A 2022 archive clip of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been making the rounds on social media recently. In the video, she addresses a table of disability leaders and says, “My name is Kamala Harris. My pronouns are she and her and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” Some conservatives have argued that this visual self-description is an intrusion of “wokeness” into formal meetings.
In a meeting this week, Republican Nominee Donald Trump begrudgingly conceded to a request to offer a similar description of himself for the low-vision crowd. Before long, he got carried away with an outlandish, embellished self-description that would take up the next seven minutes of the meeting.
“My name is Donald Trump,” he said. “I am a white man, lean figure, very handsome, golden suntan, dagger-blue eyes. People sometimes wonder if they’re looking at Heston in ‘Ben Hur.’ They say, ‘Wow, that looks just like Heston in “Ben Hur.”’ I know you can’t see under the table because I understand you’re visually impaired, but it’s obvious even from the stomach up that I’m packing. My wife’s not here but I could tell you that she is and add that she’s a Slovenian beauty queen. She might not be wearing anything at all — wouldn’t that be something? Great body. But you wouldn’t know either way, would you …”
He elaborated: “My hair is thick and luscious, like the mane of the late, great Mufasa from ‘Lion King.’ Shame Disney had to ruin it. We don’t like the live-action remakes, do we? ‘No we don’t, they’re very bad’ is what the people are saying. We don’t want woke Simba.”
After rambling on further about why Scar actually deserved to become king, Trump went on to describe his suit. “I am wearing a navy suit, quite possibly the best suit, some say. A lot of money, and it fits very well, revealing my muscular physique and large, manly hands. People say, ‘Donald, you have to wear the suit, you can’t let the suit wear you,’ and let me tell you, I definitely know what that means, because my big brain. Oh, if you could see my brain …”
The rant continued for several minutes, after which Trump gave a two-sentence explanation of his proposal to cut Medicaid spending and then left the room.