I don't know what's in Donald Trump's heart. I don't know what the candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination truly believes about anything, as opposed to what he says and does for presumed political or financial advantage.
I know some other things, though.
I know that we don't make fun of people with disabilities. That's not because of political correctness. It's because making fun of people with disabilities is mean, ugly and stupid. Our parents taught us that. It's because decent people understand that there but for the grace of God -- or the rearrangement of the sequence of a few chemical bonds in our genetic code -- go we.
Photo illustration by CNN
Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter formerly with the Washington Post and the New York Daily News, has a congenital muscular disorder called arthrogryposis that distorts the position and flexing of his joints and affects the movement of his arms.
Trump made fun of him at a campaign rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on November 24.
During his remarks to a crowd of supporters, Trump did an impression of Kovaleski. "You should see this guy," Trump said, flailing his arms, contorting his wrists and affecting a distorted voice.
Justifiably criticized, Trump later said he "would never mock a person who has difficulty" and couldn't have been making fun of Kovaleski because he didn't know him, had never seen him, had never met him and knew nothing about his condition.
This was untrue.
As a business reporter at the Daily News in the 1980s and early 90s, Kovaleski covered Trump, interviewed him one-on-one, quizzed him at press conferences and even spent a day traveling with him in 1989 when Trump launched Trump Shuttle, an airline service that failed after about three years.
Trump made fun of Kovaleski in connection with a different untruth the candidate had told three days earlier at a rally at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Ala. Trump said he had been watching television on Sept. 11, 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York. He said he saw footage from across the Hudson River in Jersey City, N.J., a city with a substantial number of residents of Middle Eastern heritage of the Muslim faith. "I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey," Trump said, "where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."
This was untrue.
No such footage has ever been found or shown, despite the 9/11 attacks having been among the most thoroughly documented events of recent history. Past and present New Jersey law enforcement and elected officials and news organizations have said there never has been any evidence that such an event occurred.
But Trump continued to insist that he saw televised celebrations taking place in Jersey City and produced a story co-written by Kovaleski and published by the Washington Post on Sept. 18, 2001, that he said proved he was right.
This was untrue.
The 2001 piece merely reported that law enforcement agencies had investigated allegations that some people had been celebrating on a roof in Jersey City. Subsequently, the investigation found nothing to support the allegations.
When news organizations contacted Kovaleski and asked him about Trump's assertion, the reporter stated the obvious: His story did not say what Trump claimed it did.
Trump then accused Kovaleski of exploiting his physical condition: "He should stop using his disability to grandstand..." Trump said.
This was untrue.
It was Trump who dug up and publicized the 14-year-old story, not Kovaleski.
Trump's fantasy about Jersey City -- a false memory at best; televised news footage of some Palestinians celebrating in East Jerusalem might have confused him -- wasn't the only problem with the November 21 rally in Birmingham. During Trump's presentation, a local protester with the Black Lives Matter movement, Mercutio Southall Jr., began repeatedly shouting from the audience, "Black lives matter!"
Trump responded from the stage:
"Get him the hell out of here, will you please? Get him out of here. Throw him out ... Yeah, you can get him out. Yeah, get him out. Get him the hell out of here! Get him out of here!!!"
As recorded on a CNN reporter's cell phone, before security personnel could reach Southall, audience members pushed him to the floor and began punching and kicking. The guards got him up on his feet and out of the hall.
After the rally, a Trump spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, told reporters that "the campaign does not condone this behavior."
This was untrue.
"Maybe he should have been roughed up," Trump declared to Fox News personalities the following morning, "because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.... I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. This was a very obnoxious guy who was a troublemaker who was looking to make trouble."
I don't know if Trump really believes that.
But I know we don't assault people for shouting, and we don't assault people for doing things we think are obnoxious. It's not because of political correctness. It's because doing violence to people except in self-defense or to protect others is wrong. Our parents taught us that. Oh ... and because it's illegal.
I also know what the incident with Southall looked and sounded like. It looked and sounded like a hoodlum boss telling his henchmen to take care of a troublemaker who was bothering him. It looked and sounded like eager-to-please goons doing just what the boss wanted: getting the troublemaker "the hell out of here."
I don't bring this up because I care whether any particular candidate ends up winning the presidential nomination of his or her particular party. I don't mention it out of exasperation with the speculative filler that has passed for much of political coverage and analysis for the last year. I understand the need to be selective about media consumption, especially when it comes to political coverage. So I've limited my exposure to occasional news pieces, columns and relevant televised coverage. (And the work of satirist Andy Borowitz for The New Yorker. Sample headline: "Trump: I would attack ISIS on Twitter.")
But the Trump campaign's contempt for truth, pride of ignorance and sheer thuggery have become its defining characteristics. It seems to me that Trump should be honest enough to take personal responsibility for what he's doing, instead of trying to weasel out of it.
I shudder to think that the general election is still 11 months away.
A version of this column originally was published in print and online by the St. Louis Jewish Light.