Ken Klippenstein's Odd and Dark Obsession with Politicians' Disabilities

How did journalism's hero of the left start mimicking Trump's rhetoric about disability?

I used to like Ken Klippenstein’s work and approach to journalism. He operates outside of corporate media, self-publishes, and shares information that mainstream corporate outlets are too scared to publish. He criticizes the Democratic Party and its corruption. All good.

But in the last few months, he’s gone on a dark kick when it comes to mocking and exposing members of Congress for having disabilities, at a time when Trump is also describing disabled people as unfit for important jobs.

I wrote about how the media talks about “fitness for office” for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), just as Biden exited the election. I discussed the media’s obsession with the medical records and minor disabilities of candidates, and how, by implication, news outlets are disqualifying disabled people from office. I asked if the media was evaluating candidates for office or “Best in Show” for a kennel competition.

Klippenstein is taking all of these patterns to a gleeful, mocking extreme. He would probably say he is only concerned with age. On that, he might have a point, if he just made that point. Members of Congress are, on average, too old and rich to represent the public.

It’s also true that we’ve seen some elected officials be cognitively impaired beyond the ability to perform the functions of the job, like Joe Biden and Diane Feinstein. All of this is happening because party leaders are egotistical and corrupt, holding onto wealth-generating power for themselves and their billionaire buddies. People call this the “gerontocracy.”

Klippenstein could easily focus on this argument. Instead, he has become obsessed with “outing” the physical imperfections of members of Congress. He is not distinguishing dementia from maladies and disabilities that shouldn’t exclude people from elected office. Indeed, the kinds of illnesses and disabilities Klippenstein has started going after happen to people of all ages—and happen more commonly to women and marginalized people.

I don’t think Klippenstein is generally concerned about age in office, or he might say something about Bernie Sanders, who is older than most of the people he goes after. I don’t think he has teased apart what he finds fault with, which is why he is letting ableism drive his concerns, without considering the implications of his claims.

That, or he’s an outright bigot. He certainly hasn’t had an issue with the mass of MAGA and bigoted accounts cheering on his tweets and promoting blatant ableism. He has been criticized, amply, by disabled people, and he doesn’t respond or evades the questions by pivoting to the Biden failure. He makes fun of wheelchairs, slow speech, and signs of illness. Does he think illness or disability is disqualifying for office? It’s starting to look like that.

Tremors

Senator Blumenthal’s hand is “literally vibrating,” Klippenstein posts, with a close-up video of his shaking hand, as if that alone is some shocking newsworthy exposé. “Really tired of media pretending this isn’t happening even after 2024,” he writes.

What is “this” that is “happening”? Disability? An old person’s body no longer functioning as it might have when it was younger? Klippenstein has repeatedly exposed and mocked politicians for their slow speech, as if elderly people don’t talk slower. Has he spent no time around old people ever?

In mentioning 2024 in the above tweet, Klippenstein is clearly referring to Biden leaving office when it became clear that he couldn’t perform in a debate. But what does a shaking hand have to do with severe cognitive impairment? Klippenstein doesn’t say. His supporters, in the mentions, make some broad assumptions about Blumenthal’s illness, including discussing Parkinson’s as if it were a death sentence and/or disqualifying for higher office.

There are a lot of reasons a hand might shake, Parkinson’s among them. There are illnesses that affect people of all ages that cause a hand tremor. If Klippenstein is trying to say that Blumenthal is too old, then he could have stopped at his age, 78. That is very old. But that isn’t as sensational, exciting, or clickbait-y as mocking disability—as pulling an “r word.”

Instead, Klippenstein focuses on a physical frailty that, by itself, shouldn’t disqualify anyone from office. I know people with Parkinson’s and other diseases that cause tremors in their 30s and 40s. One of them is a professor who lectures constantly and just published a book. What exactly is Klippenstein suggesting about a “literally vibrating” hand?

The worst part is that Klippenstein clearly intends to impose shame and humiliation on the hand tremor, like it’s some secret that he’s uncovered. Michael J. Fox wrote, in his autobiography, about the shame he felt when he became disabled by Parkinson’s and the difficulties he found in working as an actor, despite being fully capable of performing the job, as we saw in “The Good Wife.”

A progressive or anti-authoritarian attitude would push back on a world in which visible disabilities are shamed and pushed out of society because they make abled people uncomfortable. Klippenstein is choosing the authoritarian, fascist attitude.

I really hate to credit the liberal media over Klippenstein, especially when I focus most of my media criticism on mainstream liberal reporting. But the media ignoring a hand tremor is actually a step forward for disability justice, not a conspiracy to hide the truth.

Klippenstein and his supporters might say, again, that this isn’t about a hand tremor. Some of them even insist that the reporter is just talking about political corruption and/or age. But his tweet is very explicitly about a hand tremor.

Cancer and a Hoarse Throat

Klippenstein’s obsession with congressional health really took off with his focus on Senator Gerry Connolly’s illness. Connolly got negative attention on the left when he was elected ranking member of the House Oversight Committee against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It was taken by many as a sign of the gerontocracy refusing to let younger, more progressive officials have power, in a role that could help keep Trump in check. Klippenstein has made valid points about Connolly’s essential conservatism—that he unlikely to stand up to the threat in the White House due to his politics.

Connolly’s age might play a role in his conservatism. That’s an argument Klippenstein could have made, carefully. It’s not a solution to the gerontocracy to swing the pendulum towards excluding people from jobs based on age. And there’s hardly much evidence that younger members of Congress will promote progressive change. Look at the support for Israel among so many young members of Congress. Still, it’s fair to point out that the gerontocracy isn’t representing the public.

