XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.trump, alt.politics.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   From: katt@gmail.com   
      
   "Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition   
      
   All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.   
      
   "Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has   
   been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the   
   point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."   
      
   Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the   
   Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into three distinct phases or   
   stages:   
      
   "In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The   
   president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, as if 140 characters were   
   all it took to change the world."   
      
   "The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's   
   vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of   
   hyperbole."   
      
   "As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from   
   reality."   
      
   The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk   
   opposition from liberals to anything and everything Trump does. If Trump   
   announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would   
   suggest he was up to something nefarious, according to the logic of TDS.   
   There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be   
   received positively by TDSers.   
      
   The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early   
   2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was a punch line for late-   
   night comics and nothing more.   
      
   Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first   
   coined by the late conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer back in 2003.   
   The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in   
   otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay -   
   the very existence of George W. Bush."   
      
   Added Krauthammer:   
      
   "Some clinicians consider this delusion - that Americans can only get their   
   news from one part of the political spectrum - the gravest of all. They report   
   that no matter how many times sufferers in padded cells are presented with   
   flash cards with the symbols ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, Time,   
   Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times - they remain   
   unresponsive, some in a terrifying near-catatonic torpor."   
      
   (If you don't realize the idea of TDS or BDS is - in no small part - meant in   
   a tongue-in-cheek manner then, well, you may well have it.)   
      
   Trump allies believe that TDS is worse than ODS or BDS - by a lot. Wrote   
   conservative pundit Bernie Goldberg on Real Clear Politics in early 2017:   
      
   "Before the election, the victims of TDS routinely compared Donald Trump to   
   Hitler. Guess what. They're still doing it. Articles in respectable   
   publications written by professors at elite universities are warning us to be   
   on guard, that a Trump presidency could imperil democracy-as-we-know-it and   
   may very well spell doom for American civilization.   
      
   "On election night, as it became obvious that their worst nightmare was about   
   to come true, some libs fainted. Some vomited. Many more threatened to leave   
   the country, but I'm pretty sure none actually did. As Donald Trump might say   
   in a tweet: so sad!"   
      
   The truth is that TDS is just the preferred nomenclature of Trump defenders   
   who view those who oppose him and his policies as nothing more than the blind   
   hatred of those who preach tolerance and free speech. Viewed more broadly, the   
   rise of presidential derangement syndromes is a function of increased   
   polarization - not to mention our national self-sorting - at work in the   
   country today.   
      
   We no longer live around, work around or pal around with people who think any   
   differently than us. We watch cable news that affirms what we already think.   
   We read ideological "news" sites that tell us how good our side is and how bad   
   the other one is. And on and on and on.   
      
   Is it any wonder then that we are increasingly willing to lump those who   
   disagree with us into the "deranged" category? To say that those who don't   
   share our views are mentally deficient in some way?   
      
   What does it say about a President - and about a country - when the standard   
   response to those with whom you disagree is that they must be crazy? Nothing   
   good, for sure.   
      
   =====   
      
   Many clinicians, political commentators, and members of the public have   
   speculated upon the mental health of President Donald Trump. Indeed, over   
   70,000 people self-identifying as "mental health professionals" have signed a   
   petition declaring that "Trump is mentally ill and must be removed." In   
   sociological terms, the "medical gaze" has been hitherto focused on President   
   Trump, and to a lesser extent his ardent supporters.   
      
   However, in recent months, many have been questioning the direction of this   
   "medical gaze." In fact, more and more people are suggesting that this   
   "medical gaze" should be reversed and refocused on President Trump's most   
   embittered and partisan opponents. Some have even suggested that these   
   opponents are experiencing a specific mental condition-a condition which has   
   been labelled "Trump Derangement Syndrome" (TDS).   
   What does DSM-5 say about "Trump Derangement Syndrome"?   
      
   Mental illnesses are officially classified in a dense and dry book published   
   by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) known as the Diagnostic and   
   Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). This book   
   contains 947 pages and lists hundreds of mental disorders; TDS is nowhere to   
   be seen. Similarly, a review of scholarly databases such as MEDLINE and Google   
   Scholar reveal no academic papers on this alleged syndrome. Officially at   
   least, TDS is not a real, diagnosable, or treatable mental disorder.   
      
   That said, medical anthropologists and critical sociologists have convincingly   
   argued that DSM-5 is a flawed document. Indeed, social scientists have long   
   recognized that there are numerous "folk categories" of mental disorders that   
   are considered real conditions by the general public, even though they are not   
   recognized as such in the DSM. These include categories such as "burnout" or   
   "nervous breakdown."   
      
   As such, lack of official recognition does not mean that TDS is not a real   
   mental condition.   
      
      
   Lay Understandings of "Trump Derangement Syndrome"   
      
   There is no shared lay understanding of TDS, mainly because it is a folk   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)