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Autism Awareness: How Rosie O’Donnell Lost The Upper Hand With Donald Trump With the Barron Trump Video [Opinion]

By Christine Beswick
Published on: 14:03 PST, Nov 25, 2016

Rosie O’Donnell did something really horrendous this week, in the opinion of many, a stunt now referred to as the trending topic “Barron Trump Video.” Barron Trump is Donald Trump’s 10-year-old son.

Rosie O’Donnell’s long-running feud with now President-elect Donald Trump is no secret. Mediaite reports the Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump feud dates back to 2006. But her stunt of using a 10-year-old child with no dog in this race this week, took the feud to a new level.

The Washington Times reports that Rosie O’Donnell has been spending the last three days “defending herself against backlash” after publishing something on Twitter about Donald Trump’s 10-year-old son having autism.

She says she was just doing it for awareness. But knowing the history between her and Donald Trump, her authenticity on this matter is called into question. Most recent posts on her Twitter timeline have been anti-Trump, and reflect mad protests to get him out of office.

There is not one single tweet from Rosie O’Donnell about autism awareness, promoting autism awareness, or talking about how special and awesome people with this neurological disorder are. There’s a lot of anger and hate from her though, about almost anything else.

Here is her now famous tweet, pushed to almost 1 million Twitter users, that has led to the “Barron Trump video” trend, because of Rosie O’Donnell.

Anyone that has ever felt bad for the things that Donald Trump has ever said about Rosie O’Donnell may now have a change of heart after this event. He has not been kind to her in the past.

He has called her disgusting, says she talks like a truck driver, called her a slob, ugly inside and out, weak minded, and worse. Here’s Donald Trump not holding back at all about Rosie O’Donnell in days gone by.

Trump did the same thing during presidential debates this year, and actually stood by these comments. He was not well-appreciated by the American people, mostly women, for this.

Once someone does this on national television, you pretty much own the moral high road on them for life. Until you don’t. That road slips out from under you when you go lower. And this week, Rosie O’Donnell did.

In the chess game of cruelty between Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell, this most recent move will forever go down in the celebrity history books as that time she used his child as a pawn in her attempts to kick off the president-elect’s crown. She has now lost the upper hand.

And worse, it is wrong. Wrong. On so many levels. It’s one thing to have an opinion about what someone looks like, it’s a whole other thing to bring a kid into it, and one with special needs as well.

The people spoke out about it.

Ah yes, stigma. The real problem here. Let’s put a pin in that one for a minute.

There’s an underlying fact first, though. There’s a generally unspoken, literally unspoken, rule about presidents and their families. Kids are off limits.

He’s not president yet, but still. Off limits. In fact, outing someone for special needs without any facts to back that up is the kind of thing that is off limits on anyone’s kid for the majority of people that file in the decent human being sector of life.

But even worse than bringing someone’s kid into your montage of hate, is not being factually accurate about it when you do. There is no confirmation by any source on what Rosie O’Donnell said. Further, she discussed a matter so personal, it may have even breached privacy laws.

She reflected in many ways in a very small message that she didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. She may even know that she seems to be making it up as she goes along. Which makes it even more wrong.

But the wrongest of wrong is the stigma.

Let’s have a look at the language.

Epidemic.

Dictionary.Com defines “epidemic” as a temporary prevalence of a disease or a “rapid spread or increase in the occurrence of something.”

Autism is not temporary, it is not a disease, nor is it contagious. It is not an epidemic, and to say so promotes stigma. Stigma leads to bullying. Her post was on bullying. If it was an authentic autism awareness post, it was a very uneducated and uninformed one at that. It’s almost scary to think someone with that size a platform would spread disinformation such as this to almost 1 million people about autism, and then call it autism awareness.

SARS was an epidemic. H1N1 flu was an epidemic. Autism, is a neurological developmental spectrum disorder. The word spectrum means there are no two children alike, that they fall on a “spectrum” or range of symptoms, from low-functioning to high-functioning. You can’t look at a child and diagnose him with autism.

Rosie O’Donnell’s language, which was guised as an anti-bullying campaign, was a bullying campaign. While decreasing actual awareness, it promoted stigma. It was demeaning to those with autism, and fails to recognize what autism is. Further, she told almost 1 million people that it was an epidemic.

It is not. She also did nothing to mention about how amazing children with autism are, with gifts beyond the average person’s capabilities, and even comprehensions.

As it turns out, it’s not even the first time that Rosie O’Donnell has offended the autism community, reports the Washington Times. Earlier this year, when she was doing stand-up, she complained about her teenagers and how hard it was to raise them saying, she wished she could trade them for “autistic triplets” instead.

Rosie O’Donnell reportedly has two children with spectrum disorders, which makes her behavior even more confusing. If she does, her insight, and empathy, into how her behavior could be perceived by the autism community is slim to none.

When she made the “autistic triplets” comment earlier this year, she deeply offended the National Autism Association, who, according to TMZ in this clip here, referred to her as less than dog [bleep] on their shoe. Watch more on that right here.

There has been no comment from the Trump camp on the recent matter. That’s the high road.

The worst part is, for Trump at least, if he retaliates in any way, legally, or just to respond, he breathes life into it too. And he probably wants to because most parents in that situation would happen to would see red if it was their kid.

But if he does, then it becomes a thing. And the person that will suffer the most is that poor child, and the president-elect must know this.

But there will be a time and a place when Donald Trump can respond on the “Barron Trump video,” and he probably will. He did say in the video above he would “like to take some money out of her fat [bleep] pockets” by suing her for previous things she has said.

Maybe this will be the straw that breaks that camel’s back for him. Until then, he now has the moral high road with Rosie O’Donnell.

That’s right. Donald Trump has the moral Trump card with Rosie O’Donnell. Let that sink in.

Check mate, Rosie.

[Feature Image by Jeff Kravitz/AP Images]

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