Trump and the Rise of Autism Hate Speech
Charlie loves Snapchat. He’s also become adept at purchasing apps. I watch him playing on the iPad and the sense of joy becomes eclipsed by a sense of doom. Somewhere a clock is ticking. He’ll become more interested in social media. In blogs. He’ll start to engage with internet culture. Eventually he’ll find himself described as this:
One of the many disgusting aspects of the culture Donald Trump has ushered into American life has been the rise of hate speech related to autism. The use of the word “autistic” has quickly replaced “retard” in the lexicon of the alt-right, which uses the term freely and with ill-intent. Infostormer, the blog dedicated to “destroying jewish tyranny” used the term when defending Richard Spencer’s infamous nazi-saluting “Hail Trump” victory speech:
They seem to think that the Jew media whining about Spencer hailing Trump and a few people responding with roman salutes was part of this conspiracy. This was apparently to elevate Spencer so they could use him to demonize Donald Trump. I don’t see how any of this proves a conspiracy. It sounds like a bunch of autistic and speculative gibberish.
Blogger Matt Forney, another Trump acolyte, has volumes of articles in which he appears to claim that leftist causes are the result of an increase in autism, in which he links “broken minds” to feminism (in a piece whose cover photo is a man with Down Syndrome posing in a superman costume for comical effect):
The amount of dysfunction depends on the particular feminist/MRA in question — that’s why we have an autism spectrum — but all of them are mentally disabled to some degree. In other words, arguing with feminists and MRAs is completely pointless, because it means we have to take seriously the delusions of broken minds.
Notwithstanding the notion of those with autism as being ‘delusional’ and ‘broken’, the autism epidemic as a catalyst for the left’s existence isn’t unique in Matt’s blog either. Alt-Right star Vox Day has blogged about this connection as well, concluding that atheism is the result of autism (or ‘psychopathy’ as he calls it):
This is yet another piece of scientific evidence in support of my hypothesis that atheism is nothing more than the predictable consequence of being neurologically atypical; that atheism is what might as reasonably be described as social autism.
Vox Day also has a wealth of other articles citing erroneous links between vaccines and autism, which as we’ve discussed before promotes a lot of vitriol toward the ASD community, but has been echoed in statements made by Trump himself.
What’s disturbing about this dialogue isn’t the face-value shock, it’s that in connect-the-dots fashion it blames science (a typical target for the Right) for creating bad vaccines, which are the cause of autism, which is the cause of the left, which is the root of all evil in the United States. From the use of the term “autistic” as derogatory, those with autism are not only painted as subhuman, but part of a larger sociological circle contributing to all of society’s ills, from feminism to Black Lives Matter. Under that pretense, mocking someone with autism isn’t just excusable, it’s patriotic.
At this point Donald Trump has proven himself too incompetent to pass even the most basic legislation, and lacks the knowledge and work ethic to be the fascist monster some have seen in their nightmares. But he has created a culture in which groups of people, from Jew to Hispanic to Autistic to Muslim, can be scapegoated for someone else’s unhappiness and therefor be a target for unashamed bigotry and ignorance. And anyone who dissents is part of the problem (i.e. snowflake, libtard, pussy).
Let’s be clear — It wasn’t Bernie Sanders who created this culture. It wasn’t Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. It wasn’t Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama. What you see below is the direct line between a poor leader and his greatest achievement, which is the creation of a political culture in which hatred is disguised as discourse. It will be long after Trump’s presidency that we will be able to roll back what’s become the new normal:
