[The Powerline weekly meme collection is especially deft today]
Again I was preparing a detailed analysis of why I believe Trump Derangement is important as a category, a diagnosis, and an acknowledgement of spreading national psychosis, not as an insult or an ad hominem attack. Again I was derailed by what I laughingly call “life.” But at the risk of piece-mealing a topic that deserves serious focus: I was reminded of the issue when a good friend wrote on Facebook last night to the usual unanimous praise and agreement of the Bubble after another fact-free rant, “If you voted for Trump, de-friend me and fuck yourself!”
You see, I view that post as signature significance for clinical Trump Derangement. She doesn’t know how many of her friends voted for Trump in 2024, or why, but no matter what her relationship with them may be, however much they may care about her, how many acts of kindness or love they may have blessed her with, regardless of what they have achieved or suffered and who they have helped in the other spheres of their lives, the simple, civic act of voting for the current President of the United States is sufficient justification in her jaundiced eyes to condemn them and demand that they cut themselves out of her life.
That’s nuts.
There is no way to defend such an attitude, only ways to explain it as a psychological malady over which the victim (in this case an extremely intelligent, compassionate, rational, ethical human being) has no control. As usual in such episodes, I wrestled my fingers to the floor and declined to give the post the slapdown it deserves, simply clicking on the nicely ambiguous “Haha!” emoji. I frankly don’t see how anyone who voted for the party of the Demented-President Cover-up, the open-borders betrayal, the unconstitutional “good discrimination” and anti-merit bigotry of DEI and the rest, via a ticket consisting of a babbling, unqualified and undemocratically-nominated fool at the top and a corrupt, seditious boob at the bottom isn’t walking around with a paper bag over his or her head out of crippling shame. But that’s OK…I don’t need an explanation, and I won’t hold it against them. That’s because I still have an intact mind and am capable of keeping politics in its place while maintaining a sense of proportion. The Trump-Deranged don’t and aren’t. Pity them.
Yet they are doing real damage to others who are weak of mind and vulnerable to hysteria. I was just listening to Peter Asher’s (excellent) weekly show on the Sirius/XM Beatles Channel. Paul McCartney’s old friend was taking calls from listeners, and a middle-aged white woman, choking back tears, got on the air and wondered if other people “experiencing the terrible things happening in our country” are given some peace and solace by listening to Beatles songs.
You know, like “Oobla-dee, Oobla-da.”
I’m not certain what “terrible things,” she was referring to, but the “everything is terrible”refrain is the mating call of the Trump Deranged. Asher and his guest had a hard time restraining their amusement. I wished one of them had asked, “What exactly are you talking about, dear?” The Sixties, when The Beatles were at their most influential, was a much more “terrible time” than what the nation is experiencing now, and the Sixties doesn’t make the top five of the most miserable periods in U.S. history. The Trump-Deranged, however, are loud, relentless, and disorienting, especially if one is, like this caller, an emotion-driven sap. People like my Facebook Friend are driving other Americans crazy.
I wish I knew what to do about them
Ethics Alarms 
“The Powerline weekly meme collection is especially deft today“
Couldn’t agree more; it’s one of my 1st visits each Saturday morning….after EA, of course.
PWS
There was Trump Derangement before Trump.
I encountered this sort of thing over twenty years ago on Usenet newsgroups.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.conspiracy/c/iG00s9FE-60/m/7tBP2ojk15oJ
I’m going to default to the Trump deranged simply wanting single party rule. Again, the theory is that once Obama was in office for eight years, we were at the end of history, and the left had won. Hillary Clinton would take over for the next eight years and there would never be another Republican president. Ever.
Then, horror of horrors, this guy won, instead of Hillary. And he wasn’t a Democrat and didn’t even act anything like a Democrat (or even a Republican, or a politician, for that matter). They’ve never been the same since. They are unmoored. The shock of Republicans having any power so upsets them, they cannot function. All they want is Soviet or Cuban style single party rule. They thought they had it, they don’t, and they simply can’t handle it.
Clue: Whenever a Trump Deranged person goes off on how horrible a person Donald Trump is, ask them what Republican they would consider acceptable as a president. Hint: they will be unable to speak.
And get a load of this: Where are the ICE protests this weekend in Arizona? The Arizona Republic is providing publicity for nationally organized “protests.”
“The events have been dubbed “ICE Out for Good Weekend of Action.”
“The mobilization comes in response to the escalation of ICE violence in our communities, the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old wife and mother of three, and the months-long pattern of unchecked violence and abuse in marginalized communities across America,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a written statement. “Across the country, communities will gather in nonviolent, lawful, and community-led actions to honor the life lost, demand accountability, and make visible the human cost of ICE’s actions.”
The coalition of organizations include the ACLU; Indivisible: MoveOn Civic Action; Voto Latino; United We Dream; 50501; and the Disappeared in America Campaign of the Not Above the Law.
Here is a list of events taking place on Jan. 10 and 11 in Arizona:”
The article then lists the time and place of seventeen, count ’em, seventeen “demonstrations” scheduled for all over the state, as if they are grass-roots phenomena. Which number doesn’t include the one staged in our town, Tubac, by Indivisible, a post HRC defeat “resistance” group that’s received five million dollars from George Soros’s foundation and son.
“You see, I view that post as signature significance for clinical Trump Derangement. She doesn’t know how many of her friends voted for Trump in 2024, or why, but no matter what her relationship with them may be, however much they may care about her, how many acts of kindness or love they may have blessed her with, regardless of what they have achieved or suffered and who they have helped in the other spheres of their lives, the simple, civic act of voting for the current President of the United States is sufficient justification in her jaundiced eyes to condemn them and demand that they cut themselves out of her life.
“That’s nuts.
“There is no way to defend such an attitude, only ways to explain it as a psychological malady over which the victim (in this case an extremely intelligent, compassionate, rational, ethical human being) has no control.“
If I have been reading and listening correctly, the movement that arose in reaction to everything that has been defined as *Wokeness* (perhaps this has been best expressed by James Lindsay as he has discovered and articulated the roots of ‘wokeness’ in various forms of philosophical radicalism), has been described in undoubtedly militant terms. The entire idea of the recovery of America, either Constitutionally and perhaps also ‘spiritually’, and reversing the gains of the Woke Left, is understood by them as a declaration of war against goodness itself.
It does not seem at all surprising that the woman on FaceBook would state such a thing. It is a ‘natural’ evolution of the transformation in attitude about what the United States is or more properly what it has become.
There is a known cause for TDS, but, there does not seem to be any short term cure.
We have, for example:
A president who can issue mass pardons and commutations for violent demonstrators and who also can state erroneously that a non-violent protestor in a different situation “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer”.
A president who can use elite military forces to capture a foreign leader for prosecution for drug crimes and almost simultaneously pardon another foreign leader with a similar drug crime history.
A president who routinely insults people for imagined offenses.
A president whose ego demands his name and his picture be featured prominently, who surrounds himself with the ostentatious displays that characterizes a glitter brain.
A president who requires constant attention and deference.
Many see all this and write it off as unimportant, just Trump being Trump, and ignore his excess while reflexively castigating those who see it and can’t stand it. That also is a type of derangement, just one without the catchy name.
Taking Trump seriously vs taking him both seriously and literally. Grounded, sober sane… Boring not catchy.
No it’s not, HJ. It is being able to distinguish annoying behavior from substantive effectiveness, and possessing the ethical value of proportion. For example, pardoning the Honduras asshole doesn’t minimize the benefits of removing Maduro. Insulting people and punching down is un-Presidential, but it doesn’t minimize substantive accomplishments.
Perspectives vary, of course, but the fear Trump is creating in a number of communities with what he portrays as getting rid of rapists and murderers and what those living in the communities see first hand as brutal thuggery and gestapo tactics goes well beyond annoying and unpresidential behavior.
Personal anecdotes don’t prove a point, but they can be illustrative. I have a couple of grandkids, older teens, living, working, going to school in a community experiencing vigorous ICE enforcement. Could they be challenged to prove their citizenship because they might look a bit like Somalians? Yep. Absolutely. And, how would you coach teens to respond to what looks like a threat from heavily masked, hostile officials, often using vulgar, threatening, language? Or another couple of grandkids, young adults facing the same kind of threat in another ICE active area because of their Hispanic ethnicity? Are you Haitain? Illegal? Prove it!
Yeah. Trump derangement.
Okay, Ed, now do the same for Bill Clinton or Joe Biden.
I don’t do whataboutism, but feel free to go about it yourself.
Bringing up Bill Clinton makes me realize what shit we’ve had for presidents since. Clinton had personal failings but did quite a bit as president. I’d put him on par with George W Bush, and heads and shoulders above Obama. Beating Biden is a low bar, he’s on par with Carter.
I’m unsure what to credit Biden with, I doubt he actually did much the entire time he was in office. The executive branch was run by Jill Biden and Mike Donilon.