We have never seen anyone like Don Jr. when it comes to an ability to genuinely confuse us as to whether he’s being serious or trying to be funny in the way he answers questions or engages other people.

How do we even set this up?

John Rich is one half of the country duo “Big and Rich,” and from Rich’s Twitter feed, he is a dyed in the wool MAGA and possible conspiracy theorist because he doesn’t seem to trust vaccines because Bill Gates has invested billions in vaccines. Vaccines have gotten a bad name nowadays what with polio, smallpox, mumps, measles, and other previously lethal childhood diseases disappearing from our worries and lexicon. Many cultures didn’t even name babies until their first birthday. So many died in that first year that it was best to not get all too attached to the little cuties. Nowadays, we name fetuses in the womb and are more concerned about gender than diseases during that first echo.

Once those diseases became part of the history books, it was easy to forget how they became part of history. Vaccines made them disappear, not modernity. So, there is a particularly uneducated set of people who disfavor vaccines and it appears that Mr. Rich is one of those people. He wanted folks to know that he had the exact same medical background as Bill Gates.

John Rich may be a musical genius, in fact, he likely is (we don’t know), and there are all different types of genius. Bill Gates happens to be a technical genius. He is someone who can dig into technical reports and science, listen to doctors and scientists, and come out the other side with a pretty damned good understanding of what’s going on, while still being smart enough to never claim to be a physician or virologist. We would hazard that Bill Gates knows more about vaccinations and viruses than second-year surgery resident somewhere.

None of that bothers John Rich, nor Don Junior. We cannot tell if Junior is taking the pro-vaccine side here (we suspect that he is, since his father is responsible for the greatest vaccination movement of all time, ask him), it is Junior’s laughable reasoning that makes our sides split.

Acqtualllllly John, I have my CPR card, was a certified lifeguard in HS so I think I have significantly more medical credentials than you and Mr. Gates. https://t.co/qJvKMKcUpe

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 1, 2021

In case Junior ends up deleting the tweet our of sheer humiliation, it says, letter for letter: “Acqtuallllly John, I have my CPR card, was a certified lifeguard in HS so I think I have significantly more medical credentials than you and Mr. Gates.”

It is possible that Junior is mocking himself, joking that his CPR certification counts as medical training, it is possible, but we aren’t giving the benefit of the doubt to a guy that spells actually with a “q.” We aren’t the best spellers on earth, either – indeed, some of the worst, but that’s why we get help in spelling programs. And, we can “actually” handle a word like “actually.”

We also are smart enough to know that when Bill Gates speaks about a topic that he’s studied and worries about, we listen. We will likely learn a thing or two. We are smart enough to know that we have a lot to learn.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak