Rick Santorum went on CNN to discuss the Affordable Care Act on Feb. 27th. During the discussion, he said that millions of people with preexisting conditions were using the act's provisions to get free healthcare for three months out of the year. Ignoring the fact that he did not present any statistics to back this up, and that he totally misunderstands how the act works, this is just the latest instance of a Republican painting disabled people as scammers or freeloaders. Historically, political parties that do that aren't known for doing good things.
Santorum copies Nazi playbook
First off, I want to clarify the title. The majority of disabilities are preexisting conditions. So, I use the term interchangeably. In fact, before the ACA, it was nearly impossible to get health insurance if had any sort of Disability.
I don't particularly like drawing Nazi comparisons, unlike more verbose groups such as ANTIFA. In most circumstances, I don't view these comparisons as productive, but I've studied disability history. Much of it is extremely gut wrenching. One of the darkest chapters is in WWII Germany. Adolf Hitler got millions of Germans to go along with exterminating the disabled to a large extent by saying things similar to what Santorum said.
The German people didn't just vote Hitler into power and just randomly start killing their kids, parents, and grandparents with disabilities. They were conditioned. They had drilled into their heads that everybody in a wheelchair and the like was stealing from them over a period of years. When Hitler announced T-4 (the order to kill the disabled), the propaganda made them eager to throw their family to the wolves.
Santorum's accusations aren't that far removed from the "useless eater" talk, and it's time to stop letting statements like it hide under the veil of "political incorrectness.".
The far right and Santorum know what they're doing
A lot of people on the left are dismissing this as standard backwoods ignorance. However, we can't ignore this.
Santorum isn't the first Republican to paint the disabled as scam artists or drains on society. We need to stop ignoring what's happening here. People are being conditioned to turn on us just like in T-4.
When Attorney General Jeff Sessions blamed disabled kids for problems in education, that was conditioning. When Santorum tries to paint people with preexisting conditions as scammers, that's conditioning. When school board members complain that special education is responsible for the district's woes, that's conditioning. When reporters produce one-sided hatchet jobs against the Americans with Disabilities Act, that's conditioning. When bigotry towards people with disabilities is written off, even celebrated, as "political incorrectness," that's conditioning.
Will things be as bad as T-4? Hopefully not. However, after years of politicians spreading similar rhetoric in Britain, hate crimes against the disabled have been rising exponentially over there. Let's not pretend it can't happen here.
