” belongs to the public, because it’s naturally subjective. Trump may want to portray himself as the god-king tasked with saving the nation, but everyone else is allowed to bring their own opinion to the party.

What this absolutely looks like is Trump (and his obedient “handlers”) choosing to treat people with disabilities the same way Trump does: with disdain. We all know Trump considers anything from chronic conditions to being a prisoner of war [click through for additional hilarity] to be a sign of weakness. The only way to impress Trump is to be born into generational wealth and leverage that inability to fail into a career filled with slum-lording and strategic bankruptcies. This is a man who considers people who sign up for military service to be “losers” because they gave up their lives in exchange for the satisfaction of truly serving their country.

So, it’s completely understandable that the Trump administration wants to say “fuck you” to the deaf, albeit without being forced to display the internationally recognized non-ASL “fuck you” hand signal.

It’s also something even more pathetic than this lazy volley into the court — one that relies on rulings by Judge Boasberg to support its counterarguments. Lest we forget, the current Trump administration wants Boasberg removed (or impeached) because he’s called bullshit on the DHS’s illegal deportation efforts. But now that it wants to allow Trump to say to a female reporter, “Quiet, piggy” without it immediately being made available to deaf Americans, it needs Boasberg’s previous opinion on this issue that was delivered during Trump’s first term in office.

But we all know what this is really about, don’t we? Controlling an image only matters to someone so insecure he thinks ASL interpreters might be secretly making fun of him. Trump can’t have anyone else translating for him because there’s a slim chance they might not portray him exactly as he sees himself in his head.

All the administration really needed to do is bring back ASL interpreters whenever possible. Instead, it has gone on the record with an extended middle finger no deaf person — even in the back rows — will have any trouble interpreting. These are the acts of small, hateful people who have chosen to prostrate themselves in front of someone even smaller and more hateful. Fuck them all.

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

Filed Under: 1st amendment, asl, colossal assholes, cult of personality, doj, donald trump, trump administration

Companies: national association for the deaf