Do Not Politicize Barron Trump

In late summer, someone I respect told me that rumors were circulating around Barron Trump being autistic, based on his behavior on camera at the RNC. I looked at the rumors, found them believable but not confirmable, and felt it would be unethical to report on them in any way.  Still, I knew that if Trump won, the rumors would eventually go mainstream, find an outlet or a celebrity to promote them, and then I'd need to respond.

 Yesterday, Rosie O'Donnell (whose history speaking on autism isn't good) tweeted the following, the video has half a million views, so:

Barron Trump Autistic? if so - what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic https://t.co/Acgy1Qxyqi via @YouTube

— Rosie (@Rosie) November 22, 2016

My simple take is this - Do not politicize Barron Trump. Do not try to out people - anyone in any context - as disabled. Do not be ableist or spread stigma to serve political agendas.

A few more thoughts:

• You do not know whether Barron Trump is or isn't autistic. 

The video is not especially convincing, just pictures of a ten-year-old boy who is sometimes restless and rarely smiles when on camera in front of millions of people. He could be autistic, because autism is a common natural variation in the human neurotype, but he could also not be. Stop speculating.

• It is both unethical and cruel to speculate about a child's disability.

In fact, it's best not to speculate about anyone's disability, as such speculations inevitably reveal more about stigma than about the individual. 

• Barron Trump is not a public figure

Yes, horrible right-wing media outlets politicized both Sasha/Malia and Chelsea Clinton. Those people were horrible. Don't be like them.

• I have written about Donald Trump's views on vaccines. They are deeply troubling.

There's an assumption that Trump's antivax ideas come from his own experience. He's said:

You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump—I mean, it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child, and we've had so many instances, people that work for me...

Just the other day, 2 years old, 2½ years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic

Reminder: There is no autism epidemic. We diagnose differently now. Vaccines do not cause autism. 

[This paragraph was edited for clarity] Really, though, it doesn't matter who Trump was talking about. If his own son or not, the point is that vaccines do not cause autism. 

• I am going to fight against antivaxxers in the CDC, in HHS, as the Surgeon General, in the FDA. Barron Trump is not a pawn in that fight.

Someday, I hope we have more openly actually autistic public figures, including presidents and other elected officials. I hope we have children who live in a world where talking about their neurodiversity is no more controversial than describing their hair color. We do not live in that world. 

My experience over the last year has shown me how quickly the Left is willing to go ableist. Let's try to do better on this one.

How JJ Holmes met President Obama.

Earlier today I wrote about a 12 year old boy with Cerebral Palsy (he uses a wheelchair and a communication device) who was 1) expelled from a Trump rally for holding up a Hillary sign and 2) got to meet President Obama. The moral: Trump supporters cannot tolerate any dissent, even from a disabled child.

Now, from Hillary for America's Florida press secretary, here's the story of how JJ got to meet the President.

Key: JJ initiated the trip to the Trump rally. He wanted to protest.

 

#CripTheVote - President Obama meets Child with Cerebral Palsy Kicked out of Trump Rally

[Story updated 9:06 CST 11/6]

White House Press Pool reports that President Obama met a disabled child who had been kicked out of Trump rally.

Background: JJ Holmes, a 12 year old boy with Cerebral Palsy told his mother he wanted to go to a Trump rally to protest. He held up a Hillary Clinton sign. The crowd started chanting USA, Trump said to get them out of here, and the crowd got violent, kicking at his wheelchair as he retreated.

Today he met President Obama. Click here for more details of how the meeting happened.

The moral: Trumpland cannot tolerate dissent. Even from a disabled child and his family.  

-------------------------------

After his speech, President Obama spent a moment with J.J. Holmes, a 12-year-old boy with a severe case of cerebral palsy who had been pushed out of a Trump rally Saturday in Tampa, Fla. A White House photographer snapped photographs of Mr. Obama shaking hands with J.J. and standing behind the boy's wheelchair.
J.J. had gone to the Saturday rally to protest Donald J. Trump's mocking of those with disabilities, he said. J.J.'s mother, Alison Holmes, brought her son, who speaks only through a computer vocalization device.
"The crowd started chanting 'U-S-A' and pushing his wheelchair," Ms. Holmes said.
As Ms. Holmes spoke, J.J. said through his vocalization device, "I hate Donald Trump. I hate Donald Trump."
Ms. Holmes looked down at her son with what seemed a mixture of pride and concern.
"We were put out by security," she said. "Mr. Trump kept saying, 'Get them out.'

------------------------------

• Coverage of the rally: "Trump's last gas rally" - Protesters get kicked out; it's actually a mother and her children, one of whom who has cerebral palsy and worries what a Trump presidency would mean for people with disabilities. Supporters kick at the family, including the boy's wheelchair, as Secret Service tries to escort them out.
• Caption for the photo reads: "After chanting for Hillary, Longwood's Allison Holmes and her family, Lori, 27, Grace, 8 and 12-year old J.J., who has cerebral palsy, are ordered out of the arena by Donald Trump. Unable to speak, J.J. communicates through a monitor, Allison said it was J.J.'s wish to attend the rally as he is scared of what will happen to him and other disabled children if Trump becomes president." KIMBERLY DEFALCO

• Coverage of Obama's meeting with the Holmes family.
• President Barack Obama met Sunday with a 12-year-old boy in a wheelchair who reportedly was kicked out of a Donald Trump rally a day before. J.J. Holmes, who suffers from a severe case of cerebral palsy, went to the Trump rally to protest the GOP nominee's mocking of people with disabilities, according to his mother, Alison Holmes. “The crowd started chanting 'U-S-A' and pushing his wheelchair,” Alison said, according to The Washington Post. “We were put out by security. Mr. Trump kept saying, 'Get them out.' "As Holmes was speaking to a White House pool reporter on Sunday, her son said through his vocalization device: "I hate Donald Trump. I hate Donald Trump.”

