In Defense of Trump Derangement Syndrome

Media histrionics are justified against a deranged Trump

Trump derangement syndrome

When one criticizes Trump, they will inevitably be accused of possessing some fatal, incurable disease known as Trump derangement syndrome. One who has the horrifying TDS will believe anything bad about Trump, and call him a felonious rapist, even on the basis of shoddy evidence. The media is routinely mocked for their supposedly overblown claims about Trump.

I think people tend not to take very much time out of their day to actually evaluate the charges—they just pattern-match it to TDS, something them and their friends make fun of, and conclude that it must be ridiculous. I suspect very few of those making fun of the media hyperventilating about January 6 took time to read any of the indictments or watch the J6 hearing or even become basically familiar with the fake electors scheme.

It reminds me of my old days in high school debate, when almost everyone was an insane leftist, and they didn’t so much consider right-wing arguments as pattern match them as things right-wingers say, before mocking them in a dumb voice. When a conservative friend of mine joined a Discord server to argue with them, it was one of the most brutal debate pwnings I’d ever witnessed. It turns out that the fact that you and all your friends mock an idea doesn’t make it wrong, and trying to make fun of the opposing view goes less well when you have no idea what you’re talking about and you’re in conversation with an intelligent proponent of the opposing view.

Note, I don’t say this as a hardcore Democrat. While I tend to vote for Democrats, I have an eclectic mix of sort of left libertarianish views. Nor am I some neocon who hates Trump for abandoning a highly aggressive foreign policy—I have written at length in defense of a generally non-interventionist foreign policy. The reason I’m anti-Trump, aside from just not liking his policies, is that I think he’s a singularly dangerous feature of American politics, being petty, stupid, vindictive, incompetent, and malicious—totally willing to threaten American institutions for personal gain.

Now, I can’t defend every charge that is claimed to be indicative of Trump derangement syndrome. So let me just defend several: Trump is a threat to Democracy, there’s a serious risk of him going after his political opponents, and he likely committed sexual assault.

Trump is a threat to Democracy

I used to listen fairly regularly to the Michael Knowles show. Though I didn’t share his politics, Knowles is a great speaker and is unbelievably funny. Whenever he would mention January 6, he’d put on a silly grandiose voice and say “Jaaaaaaaaanuary sixth, the most fateful day in our nation’s history, a threat to our Republic and to Democracy.” Enough of this is no doubt enough to make the typical Knowles viewer, like most of the American right, roll their eyes at claims that January 6 was a serious threat to Democracy.

Well they shouldn’t and it was.

I recently wrote an article about Trump being a threat to Democracy. He threatened Democracy last time by attempting a coup, and the sort of person who would attempt that is a serious threat. What did he do?

1. After losing an election that he knew to be fair, he tried to get state legislators to approve slates of fake electors rather than the real ones.

2. When this didn’t work, he tried to get Raffensperger to fabricate fake votes that he knew to be non-existent.

3. When this didn’t work, he tried to get Mike Pence either not to certify the results of the election, to throw it over to the house who would declare him victorious, or to simply approve some fake electors to declare him president.

4. When this didn’t work, after a violent mob broke into the Capitol, he sat around doing nothing for hours, tweeting about Pence’s spinelessness, hoping that the mob would intimidate Pence into approving the fake electors. This was as he was begged by everyone around him to call off the mob.

(1 and 3 are a bigger deal than 2 and 4).

At every stage, he tried to get himself declared victorious in an election he lost and got scarily close; had Pence gone along with his scheme, this would have led to an extreme constitutional crisis, where Republicans and Democrats disagree about the duly elected presidents, and there is no clear institutional answer. That isn’t something to roll your eyes at and dismiss as leftist hyperbole. That’s a serious threat, an unprecedented attempt to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. If one seriously considers the establishment view on this rather than dismissively making fun of it, they find it quite hard to avoid.

