Cultural wars go to the couch: TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) or the politics of madness

"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 Dictionary

I 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 Dictionary

When 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.

The good old days when Donald was a Clinton fan -and Hillary loved his jokes-

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:

Trump's presidency, first year: the politics of antebellum

In 2016, the United States elected its second populist president (after Andrew Jackson . 

A year after, both anti- and pro-Trump find themselves puzzled by the constant 180 degrees swings that characterize the new president's positions.

Author Michael Wolff wrote what in my opinion is the best description so far of Trump's political positions:

"The paradox of the Trump presidency was that it was both the most ideologically driven and the least.

It represented a deeply structural assault on liberal values—Bannon’s deconstruction of the administrative state meant to take with it media, academic, and not-for-profit institutions.

But from the start it also was apparent that the Trump administration could just as easily turn into a country club Republican or a Wall Street Democrat regime.

 Or just a constant effort to keep Donald Trump happy. Trump had his collection of pet-peeve issues, test-marketed in various media rollouts and mega-rallies, but none seemed so significant as his greater goal of personally coming out ahead of the game.”

I think  Wolff has captured the essence of populism: its lack of it. 

Populist leaders can talk with Far Left or Far Right "talking points". Think of Chavez and the Spanish Podemos or the Greek Syriza embracing "socialism" and "equality" criticizing their own Socialist parties for "betraying" socialism.

Look at Marie Le Pen's National Front or Nigel Farage's UKIP and you will find they criticizing their Right wing conservatives (Gaullists and Tories, respectively) for being "too soft" on their Right Wing causes: anti-immigration and protectionism.

Populist leaders use Left or Right-wing speeches alternatively: Left wingers like the chavista regime apply "law and order" harder than their berated Right-wing enemies. Right wingers like Le Pen blast "inequality" and "financial elites" harder than socialists or communists.

Like Wolff notices in describing Donald Trump's zigzagging politics, populist leaders only cling to one thing: keeping happy their own electoral base by channeling their anger with uncivil behavior (like calling names their rivals and flaunting "political correctness") blaming new "enemies of the people" for any failures. Populist leaders have no friends or allies, just "people working for me" -as Trump remembered those who bragged their influence on him.

Ignoring that basic premise was what provoked the fall of grace for Steve Bannon and his rather Napoleonic nationalistic dreams of becoming a "king maker".

It's good to remember how Benito Mussolini used ambiguity to drive coalitions between Far Right and Far Left:

"Tomorrow, Fascists and communists, both persecuted by the police, may arrive at an agreement, sinking their differences until the time comes to share the spoils. I realize that though there are no political affinities between us, there are plenty of intellectual affinities. Like them, we believe in the necessity for a centralized and unitary state, imposing an iron discipline on everyone, but with the difference that they reach this conclusion through the idea of class, we through the idea of the nation." 

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 494, Mussolini's declaration near the end of 1921.

For populists, principles and ideology are means towards a superior end: gaining and keeping popular support. Ideologues like Steve Bannon and the Far Right are discovering it now.

Populism thrives by fanning the flames of cultural and civil wars in both directions. 

Trump's presidency is basically a new "antebellum". 

The previous one started with the last (and only) previous populist presidency.

Here, an excerpt that might sound familiar to our days:

          Partisan Politicking (Antebellum)

The successful presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson in 1828 began the "Jacksonian" period of populist politics and participatory democracy for white men [...]

political strategists cultivated a candidate's popular appeal on the basis of his reputation for courage, bravery, and masculinity. This formula was amply demonstrated by Jackson's military history in fighting the Creek Indians and then as the hero of the battle of New Orleans against the British in 1815. Democrats hosted mass rallies, parades, and barbecues to stir up popular s upport and enthusiasm for Jackson, and to encourage voters to identify with their party. [...]

Jackson and subsequent presidential hopefuls in the antebellum era tended to avoid making clear statements of their positions on the important political issues of the day, from the national banking system to the tariff. They usually made vague and broad promises to cleanse the government of corruption and privilege, and while they did not usually specify how they planned to do so, their good intentions were usually enough to win over the electorate.

White men became actively involved in politics as a central component of their sexual, national, and even class identity. Though Jackson was a prosperous slaveowner by the time he ran for office, he portrayed himself as a man of the people and derided his opponent, John Quincy Adams, as an intellectual and an elitist. [...]

 In 1828, Jackson received 56% of the vote, the highest percentage of popular support for any president elected in the nineteenth century. Jackson had begun the process whereby successful and propertied candidates had to appeal to a mass electorate and fashion themselves as "men of the people" in order to win elections. [...]

No fundamental redistribution of wealth followed his or any subsequent elections. These candidates presumed to relate to the voters whilst representing the sort of heroism or success that was supposed to be possible for any man in America. Candidates in this new political era quickly learned that they could succeed by touting their military backgrounds or by appealing to popular sentiments and prejudices. 

Historians saw the parallels when Trump was just a candidate:

Left and Right-wing populists like candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders found common ground in Jacksonian populism: