Dealing with Trump Derangement Syndrome

As human beings we are first and foremost creatures of emotion, and it’s no secret we don’t always act rationally.  Consequently, when issues are truly important to us, we are more likely than not to have a strong emotional reaction to them.  Which is precisely what occurred when Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory triggered an apoplectic response from the left in a phenomenon known as Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS.

We can speculate about its origins, but a good argument can be made that TDS was born in response to Trump’s war against progressive culture beginning with the “birther issue.”  And let’s be honest, saying anything even mildly derogatory about Barrack Obama, much less daring to question his background is considered heresy by the left.  So, in today’s blog I’m going to share how I dealt with TDS during a recent encounter with it.

Conventional wisdom suggests we simply ignore the negative comments and barbs and move on.  But suppose this liberal disease touches on matters that are important to you, like say the well-being of the nation—what then?  To answer that I’ll cite two separate conversations with friends who are loath to give Donald Trump credit for anything.  In both instances, I commented about how the Trump administration gave us Operation Warp Speed resulting in not one, but two vaccines.

The first time I made that comment was to my friend Ken, who became agitated, raised his voice and in a condescending and didactic tone said, “Trump didn’t give us a vaccine, congress did!”  I didn’t respond to Kenny’s invective because I knew any response would only irritate him further.  Nonetheless, after the encounter I reflected upon how I might respond to such a patently biased opinion in the future.

My chance came last week when I met a different friend for lunch.  Once again after commenting that Trump gave us two vaccines, this second friend also became agitated and, in a moralizing, tone said, “What are you talking about, doctors gave us the vaccines that they had been working on for years!”

Perhaps the wisest thing to have done would have been to ignore the comments as I did with Kenny—but I simply wasn’t going to allow him to get away with that kind of b.s.  My friend is Jewish so I purposely posed a question I knew would touch a nerve asked how he would feel if I told him I thought Holocaust never occurred and that it was a fabricated myth.

The look on my friend’s face was one of disbelief.  He then paused for a moment and said, “Then you wouldn’t be my friend,” to which I replied, “Well that’s exactly how I feel whenever you make unsupported and disparaging comments about Trump or when you deny his many accomplishments even when those accomplishments are supported by unequivocal evidence.  My friend was speechless.  To drive home my point, I referenced the American Defamation League study of anti-Semitism where 54,000 people were surveyed in 102 countries revealing that 46% of the world population had never even heard of the Holocaust.  And of the 54% of the world’s population that have heard of it, 26% believed the accounts were greatly exaggerated and 30% maintained it was a myth.

The entire tenor of our conversation had changed—no longer was my friend the glib liberal with TDS, rather I had thrown him a curve ball and he was flummoxed, but at the same time, the very pallor of his skin and facial expression told me he received my message loud & clear.

Denying the Holocaust is perhaps the greatest lie ever foisted upon Western civilization, and it’s unfortunate it took such an extreme example to illustrate my point about how provably false narratives not only exist but are perpetuated out of pure enmity.  It literally required me referencing the most egregious lie imaginable to stop the torrent of barbs, accusations, and ignorant comments my friend was engaging in.

TDS is irrational, so the next time you encounter it turn the tables by being rational and ask the one question liberals never want to be asked, i.e., “Where’s your hard evidence?” then remind them that Holocaust deniers are just as adamant in their beliefs as are those afflicted with TDS.

Quote of the day: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” – Jonathan Swift