Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Real

 

I am linking to Brandon Morse’s “Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Real and It Needs to be Studied” at RedState because I expect that almost all visitors to this blog have witnessed the Syndrome up close.  If any of your family, personal, or professional relationships have been disrupted or destroyed by this Syndrome, then Mr. Morse’s observations will resonate:

The concept of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” may have started as a joke to describe the over-reaction of hatred toward Trump, but after years of people upending good sense and their own principles in order to get at this man, I’m pretty convinced it’s real and that scientists need to study this in the future.

I see it every single day and as we drift closer and closer to the 2024 presidential election, I have a feeling we’re going to see it even more and in big ways.

. . .

I also see it on social media daily. Any disagreement with a leftist figure, no matter who, always results in the same replies about me being a Trump-obsessed drone, MAGA extremist, Trump-humper, etc., etc.

. . .

Yet, there are some who will craft an entire fantasy world around them where Trump was a great evil who never did anything but great evil and will do nothing but great evil in the future. In their minds, he must be stopped at all costs, even if that cost means ditching firmly held principles. I’ve seen this kind of mentality before in personal situations, but never on a mass scale such as this.

Decades from now, when we’ve left this age behind, I truly hope scientists and clinical psychologists study this moment. I truly believe that this is something of a shared madness that has ruined the minds and relationships of many people. It’s caused them to debase themselves and become unreasonable. I hope future generations look back at this and learn from it because I fear if we don’t then this problem will just fester, and I’d hate to see how this could get any worse.

Read the full column here.  

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They Can’t Let Him Back In

 

Michael Anton at CompactMag zeroes in on why we have to endure the January 6 Committee show trials and Liz Cheney’s Trump Derangement Syndrome. For me, Anton points out the obvious when he writes:

Love him or hate him, during Trump’s presidency, the economy was strong, markets were up, inflation was under control, gas prices were low, illegal border crossings were down, crime was lower, trade deals were renegotiated, ISIS was defeated, NATO allies were stepping up, and China was stepping back (a little). Deny all that if you want to. The point here is that something like 100 million Americans believe it, strongly, and are bewildered and angered by elite hatred for the man they think delivered it.

Nor was Trump’s record all that radical—much less so than that of Joe Biden, who is using school-lunch funding to push gender ideology on poor kids, to cite but one example. Trump’s core agenda—border protection, trade balance, foreign restraint—was quite moderate, both intrinsically and in comparison to past Republican and Democratic precedent. And that’s before we even get to the fact that Trump neglected much of his own agenda in favor of the old Chamber of Commerce, fusionist, Reaganite, Conservatism, Inc., agenda. Corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and bombing Syria: These are all things Trump’s base doesn’t want, but the oligarchs desperately do, which Trump gave them. And still they try to destroy him.

. . .

Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump. The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.

. . .

People I have known for 30 years, many of whom still claim the label “conservative,” will no longer speak to me—because I supported Trump, yes, but also because I disagree on trade, war, and the border. They call not just my positions, but me personally, unadulterated evil. I am not an isolated case. There are, as they say, “many such cases.” How are we supposed to have “democracy” when the policies and candidates my side wants and votes for are anathema and can’t be allowed? How are we supposed to live together with the constant demonization from one side against the other blaring 24/7 from the ruling class’s every propaganda organ? Why would we want to?

. . .

The full article is here.  On a personal note, liberal colleagues of mine bemoan the “divisiveness” in today’s society.  How could it be otherwise?  When liberals want to convert our country to some brand of socialism, how is that compatible with our Founders’ constitutional republic?

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Victor Davis Hanson on impeachment and TDS

Gary Varvel cartoon via indystar.com

Historian Victor Davis Hanson’s article “Is Trump the Only Adult in the Room?” has been linked on multiple web and blogsites. Here’s an extract via Fox News:

Democrats addicted to attacking Trump –

even if impeachment drive hurts them

. . . [N]o president in modern memory has been on the receiving end of such overwhelmingly negative media coverage and a three-year effort to abort his presidency, beginning the day after his election.

. . .

The common denominator of all this petulance is exasperation over the inability to derail Trump.

Trump’s many enemies fear he will be reelected in 2020, given a booming economy and peace abroad. They know that they cannot remove him from office. And yet they fear that the more they try to stain him with impeachment, the more frustrated and unpopular they will become.

Yet, like end-stage addicts, they simply cannot stop the behavior that is consuming them.

Full article is here.

