Thread by @AaronWorthing

If you want to understand why #Fetterman is unqualified for any legislative office, here’s an example. I am quite tweeting a thread I posted during the #Rittenhouse case, just after the gun charges were dismissed explaining the judge’s reasoning 1/

https://twitter.com/aaronworthing/status/1460329525611532288

2/ it takes a lot of twists and turns to explain why the judge was right to say Kyle Rittenhouse could lawfully possess an AR-15 when he was technically 17 years old.

but whether you agree with the judge or not hear some thing all of us can agree on:

3/ this statute is very badly written.

If the Wisconsin legislature was trying to say that a 17-year-old could not carry long guns in public, they screwed it up. And if they were trying to allow 17-year-olds to carry such guns, they did a poor job of saying that, too

4/ I mean you will notice, as critical I have been of that prosecution, I never said anything to indicate that they had an unreasonable position on this law. I do think they were incorrect, but they weren’t crazy to think it meant Rittenhouse had no right to carry that gun

5/ The legislature screwed up. But it also shows you how difficult it can be to be a legislator. Imagine having to pick through that nonsense as a legislator trying to figure out if you like the law as it is and if it needs to be changed

6/ The #Fetterman who showed up at the debate last Tuesday can’t handle this sort of task. But that’s the basic job of a legislator: reading the law and suggesting changes, which f needed.

Now even a year from now we might be telling a different story about #Fetterman’s health

7/ and I do hope and pray that he has a full recovery, even as I disagree with him very deeply on philosophical issues. But such a recovery is not guaranteed, and frankly he probably needs more rest and things like physical therapy to get over his stroke

8/ and I’m not saying that a person with some disabilities can’t be senator. Many of the skills I am saying that he lacks, I have to have as a lawyer and I am disabled.

But trying to shout down anyone me who questions him as “ableist” harms disabled people for a short term…

9/ …political gain. It makes employers afraid to hire disabled people in the first place because they will be afraid that they won’t be able to treat them equally—that they will be forced to treat them with kid gloves.

10/ as a person who has lived his entire life with disabilities I can tell you that you do not win friends and allies by shouting at them and calling them bigots. You win by explaining how your disability is not relevant to the job.

11/ you win by being open, and being welcoming to any concerns that they might raise. Even if what they say is ignorant, understand that people cannot know about every condition going in. There are too many different disabilities to expect people to know about all of them

12/ so you have a frank and honest discussion about what your disability is, what actual limitations it imposes, what positives you have, either as an adaptation to the disability or just in general. The key is to make them feel comfortable and for you to look reasonable

13/ and that’s probably the worst sin being committed on behalf of #Fetterman. They are screeching like monkeys that anyone dare question whether or not he can do the job.

But every sane person who watched it at least has questions

14/ but as usual this is not about equal opportunity. This is not about fighting bigotry. This is about raw political power. And in the process nobody on the Democratic leadership cares if they harm other disabled people in pursuit of that power. /end