Trump threatens vengeance

The inspiration for this section came from Dennis McCarthy’s insightful essay.

If Trump wins, there’s a serious risk he’ll go after his political opponents, weaponizing the justice department to persecute those who haven’t bent the knee. Why think this? Two reasons: first, he tried to do it before; second, he’s said he’d do it over and over again.

During the first Trump term, his administration was staffed with many loyalists, but also with lots of normal, sane, bureaucrats. He had people like Esper, Milley, Sessions, and Pence. Now, these people are gone; Pence is out because he didn’t bend the knee, replaced by someone who dedicated the last few years to sucking up to Trump so effectively that he was eventually nominated, who said he’d comply with Trump’s dangerous election scheme. As Ezra Klein says in one of the best essays I’ve ever read on the Trump phenomenon:

But Trump’s age is not what worries me most. This was not a man possessed of personal restraint in 2016 or 2020, either.

What has changed even more than Trump are the people and institutions around him. The leader of the House Republicans is Mike Johnson, not Paul Ryan. Mitch McConnell is stepping down from Senate leadership. And while I do not consider McConnell a profile in courage, his successor will be more in need of Trump’s patronage. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, for all their flaws, are out, while Don Jr. and Lara Trump are in. JD Vance wormed his way onto the ticket by promising to do what Mike Pence would not. Elon Musk is doing everything in his power to buy influence, centrality even, in another Trump administration. The Supreme Court has given Trump immunity from prosecution for official presidential actions. Republicans have spent four years plotting to take control of the administrative state — to stock it with loyalists who would never, ever do anything to impede Trump — and turn the entire machinery of the government to Trump’s whims.

Klein notes that one of the things that differentiates Trump is his extremely low inhibition. He’ll do whatever he wants just because it seems cool in the moment without stopping to think about it. He’ll randomly sway to music for 40 minutes at a rally just because he doesn’t feel like giving a talk. He’s very spontaneous. Klein quotes a political article saying:

“As White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus mused to associates that telling President Donald Trump no was usually not an effective strategy. Telling him ‘next week’ was often the better idea.”

During the previous administration, Trump tried to do lots of crazy, disastrous things but was kept in check by the serious people in his administration. A senior security official is quoted as saying “Everyone at this point ignores what the president says and just does their job. The American people should take some measure of confidence in that.” Among other things he tried to:

• Cut off FEMA support to Californians suffering from wildfires because of his beef with Gavin Newsom.

• Fire patriot missiles at suspected Mexican drug labs.

• Get the military to shoot protestors during the summer of 2020.

For the first time, we will have a Trump presidency in which the inmates are running the asylum.

When Trump was previously president, on a dozen different occasions he tried to get his administration to punish his political opponents. He tried to get various members of his administration to investigate Clinton, McCabe, Comey, Biden, and Raffensperger. When he tried to do this before, his administration mostly stopped him, but such a thing won’t happen when it’s staffed with loyalists and sycophants.

On literally 100 occasions, Trump has voiced support for locking up his political enemies. He reposted statements advocating for the arrest of Biden and Cheney for treason. He’s repeatedly talked about prosecuting “the enemy within” using the military, saying, for instance:

I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Not even the people that have come in and destroying our country — by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, the villages, they’re being inundated — but I don’t think they’re the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Trump later clarified that “the enemy within” includes his political opponents like shifty Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. He “retruthed” something advocating a military tribunal lock up Cheney:

If someone tries to do something on a dozen occasions but was stopped and then talks 100 times about doing it more, after the things that might stop it are no more, it’s not hysteria to predict they’ll do it.

Trump likely committed sexual assault

“You know they’re standing there with no clothes. Is everybody OK? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.”

These are the words Trump said on the Howard Stern show. Unsurprisingly, we have many reports of Trump strolling into the dressing room of beauty pageant contestants. This by itself is bad enough and we know it happened because he admitted to it publicly and on tape and it’s attested to by many other people.

