'Trump Derangement Syndrome' Jabs Keep Going Left — And It Shows A Specific Weakness
The concept of a so-called 'derangement syndrome' isn't new. The term had previously been used to label some opponents of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama when they served in office. It's also been applied to critics of other prominent people. And Trump touted the so-called 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' phrase to attack his naysayers during his first term as president.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), who served as the White House press secretary during Trump's first term, once said in 2018: 'Trump Derangement Syndrome is becoming a major epidemic among Democrats.'
In recent months, conservatives have often used the made-up condition as a line of attack against anyone who opposes the actions of the current administration, such as Trump's flurry of executive orders, the president's foreign policy approach and his sweeping tariffs, among other issues. During a Friday appearance on Fox News' 'Hannity,' Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, said that several Democratic elected officials who were criticizing Trump's tariffs were living with 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.'
But her remarks went awry after a clip of her interview was shared on X, formerly Twitter. People pointed out that criticizing a president's policies is — and should be — considered a standard aspect of a healthy democracy, not a 'syndrome.'
'Not hard to oppose worldwide tariffs that are going to raise the prices on [goods] in the U.S.,' one X user wrote.
'Trump derangement syndrome is actually believing what he says, not being suspicious of it,' wrote another.
Similarly, several GOP Minnesota state senators were slammed for wasting taxpayer resources last month when they introduced a bill to have 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' recognized as an official form of mental illness in the state.
Minnesota state senate majority leader Erin Murphy, a Democrat, said at the time, per CBS Minnesota, that if the bill was 'meant as a joke, it is a waste of staff time and taxpayer resources that trivializes serious mental health issues.'
'If the authors are serious, it is an affront to free speech and an expression of a dangerous level of loyalty to an authoritarian president,' she said.
New York City psychiatrist Leon Hoffman warned in a letter published in The Guardian at the time that such a bill would infringe 'on our constitutional right to freely criticize our elected leaders and can serve as a stepping stone towards labeling and punishing political opponents under the guise of utilizing a variety of compulsory psychiatric interventions.'
The same day the bill was introduced, GOP Minnesota state senator Justin Eichorn — one of the bill's co-authors — was charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution. He has since resigned.
The bill had described the faux 'syndrome' as an 'acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.' Trump adviser Elon Musk — who was not elected to office by American voters but has proposed sweeping cuts to the federal government — publicly promoted this 'syndrome' during a sit-down interview with Fox News in February. The billionaire said he experienced this so-called condition while at a dinner party, where he said people around him were being 'irrational' with their concerns about Trump.
So, why do so many right-wingers level 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' attacks at the president's critics?
Jacob Neiheisel, associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, told HuffPost that he thinks the charges of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' are 'as much, if not more, about the person or persons leveling them than they are the intended targets of such rhetoric.'
'Labeling concerns about Trump or his policies 'TDS' provides individuals with a way to deal with disagreement such that they don't actually have to encounter or consider different points of view,' he said. 'Instead, they can simply write off others as having some form of mental illness.'
Neiheisel explained that saying someone who criticizes Trump's policies has 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' is a 'rhetorical tack' meant to 'shut down debate or discussion about the president.'
'But it could also be about protecting one's own worldview as much as it is about minimizing or attacking different perspectives,' he said.
Neiheisel, whose expertise includes political communication, campaigns and the U.S. presidency, said that while he doesn't exactly think the 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' label will be effective in silencing the concerns of Trump critics, he believes 'any orientation that is geared toward shutting down debate and minimizing the extent to which we see other sides as having a legitimate point of view is a negative from the perspective of the overall health of a democratic system.'
He said he's concerned that such labels could further push people supporting different political parties to 'give up entirely on the prospect of communicating across lines of difference.'
Neiheisel said that people who oppose the actions of the Trump administration should 'of course' speak out and reject the 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' label, since the way we use different labels in society is crucial.
He referenced debates about the labeling of the word 'liberal,' and how it had been disparaged by conservative politicians for decades.
'There is some speculation that Democrats' refusal to defend the word 'liberal' gave Republicans the opportunity to make it something of a dirty word,' he said. 'As a result, perhaps, 'liberal' is a lot less popular as a label in the general public than we might think it should be given the comparative popularity of liberal policies.'
He added: 'This narrative does suggest that political language is important and that political actors fight (or should fight) about the use of different labels.'
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