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.
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).
Seeing all the other comments talking about her cognitive deficiency, I want to add that I will take an honest, good-hearted politician with Down Syndrome over a corrupt asshole any day. And as if the average politician was smarter than a bag of bricks.
…apart from that, shit man, any conservative is one too many
Of course the Down Syndrome political person is a conservative…🤣
The jokes just write themselves sometimes.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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.
The achievement catapults Galcerán to the top of the ranks of the handful of people with Down’s syndrome who have crashed through barriers to enter the world of politics.
In 2020, Éléonore Laloux became the first person with the genetic disorder in France to be elected to public office, as a city council member in the northern town of Arras, while Ireland’s Fintan Bray was hailed for making history after he was elected to a political position in the country in 2022.
He was quick to point out that the achievement was also a reflection of the decades Galcerán had spent working to advance the status of people with Down’s syndrome in Spain.
Ultimately she hoped her presence in the regional parliament would help to dismantle the many prejudices that continue to linger in society, particularly when it comes to people with Down’s syndrome.
The original article contains 566 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good for Mar.
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Why?
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