It is becoming increasingly clear that the sole reason this creature has been placed on Earth is to create a constantly swirling shit-storm, and there is no controversy, conspiracy theory, or issue that will escape being painted by the massive discharge of feces cast by this monsoon of excrement.
What does this tweet accomplish? Does it mean Trump will assign resources to researching a link between vaccines and autism (even though the work has already been done and proven conclusively that there is none)? Does it offer any ideas to assist those who believe their children were harmed by vaccines? Is there any possible positive outcome of spewing this stream of feculence into the ether?
Of course not. It is just another anti-science broadside that serves as notice that President Trump will not be swayed by facts, reason, argument, or intelligent discourse. He will define reality by fiat and the facts be damned.
It’s like having your senile grandfather in the White House. He believes whatever the last person told him, applies no intellectual rigor to what he’s heard, then spews it out for the masses to lap up.
But this is also a nearly three-year-old example of his jerkdom.*
Aside from naming ninnies for federal healthcare-related posts, Trump has limited power to affect national vaccine policy, apart from vaccines coming up again on his daily tweet spews.
*We have a perfectly good current example of someone in a position of influence embarrassing himself and the institution that hired him over a brainless antivax rant.
The thing with Trump is he says so many ridiculous, potentially harmful things. Of course, maybe his plan is to hid the nefarious parts of his agenda that he will actually work to implement inside of an avalanche of stupid believing the people will simply give up wading through the garbage.
But what is news is that Trump is meeting today with noted anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to discuss immunizations. So this may be something that comes up again going forward, if he continues his habit of repeating what he heard from the last person he talked to.
Senility rarely leads to this kind of uncritical re-spewage unless the person was prone to it before.
Never forget that Fred Trump was senile at least six years before his death. Given the insulation that being rich gives, I’d bet he was behaving oddly well before that.
Actually, some polls of anti-vaxxers found it crosses political lines more or less evenly.
Surprisingly, middle class and up is somewhat more inclined to be anti-vax.
I’ll see if i can track one down.
Anti-vax nuttery is sadly about as bipartisan bit of woo as you can find. It’s something crunchy vegan moms in Berkeley and pickup w/ gun-rack-driving dads in Dallas can come together and agree on.
If that is the case, put aside the climate change issue where his ignorance just will likely cause deaths; anti-vaccination is an item where it is very certain that people will die just by Trump using the big bully pulpit to spew that kind of ignorance that will misguide more people than ever before into avoiding vaccinations.