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Propaganda vs expanded sources of news

image credit: vectorstock.com

Cherie Zaslawsky’s article, “Trump Derangement Syndrome: A Misdiagnosis” starts off:

Listen to Fox News, and you'll hear phrases such as “Trump derangement syndrome” and “liberal heads are exploding” on a daily basis. 

Conservative newscasts are peppered with comments like these: “They're delusional!”  “The Democrats just can't seem to accept that they lost the 2016 election.”  “They've gone crazy!”

Crazy like a fox.

. . .

From the beginning of its “long march through the institutions,” the Left has been playing the long game.  That hasn't changed.  Leftists are playing it today.

Why did they take over the media?  The universities?  Hollywood?  To get their hands on the key levers of propaganda.  Add to this the leftward tilt of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and we're looking at a virtual lockdown on the primary sources of information and public influence.

. . .

What can be done?

I suggest that, rather than only responding to each of the Left's baseless attacks on our president, those on our side change the debate by exposing the radical leftists' use of propaganda — by shining a light into the dark recesses of their strategy.  This may wake up some of their followers and maybe even begin to free America from the dark power of the Left.

I have had limited success pointing the media’s corruption to people I know who still rely on The New York Times or NPR or CNN for their news. One suggestion that has worked a few times is to propose that a person expand their sources of news. Tuning in to conservative talk radio can be traumatic, but browsing through aggregators and at least comparing headlines has made a difference with some friends and relatives. These days my go-to sites are Politipage, Instapundit, Lucianne, and a few others (but not Drudge any more). Full American Thinker article is here.

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It’s not derangement, it’s war.

“It’s Not Trump Derangement Syndrome” – it’s war. Them’s fightin’ words. Karin McQuillan at American Greatness explains:

The Democrats’ onslaught against Trump—the only force that stands in their way—is a testament to their will to power. President Trump didn’t cause the crazy attacks on him. The Russian collusion hoax was foisted on the country by the highest levels of the Obama Administration (likely including Obama himself, although no one will state the obvious) before Trump even entered the Oval Office.

This isn’t delusional or deranged behavior, it is deliberate political behavior aimed directly at the same old political end: power. Democrats — voters as well as party hacks — followed their leaders into the moral abyss because they didn’t care about undoing a legitimate election. They just wanted to win, at any cost to America and to our democracy.

Earlier in her article, McQuillan considered the Democrats' endless and ongoing efforts to corrupt the election processes:

They don’t want any safeguards against voter fraud. In fact, they want to legalize a broad highway to fraud, voter “harvesting.” Paid political operatives go door to door, picking up unused mail-in ballots (sent out without request if Democrats have their way), fill them in for the Democrat candidate, and voilà, the Democrats win. They just rolled out the beta test in Orange County, and it flipped long-time red districts blue.

To win in 2020, Democrats will commit every voter scam and fraud ever invented and they are in the process of inventing a whole lot of new ones. Intimidation and moral grandstanding are keys to success for them. . .

Which is why this report on automatic voter registration at Watchdog Ohio is disturbing:

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced a plan to create a work group that will focus on modernizing the state's voter registration, which would include automatic voter registration.

LaRose said that the current system is unsophisticated and has been used as a tool for political talking points rather than getting people registered and allowing them to more easily update information.

"If you are someone who is concerned about election integrity and preventing fraud, maintaining accurate lists is one of the best ways possible to prevent fraud," LaRose said in a statement. "If you're somebody who like me is concerned that absolutely every Ohioan can participate in the civic exercise of being a registered voter and participating in our elections, this is a great way to do that as well."

Currently, the Ohio voting system requires a person to opt into registration, but the proposal would use interactions that Ohioans already have with the state to automatically opt them in. This way, anyone can participate in elections, opt not to participate or opt out of the registration altogether.

What could possibly go wrong? McQuillan’s article is here. Tyler Arnold’s report at Watchdog Ohio is here.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s "Contact" website is here, with multiple ways to let him know what you think.

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Priorities in the Age of Trump

one version of Donald Derangement Syndrome

James Delingpole at Breitbart published an article, “Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Making Conservatives Lazy, Cowardly and Stupid”. He’s sorting through Never Trumpers, conservatives, and semi-conservatives. He concludes:

Let’s get this straight. We – at least the vast majority of us – on the side of the argument that Donald Trump is currently representing believe in stuff like: national borders, free speech, protecting citizens’ interests, equality of opportunity, lower taxes, smaller government, democratic accountability, the family, personal responsibility, rising standards of living, property rights, the rule of law, checks and balances, the Constitution, liberty. There is nothing in any of this we should feel awkward or guilty about. It does not make us Nazis. Or even semi-Nazis. Or alt-right. Or any of the other pejorative terms which – according to our opponents – make it wholly acceptable to punch the teeth out of anyone in a MAGA baseball cap.

Trump Derangement Syndrome has caused some conservatives – not all of us, thankfully – to lose sight of why it is that we fight.

We fight because we’re right. And yes – as Trump is one of the few conservative presidents to get – it really is that simple.

I am posting and linking since I expect it will resonate with most Cleveland Tea Party members. Full article is here.

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Trump Derangement Syndrome behavior

 cartoon credit here 

So many of my friends and relatives seem to live rational lives, yet when it comes to politics, their emotions take over. That makes it next to impossible to apply critical thinking to a discussion of issues of concern. But it’s not a new phenomenon.

Paul Murphy just published a column at the American Thinker website, provocatively titled “Democrats in the Cesspits of Despair.” He goes into the theory of cognitive dissonance and applies it to what we’ve seen with Bush or Palin Derangement Syndrome, and now, Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Murphy’s analysis won’t make hard left liberals (and that’s most of the media) more honest or less destructive, but at least it explains the behaviour. (Another article on the related topic of “The Obama Cult” is here).

Anyway, here are a few take-aways from Murphy’s column (and the entire article is here):

When Leon Festinger and his associates undertook the work leading to their widely misunderstood and maligned theory of cognitive dissonance, their ultimate goal was to understand how forty million decent Germans and tens of millions in the rest of Europe could so enthusiastically support Nazi methods -- and it's their research on how cult members react to the unequivocal disproof of some central belief that's important today -- because the increasing calls among Democrats for violence shows that same process at work here as in Germany of the 1930s.

In brief, what happens when events disprove a cult's major belief is that some adherents drop out; a majority first reshape their vision of reality to accommodate both their belief and an edited version of reality and then either gradually fade out of the cult or double down on their efforts to find confirmatory opinion by compromising others; and, a few set out to force others to act as if the belief stands unchallenged.

. . .

The key elements that have to be in place for the true believers to slide toward dishonesty and violence are personal commitment to the belief, undeniable disproof, and enough rationality for the person to know that the belief has been disproven.

That two of these are in place with the Trump victory deniers is obvious: most of the journalists and others now attacking Trump in particular and Republicans in general have overwhelming and long term commitments to the progressive cause. This despite the fact that every major attempt to act on those beliefs, whether by Uncle Joe, Chairman Mao, the Kim Dynasty in North Korea, or that great hero and champion of the poor, Hugo Chavez, has turned into a murderous regime corrupting everyone and everything it touched.

. . .

Thus the behavioral explanation for the fact that conservatives will generally accept electoral defeat gracefully whereas Democrats eagerly embrace hypocrisy, corruption, dishonesty and even violence to continue the fight by any means necessary is simply this: reality supports conservative belief, but pushes leftists down the slippery slope to the insanity of Trump derangement syndrome.  Reality forces them to continually choose between recognizing the emptiness and historical absurdity of their core beliefs or holding themselves hostage to those beliefs by escalating their commitment, no matter what foul means may be required to make reality conform to their fantasy.

The few times that I have had any success in persuading someone who leans liberal to reconsider their worldview, it’s been because I kept suggesting that they expand their sources of news. Most of the time, the person had at least heard of the Drudge Report or Yahoo News, but otherwise didn’t know about other alternative news aggregators (such as Real Clear Politics, or two of the conservative aggregators, PolitiPage and Lucianne). In other words, accessing more news has on occasion led to someone dropping out of the cult.

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Trump Derangement Syndrome

 art credit: Buzzie

James Delingpole reports on his and Melanie Phillips’ debate with two journalists who suffer from Anti-Trump Derangement Syndrome. His headline reads

Trump Derangement syndrome has jumped the shark

I hope he’s right. Read his report at Breitbart London here.

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More on Trump Derangement Syndrome

art credit here

Alicia Colon is another favorite columnist – informed, succinct, and easy to read. And she is a Deplorable. Her column today in Jewish World News resonated with me, It will probably strike a chord with most Main Street Patriots who have liberal friends and relatives who will not engage in any discussions on politics and who rely on the mainstream media for their news:

No, I Am Not a Moron but Half the Country is Deranged

A dear friend called me just before the last election to vent her disgust at the choices we had for president. She wasn't going to vote for Hillary and was leaning towards anybody but Trump.