In total, there are 26 people who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Now, when people accuse a public figure of sexual misconduct, one should be quite a bit more skeptical for there’s more of an incentive to do so, in order to discredit them and become famous. But many of these accusations go back quite far; he was accused by Ivana, his ex wife, in 1989 of sexual assault (though she later recanted) and by Jill Harth who filed a lawsuit in 1997 of assault and pervasive harassment.

Additionally, the sheer number of people who have come forward is surprising if he didn’t commit sexual assault. Biden was just as hated as Trump but had only one accuser; Roy Moore had fewer accusers than Trump. Desantis is just as hated as Trump but has no accusers. Many of the accusers are well-documented as having known Trump, appearing in photos with him, despite him claiming he’d never met them.

Additionally, the E Jean Carroll case is particularly credible given that she told multiple friends at the time about the time that she’d been assaulted. It was convincing enough to get a New York Jury (probably biased but still…) to convict Trump. This combined with Trump’s many accusers dating fairly far back combined with Trump admitting he walks into women’s dressing rooms combined with the access Hollywood tape bragging about kissing women immediately after seeing them without waiting or asking for consent makes it pretty likely he committed sexual assault.

Carroll’s story is also not the kind of thing that she’d be likely to make up. She admitted to being with Trump willingly, flirting with him, and said she couldn’t remember the date. One who was lying wouldn’t be afraid to lie in ways that make their case better—such a person would be unlikely to admit to such things. I think these facts are enough to make it quite likely—maybe 70% odds—that Trump committed some severe sexual misconduct beyond merely what he’s admitted to.

Conclusion

When I think about a Trump presidency, I keep coming back to the contents of the Ezra Klein article. Trump’s first term wasn’t good, but it wasn’t a huge disaster. When Trump tried to do something particularly dangerous and deranged at every step of the way. Here’s what those around him said about him (I found this on FaceBook):

When he tried to prosecute his enemies, Sessions said no. Now Sessions is gone. When he tried to overturn the election, Pence said no. Now Pence is gone. Mattis and Kelley were so alarmed by him that they made a pact never to be overseas at the same time, so that at all times one of them could keep him in check. Many of the people surrounding him describe him as childlike in his simplicity, and having to manage him—

Daniel W. Drezner

’s book, The Toddler in Chief, quotes many of them:

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich: “There are parts of Trump that are almost impossible to manage.”

Trump White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon: “I’m sick of being a wet nurse for a 71 year old.”

US Senator Bob Corker: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center.”

GOP campaign consultant Karl Rove: “Increasingly it appears Mr. Trump lacks the focus or self-discipline to do the basic work required of a President. His chronic impulsiveness is apparently unstoppable and clearly self-defeating.”

Newsmax CEO and longtime Trump friend Christopher Ruddy: “This is Donald Trump’s personality. He just has to respond. He’s been so emotional. . . . It takes a toll on him, and the way he deals with it is to lash out.”

Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson: “I’ve come to believe that Trump’s role is not as a conventional President who promises to get certain things achieved to the Congress and then does. I don’t think he’s capable. I don’t think he’s capable of sustained focus. I don’t think he understands the system.”

We had a child as president. Formerly, nothing went too wrong because the whitehouse was staffed by babysitters. Now, that babysitters are gone, replaced by a series of people who have made a career out of kissing Trump’s ass with such fervor that they survived his reign of terror.

In light of the presence of a malignant narcissist who tried to overturn a fair election, has made efforts repeatedly to prosecute his enemies, and is sufficiently deranged and incompetent that the former members of his administration—all of whom have now been ousted and replaced by suck-ups—felt as though they had to treat him like a toddler, a sober analyst will view him as deeply deranged. Trump derangement syndrome—viewing Trump as uniquely pernicious and believing things about him that would be deranged if believed about others—is fully rational. Given this and the fact that a single vote in a swing state has a probability of one in a few million of changing the election, I’d encourage those of you in swing states to vote against him.