"Trump derangement syndrome (TDS) is a neologism describing a reaction to United States President Donald Trump by liberals, progressives, and anti-Trump conservatives, who are said to respond to Trump's statements and political actions irrationally and with little regard to Trump's actual position or action taken.[1] The term has been used by pro-Trump conservatives to discredit criticism of Trump's actions" Wikipedia
"Derangement is the state of being mentally ill and unable to think or act in a controlled way. " Collins DictionaryI was recently diagnosed with "TDS" by a friend with strong pro-Trump views.
Not being a FOX or any other cable channel regular viewer, I looked up for help in Wikipedia: "Tax Deducted at Source" showed up on top, but didn't seem the case. I kept searching until the word "Trump" appeared. Then, I was able to track its origins back to its sources: FOX channel and the self-proclaimed conservative media.
Looking at the levels of anger around the public persona of Donald J. Trump I couldn't help but to remember similar reactions towards his three predecessors: Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Presidents before Clinton (1992) were contested -Reagan being the most obvious example- but not with the intensity that the last four have experienced.
I looked up again and noticed a revealing marker: 1993. It was the year Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel with the explicit mission of promoting a militant, anti-liberal agenda and the candidates of the Republican Party.
Over time, MSNBC took FOX's role on the Left camp and CNN turned to what its critics (mostly in FOX) nicknamed "Clinton Cable News".
The rise of partisan mass-media combined with the populist politics of personal attacks and slander campaigns has created a toxic atmosphere that turns politics into a civil war re-fought by other means.
In such a climate, paranoia prospers and spreads -conspiracy theories, "us-versus-them", identity politics and so on- and finds constantly malignant and insane enemies in those who think, look or live differently from "us".
The newest fashion promoted by FOX channel is the ultimate "psycho-insult": calling on others the "TDS syndrome" (for Trump Derangement Syndrome), a new epithet meant to dis-qualify any criticism directed toward Donald Trump as a mental instability problem of the critic.
The problem with encouraging self-made psychologists to engage in drive-through psychoanalysis is that ill-defined categories can be obviously applied back the other way around.
Let's stop for a minute on the "D" for Derangement in TDS.
If we follow the definition of the term:
"Derangement is the state of being mentally ill and unable to think or act in a controlled way. " Collins DictionaryWhen we think of "Derangement" we should include "Trump-lovers" in addition to "Trump-haters". Love and hate, after all, have little to do with reason. And infatuation can turn into hate and vice versa. As it did with Hillary and Donald's views on each other before and after the 2016 election.
If there is such a thing as a Trump Derangement Syndrome, it seems as accurate to describe unconditional and fanatical allegiance as hate. In both cases, irrationality is on full display, and both TDS-negative and TDS-positive types can close their minds and ears to each other's views and arguments. Family and friends included.
Psychoanalyzing others instead of discussing facts and arguments ratchets up another notch the barriers to rational discussion and communication. Both TDS-positive and TDS-negative might find comfort in saying: "after all, why bother listening to deranged people?". Mental institutions are crowded with people feeling that way.
Civility takes a serious blow each time discussions turned into personal arguments and character attacks. On this area, Left- and Right-wing extremist media -from Mother Jones to Breitbart- not only excel, but thrive as a cottage industry catering to extremism and reciprocal paranoia.
TDS is the Trumpian-intolerance equivalent to Left-wing "safe zones". It has the same uses -preventing any contact with those who think differently, enabling aggression and shutting down any criticism.
Both forms of TDS serve the purpose of erecting walls between Americans. Walls much thicker than physical barriers and much stronger than party registration. The Anti-Trump Far Left sets its TDS walls in the campuses calling them "safe zones".
The Pro-Trump Far Right has created its own version of "safe zones" with "TDS" shutdowns.
The danger of this psychological "TDS walls" is precisely that they shut down peaceful communication, escalating the inevitable contact with the "others" into physical confrontation.
The "TDS" category is also a recycled product.
It used to be called "BDS" for Bush when it was first invented by FOX news to use against any Bush 43 critic.
There was, of course, also an "Obama Derangement Syndrome" (ODS) as well -used by Obama fans to shut down Obama critics as bigots and those like talk show host Glenn Beck to shut down Obama supporters:
And, of course, we don't have any moral or rational reason to listen to haters.
We actually are told (by partisan media) that we have a moral and rational obligation not to listen to those we diagnose with TDS.
Each time we use the "TDS" argument to shut down others, we engage in cultural warfare and become part of the TDS syndrome we just tagged to others.
This rant scene of the old Network film was very popular among anti-Obama Tea Party conservatives, back when Trump campaigned on questioning Obama's birth certificate. It is a good example of Derangement Syndrome (you choose the first letter for the object of deranged passion) and it summarizes the power and the danger of "TDS" and the politics of madness:
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