She called the Trump supporters, 'morons' and when I told her I planned to vote for him, she quickly said, "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

That's the typical response I always got when I tried to discuss the election. I don't mind being called a moron because I know I'm not one, nor are most of the voters who went for Trump.

We 'deplorables' have probably done more research on the issues and are dumbfounded as to why anyone would ever think that Hillary Clinton was a viable candidate.

Since the recent firing of FBI Director Comey, the Democrats in Congress have donned their tin foil hats and view this as Trump's 'get out of jail' card to avoid a Russian investigation. If anyone has a Russian connection, it would be Hillary who as Secretary of State allowed Clinton donors to sell their company Uranium One to the Russians. This gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.

Incredibly this was reported by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire in of all places The New York Times in April 2015. This tidbit was in the article: 

"And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock."

Recently Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina alleged that then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called her office and demanded that she snag a special job for a big Clinton Foundation donor.

We 'morons' knew all about the shady dealing of the Clintons and their Foundation because we read the detailed research in, "Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich".

Thus the jackals in Congress keep regurgitating a non issue proving that they are partisan to the detriment of any integrity. I have no problem having a Special investigation into any Russian collusion as long as it includes an in depth look into the very real connections to the Clinton camp and that means John Podesta's 75,000 shares of stock from a Kremlin-financed company which he failed to disclose.

. . .

Most of us deplorables were incensed that Hillary Clinton was getting a pass after breaking the Espionage Act but Comey testified in Congress that she was not going to be indicted because there was no intent to break the law. WHAT? Hillary Clinton's reckless and negligent e-mails included the names of CIA officers serving overseas and foreigners who are on the spy agency's payroll -- potentially endangering their lives. Remember Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, was jailed for allegedly outing Valerie Plame, who was a CIA desk jockey, not a spy in the field? . . .

In the very short time Donald Trump has been president, he is probably the most besieged leader since Abraham Lincoln presiding over a super polarized nation. This polarization is not based on the serious issue of slavery but by the lies and malicious machinations of a hostile opposition party and the lapdog media minions. They have successfully turned half this nation into blithering, infantile, angry non thinkers who base their anger on faux news emanated by the liberal fascists in the media.

To fully understand what I wrote in my headline, consider three issues where the derangement is most evident-Black Lives Matter, gender politics and Climate Change.

Ms. Colon comments on these three issues; the rest of her article is here.

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Trump Derangement syndrome

Cartoon credit: A.F. Branco at Liberty Alliance via RedState

We've seen the syndrome before with George W. and Sarah Palin. It's baaaaack with a vengeance. American Thinker contributor David Zukerman reports that “Trump Derangement Syndrome sends NYT’s David Brooks off the deepend”

Once upon a time, David Brooks was considered the house conservative at the New York Times.  But in his April 21 New York Times column, he put President Donald J. Trump on a list of "strong men" that includes Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and North Korea's Kim Jong-un.  Mr. Brooks noted that Erdoğan has "dismantle[d] democratic institutions and replace[d] them with majoritarian dictatorship."  The Times columnist went on to assert: "While running for office, Donald Trump violated every norm of statesmanship built up over these many centuries[.]"  Mr. Brooks, however, does not elaborate, explain, or elucidate the nature of the alleged violations.

But when it comes to discussion of President Trump, NeverTrumps like David Brooks feel no need to place their anti-Trump views on a foundation of fact.  For Trump-haters, the truth is in the accusation.  And so, comparing President Trump to Turkey's Erdoğan, Mr. Brooks does not set forth the democratic institutions dismantled by Mr. Trump, nor does he provide evidence of the "majoritarian dictatorship" that was constructed during the first 100 days of the Trump administration.  How could he, there being no such dismantling, no such dictatorship here?

Mr. Brooks recognizes "the collapse of liberal values at home," citing "fragile thugs who call themselves students [who] shout down and abuse speakers in a weekly basis."  But are these illiberals to be found under the banner of Trumpism – or under the banner of the totalitarianism of left?

. . .

The threat to the American spirit of liberty is not to be found among conservatives, or in the corridors of today's White House.  The threats to democracy, to free speech, to the free flow of information are to be found on the left side of the political divide, from neo-totalitarians who, like the execrable Howard Dean, would limit free speech to persons who agree with the political biases of leftists – with the encouragement of NeverTrumps in the media like David Brooks, who lack the ability to distinguish a duly elected American president from the brutal dictator of a totalitarian state.

Read the rest here.

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