Now that the electoral system has an admittedly successful con man in the White House, groups from far and wide that supported him will show up on the gilded penthouse doorstep demanding payback. Given some of the groups that stood by Trump through thin and thinner, that should send shivers up your spine. But some of them are more obscure than others, and at least one of those lessor known forces is very, very dangerous to the immediate health and safety of everyone in America:
As I’ve mentioned before, in general, antivaxers leaned heavily towards Trump, thanks to Donald Trump’s long, sordid history of antivaccine statements in interviews and on Twitter. I’ve documented them before on multiple occasions going back to 2007, which is the first time I learned of Trump’s antivaccine proclivities, leading me to frequently observe that, given Trump’s well-known history of flip-flopping and taking multiple sides of any issue based on convenience, his antivaccine views are quite possibly the one set of beliefs that he’s been utterly consistent about for at least a decade.
A week ago, I noted how Levi Quackenboss, the pseudonymous antivaccine blogger known for attack a 12-year old pro vaccine advocates, would want in on the action. After all, she loves to write about her “inside knowledge,” such as when she bragged about how Del Bigtree, producer of the antivaccine propaganda movie VAXXED, met with Rep. Jason Chaffetz about investigating the CDC and when Andrew Wakefield and company met with Donald Trump in August and reportedly received a sympathetic hearing. She even claimed that Wakefield gave Trump a copy of VAXXED, but who knows if he watched the movie.
We did a good job during the last eight years of stopping inroads from anti-vac groups into progressive leaning activists. But over on the right, they found a much friendlier environment. Anything anti-science and anti-government—and especially anything progressives object to—was a great fit with the black helicopter crowd opposing a black president and the anti-science clowns opposing reality. So anti-vaxxism ran against less opposition there. Now, with an anti-vaxxar in chief, we’ll see if that investment pays off. But if it’s any grim solace, endemic disease doesn’t distinguish between political parties.