As you may or may not know, Donald Trump is a prolific tweeter. And by that, we mean he likes to get into beefs with people or corporations on Twitter and call them losers, in between tweeting about his hotels and saying derogatory things about Obama.
And sure, it can be annoying. What with his beefing with FPL or Buzzfeed or even with fellow fringe conservatives. He's also been a big-time birther.
But all of that stuff could be reduced to simply being white noise from a very self-involved, narcissistic man with lots of time on his hands.
Yet, in the past 24 hours, Trump has gone from insufferable real-life cartoon villain to downright dangerous. His latest crusade has been to ignore medical science and inexplicably jump headlong into the "vaccinations cause autism" argument.
Starting on Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to give his unsolicited thoughts and feelings towards the pseudo science craze that children get autism from vaccinations.
This despite the fact that, test after test and study after study has time again proven that there is absolutely no link between autism and vaccinations.
But truth and facts have never really been a thing Trump has bothered to care about before. So why start now?
No more massive injections. Tiny children are not horses--one vaccine at a time, over time.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2014
And it didn't stop with the tiny-horses-versus-children comparisons.
Trump kept the wacky going, including responses from folks who agree with him and offered apparent testimony to this theory:
I am being proven right about massive vaccinations--the doctors lied. Save our children & their future.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2014
"@LindseyScheibe @realDonaldTrump Erik's story breaks my heart. Vaccines destroyed his family. http://t.co/21yL30fDPk" Very sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2014
"@jamandatrtl Her son was over-vaccinated. #CDCwhistleblower #hearthiswell http://t.co/SZiRcSbGVs" Terrible.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2014
I'm not against vaccinations for your children, I'm against them in 1 massive dose.Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2014
So many people who have children with autism have thanked me--amazing response. They know far better than fudged up reports!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2014
In the end, Trump says he was proven right because other people who are as unqualified in the field of medicine as he is agree with him.
So, case closed!
It's unclear what set off the bizarre tweets or what Trump's angle is here other than wanting attention. And, we admit, we're merely exacerbating the problem by writing about it here.
But it's one thing to call celebrities that disagree with him losers or whine about how his terrible show was snubbed from winning an Emmy.
But it's quite another when he's actually messing with people's lives -- albeit on Twitter.
Still, this is a guy people actually look up to. Particularly young people.
Waking up early and studying my idol @realDonaldTrump
— JUSTIN... (@This_JustIn) September 4, 2014
::shudders::
Send your story tips to the author, Chris Joseph. Follow Chris Joseph on Twitter
Follow @NewTimesBroward