Mar Galcerán makes history as Spain’s first parliamentarian with Down’s syndrome

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 163 points – Mar Galcerán makes history as Spain’s first parliamentarian with Down’s syndrome
theguardian.com

After being elected to Valencia’s regional assembly, Galcerán says she wants to be seen as a person, not for her disability

For decades she battled to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities were part of the conversation. The extent of the progress she had made, however, was laid bare recently when Mar Galcerán became Spain’s first parliamentarian with Down’s syndrome.

“It’s unprecedented,” the 45-year-old told the Guardian. “Society is starting to see that people with Down’s syndrome have a lot to contribute. But it’s a very long road.”

Her feat has been decades in the making. When Galcerán was 18 years old, she joined the conservative People’s party (PP) after being attracted to what she described as its embrace of tradition.

Slowly she worked her way up the party apparatus. Her commitment paid off last May when she was added as the 20th name on the list of candidates the PP was fielding in Valencia’s regional elections.

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It's not a surprise she was "attracted to what she described as [the conservative People's Party's] embrace of tradition", because right-wing systems are generally attractive to people with lower cognitive skills as they claim to offer simple solutions to complex problems. Unfortunately the solutions are nearly always wrong, but that's another matter entirely.

[T]here exists a solid empirical paper trail demonstrating that lower cognitive abilities (e.g., abstract-reasoning skills and verbal, nonverbal, and general intelligence) predict greater prejudice. We discuss how the effects of lower cognitive ability on prejudice are explained (i.e., mediated) by greater endorsement of right-wing socially conservative attitude. […]

Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.

Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013).

So many words to say you're an ableist....

I fully support Glacerán's or any other somehow differently abled person's right to do anything they want. It's unironically great that she got into politics, and it's great that people with Down's get representation like this which has been sorely missing.

This doesn't change the fact that Down's syndrome does have effects on cognitive function, and there's clear neuroanatomical differences that cause those effects. This doesn't mean she or anybody else with Down's is somehow "less than" anybody else, but it's undeniable that there's going to be some sort of cognitive deficit there when compared to the general population, which is why it's not exactly surprising that Glacerán felt that a conservative party was the most "attractive".

I don't see how it's ableism to point out that there's a lot of research showing that people who endorse right-wing ideals are more likely to have lower cognitive abilities (of multiple types). It's not like I'm saying everybody who has Down's is going to be prejudiced because they're 100% certainly going to be conservative, or that people with Down's shouldn't be allowed to participate in politics, for example. But the fact of the matter is that there's a lot of empirical proof that conservative ideologies are attractive to folks with comparatively worse cognitive skills, because they're exactly the sort of people who would be motivated to support an ideology that emphasizes tradition and strict social norms, and Down's does lead to cognitive issues.

Being conservative is not a disability.