Bachmann’s Migraines: New swing on stigma

Posted on July 19, 2011 in Accountability Campaign 2012 Neurology Stigma

Once again, I find myself in the position of having to run to the defense of someone who I detest. Michelle Bachmann has migraines. This has instigated widespread tweeting on her fitness to be president. Never mind that Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy both suffered from these headaches ((And what about Lincoln’s depressions?)) . Now people who would just shrug their shoulders if this were Obama suggest that this disqualifies her for office.

There are plenty of reasons to want Michelle Bachmann at any address other than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She is mean-spirited. She hates gays and women who want control over their bodies. She rails on about pornography but has no workable plan for ending unemployment in this country. She takes her marching orders from her husband who we will not get to vet ((If he wants the power so badly, why isn’t he running for office?)) . She has lied about her qualifications for the job and about her relationship with the 23 foster children who marched through her house. She eagerly hopes that she will lead our nation into the Apocalypse. The list goes on. But migraines should not be one of them simply because we should not be in the habit of disqualifying people for every little sniffle that plagues them. Either there will be no one to elect or we will elect liars.

Stigma should not be the basis of an electoral decision. Did we not end a fight to put a black man in the White House in 2008? Are we progressives and liberals the ones who fought the hardest for the Americans with Disabilities Act — to put the disabled into the workforce? I can think of no reason to disqualify a migraine sufferer from office. If John F. Kennedy could get us through the Cuban Missile Crisis with the threat of migraines hanging over him, this issue should be dead, cremated, shot into space, and buried in a black hole.

But there’s another reason that my progressive and liberal allies can better understand: it has to do with the average voter. Our aim must be to get the average voter to concentrate on whether Bachmann will make a good president. If we raise the hype about migraines, all she needs do is assert that they don’t affect her. So what message does the average voter get? That nothing should bar Bachmann from becoming president. That’s not a message we should allow to develop. We must emphasize the issues that make Bachmann and the rest of her Tea Party host a very dangerous proposition for this country. It’s not about migraines, it is about destroying the government. Bachmann has voted repeatedly to steer us toward default and collapse of the central government. She wants to end Medicare and Social Security. I do not doubt that she would like to see the Americans with Disabilities Act repealed in full or in parts. These don’t disqualify her, but they amount to solid reasons for voting her out of any kind of government job. Michelle Bachmann is one of the worst candidates for the presidency at this time. If her migraines miraculously disappeared, she would still be. Her politics should be what we focus upon, not the pains in her head.