• Yesterday, this young man was kicked out of a Trump rally. As he was leaving, people kicked at his wheelchair. Today, he met his President. pic.twitter.com/VI4g2tKANG

  — Steve Schale (@steveschale) November 6, 2016

• I wrote about a mother and 7 year old disabled child being bullied at a Trump rally in Colorado in early October. They were "escorted from the rally for their own safety."

Pool report via Gardiner Harris of the New York Times and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post, and forwarded to me by Versha Sharma at Now This News

Donald Trump - Consistent on Antivax.

It's faded from the news during this intense election cycle, but Orac makes an argument that one of Donald Trump's most consistent positions over the years is that he's a proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Antivax groups know it though, and they're excited about having one of their movement appointing the head of the CDC.

Orac documents statement after statement against vaccines from Trump, then writes:

Which brings me back to Andrew Wakefield’s claim. Did Donald Trump really meet with Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced UK surgeon and researcher who was struck off and whose research leading to his infamous 1998 case series in The Lancet implicating MMR as a risk factor for autism was shown to be fraudulent so brilliantly by Brian Deer. If, so, this would be a very disturbing development, far more disturbing than yet another insinuation about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, as it would involve a major party candidate for President of the United States meeting with an antivaccine activist looking to bring measles back to the world. Indeed, I’m glad news of this meeting came out before the election, because, quite frankly, I find the idea of Donald Trump’s having met with an group of antivaccine conspiracy theorists and telling them he would help them if elected far more disturbing than yet another rehashed “revelation” about Clinton e-mails. Indeed, I’m surprised that news of this hasn’t been proclaimed to the antivaccine faithful before.

Later, he adds:

Now here’s the even more disturbing part:

The most important promise came at the end of their meeting when someone said, “Donald, you are the only one who can fix this.”
And Trump said, “I will.”
He will fix this.
Fixing this is not rocket science. Hell, it’s not even vaccine science. He will fix this. It is entirely fixable, and he appreciates our advocates lending their assistance in getting it done.
Friends, we have a direct route to stopping this madness. Can you imagine that for a second? Can you just imagine having vaccine education advocates getting face-time with the person who appoints the director of the CDC?
Trump asked for a follow-up with our side. They are giving him advice on how to help us.

It’s quite possible that Quackenboss is delusional about how much sway antivaccinationists have with the Trump campaign. She’s frequently delusional about a great many things. On the other hand, politicians—and, make no mistake, Trump is now a politician—frequently tell constituents what they want to hear. Also, Trump is known for being a most talented and shameless liar. However, there is a grain of plausibility here. Trump loves conspiracy theories, and the CDC whistleblower is a doozy of a conspiracy theory. He believes Alex Jones. He Tweets conspiracy theories unaltered about a great many things. He lies. All the time. So who knows what Trump really thought meeting with Andrew Wakefield and the VAXXED crew (and whoever else came along for the ride)? If he actually watched the copy of VAXXED Quackenboss claims that he received from Wakefield, Trump would almost certainly eat it up.

Donald Trump normalizes usually fringe conspiracy mongers. It's true for the anti-semites, the Alex Jones world government/George Soros types, and it's true for anti-vaxxers. Who knows what he "really" believes, but to some extent it doesn't matter. What matters is that he makes the unthinkable and the dangerous more thinkable.

Trump and Ableism - Resources

New from the L.A. Times

Donald Trump is the most ableist presidential candidate in modern U.S. history...

"Naming something an “-ism” won’t persuade the bigoted to surrender their bigotry and might even harden differences. But sometimes it’s important to identify ideas and acts that marginalize and discriminate, to group them together, and to name them as a system. Trump is empowering ableism. Let that be one of the many reasons he should never be president."

I talk about the insults, yes, but also the policy, the fat shaming, the "illness politics," and again the policy.

Some additional thoughts:

• Read "Ableism is not just bad words," by Lydia Brown.
• A quote I wasn't able to work in:

A systematic practice like Trump’s ableism pushes the politics of exclusion. Lisa Diedrich, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University, suggests that Trump is using illness politics to say that only healthy white men are fit to be president. Diedrich told me, “While it’s true that every four years the question of the health of the candidates becomes an issue in presidential politics, there is clearly something more going on this year.” Diedrich thinks that it might be too bigoted even for Donald Trump to say that non-white men are unfit, but that “Illness politics is perceived to be somehow more acceptable than more obviously racist and sexist arguments about fitness for the presidency.”

• I did quote Gregg Beratan from Crip the Vote, but Andrew Pulrang, a co-founder, talked to me about being bullied, but also said:

My sense is that disability activists are a little less interested in Trump’s crude ableism than they are in his complete lack of any disability policy ideas at all. I know I worry that for all the progress we are making, we risk sending the message that the only important thing in disability politics is not hurting our feelings.

Me too, which is why I ended up quoting Beratan on policy issues. 

But insults keep coming anyway. After my piece was filed, the news of Donald Trump's insults against Marlee Matlin spread, along with her outstanding statement in response.

Ableism watch continues.