But what does cancer have to do with any of this? Leave cancer alone, Klippenstein!

Close to one out of three people in the U.S. get cancer in their lifetimes. People are pushed out of their jobs due to cancer and similar illnesses. Young people have rapidly rising rates of cancer. Do we really want to be shaming and excluding people with cancer? A high percentage of cancer is treatable and survivable. Connolly has a particularly rough form of cancer (esophageal), but, depending on the stage, he could have up to a 50% chance of full remission. Yes, senior citizens also can survive and recover from cancer. I’ve known a few.

Meanwhile, Klippenstein demands to know Connolly’s cancer stage. There are laws that protect disabled and sick people from having to disclose their medical conditions, including the ADA and HIPPA. They exist because of the extreme bigotry around illness and disability. What is Klippenstein after? The end of HIPPA protection for people seeking elected office—or for people when it comes to employment in general? Has he thought about the implications of what he is doing at all?

Elsewhere, Klippenstein played video of Connolly giving an interview, in which his throat obviously sounded hoarse. He has esophageal cancer! It’s not a surprise. Klippenstein acts like this is some gotcha, like Biden’s cognitive decline. But Connolly was clear and cogent. I didn’t love what he said, but he made far more sense than Biden typically did of late.

“This is genuinely hard to watch,” Klippenstein says. Biden was hard to watch, when he couldn’t process what he was saying while trying to pretend that he was a regal statesman in control. What is hard to watch about Connolly speaking slowly and with a hoarse voice? Sometimes, Klippenstein makes his personal bias obvious: yes, disabilities make people uncomfortable. Sorry!

In some conversations, Klippenstein and his supporters have played up Connolly’s age and disease as if he’s unqualified because he’s near death. But there’s no proof of that. This is clear from Klippenstein’s zealous failure to get information about his stage of cancer.

I don’t actually think Klippenstein is worried about politicians being near death (at which point the problem of their age is solved anyway). “Near death” is a guess, a presumption, and it can be wrong. I wrote about this with my father’s experience leaving hospice and recovering. If Klippenstein and his supporters are going to consult actuarial tables and base elections and appointments on who is likely to live, then they would, again, say something about Bernie Sanders, who is extremely old with heart disease.

Not that Klippenstein cares, but Sanders was the only politician to hold a hearing and demand more money for Long Covid after the NIH blew its first round on psychologizing the illness. There weren’t any young politicians stepping up to that essential plate. I don’t like any politicians, but I’m happy Sanders is around to advocate for my illness, and I don’t care if he dies while doing so.

The difference between Klippenstein and me is that I don’t hold Connolly’s age, illness, or hoarse throat against him anymore than I hold Sanders’ age and disease against him. I dislike politicians for other reasons.

Memory

Klippenstein almost had something by sharing the “evergreen” article that some members of Congress are on Alzheimer’s drugs. Again, I’m not disputing that cognitive issues as we have seen with Biden and Feinstein are problematic when it comes to serving in powerful positions.

But this speaks to a broader lack of understanding of medicine, which tends to go hand-in-hand with ableism: Alzheimer’s drugs are prescribed for lots of non-Alzheimer’s conditions. They are prescribed off-label but as a part of standard medicine. I was put on an Alzheimer’s drug, Namenda (Memantine), for chronic migraine when I was still in my 30s. This drug is also used off-label for a wide range of psychiatric conditions, from OCD to substance abuse.

I would doubt that Klippenstein thinks about off-label usage. I doubt he’s even aware that it’s a routine part of medicine, But, again, what is his end game here? That we dig into every congressperson’s prescription history? On top of the HIPPA and general ableism issues, prescription histories don’t actually tell you much about a person. I don’t take 50% of the drugs I’ve been prescribed.

On the topic of memory, though, I want to give a little grace. It’s not all Alzheimer’s or dementia. Covid’s population-level impact on cognition and memory is well-documented. Word retrieval issues are especially common for people in the aftermath of an infection or with Long Covid, which is a mass epidemic now. Lesser memory lapses shouldn’t be disqualifying of higher office. As the ADA dictates, it’s a matter of whether or not disabilities can be “reasonably” accommodated. And some cognitive issues can be.

Falls and Implications

Lately, Klippenstein has been on a kick exposing that Senator Mitch McConnell fell down some stairs. And he’s asked sources to contact his signal account with information about this fall. It’s getting creepy and embarrassing.

Guess what? McConnell is very old, and old people fall more often than young people. What’s the big surprise?

Meanwhile, young people also fall, especially disabled young people. I have an illness, POTS, that causes me to pass out when standing and sometimes be uneasy on stairs. Would Klippenstein demand to know what stage of POTS I have before deeming me acceptable for elected office?

As I wrote about for FAIR,

Leave wheelchairs out of this, Klippenstein! There is plenty wrong with McConnell but nothing wrong with needing a wheelchair!

Sadly, Klippenstein has lost the original plot by focusing so much on disability, with a mocking tone. He hasn’t been making great arguments about our politicians lately, even concerning age.

Unlike Klippenstein, I would like to see Congress filled with people with tremors, falls, and the signs of chronic illness, on the small chance that they might actually represent my needs and create a less ableist government. That said, I would also prefer them to be more representative of the ages, incomes, and races of the general public than they are now. And even then, I’m not convinced they would push back on the billionaire class, given the incentives for politicians to sell out.

I end with some tips, from my article in FAIR, as to how responsible journalists can cover the age and ability of candidates without falling into ableism and ageism.