I'm Not Deranged. You Are.

“TDS.” In its Jon Stewart/Trevor Noah heydays, the acronym meant “The Daily Show,” and I liked it. Now, though, consistent with the way Fulton County (Ga.) Inmate No. P01135809 has melted the minds of millions, it’s come to stand for “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term liberally (!) applied to these columns and to all Americans who find the former “president” abhorrent. Because he’s a threat to democracy; a liar; an instigator of violence. A promiser of vengeance and retribution against those who’ve rejected his claims of electoral fraud; a man of lifelong immorality, scams, business failures, and cozying to mobsters foreign and domestic. Who just claimed the endorsement of a former Gambino crime family Mafia hitman as a badge of honor.

TDS. As I responded recently to a less-than liker of my writing, it’s like saying people who found Jeffrey Dahmer bothersome were suffering from DDS. (No offense to dentists.) Nevertheless, Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, a condition of pandemic proportions. And, like an endemic virus, despite our best efforts, it defies attempts to eradicate it.

Criticizing Trump, rejecting his venality and mendaciousness, trying to awaken people to his unfitness, is no more of a “syndrome” than calling for help when your house is on fire. It’s observational. It’s recognizing imminent danger and sounding warnings. Supporting Trump, on the other hand, defending or denying his inadequacies and incompetence, or, worse, sharing his hate for the Constitution and most of the people protected by it, constitutes a confounding depth of definitional derangement. Believing his laughably conspicuous lies about elections, Joe Biden, birth certificates, the economy, the Presidential Records Act, etc., ought to have its own diagnostic code. It’s neither normal nor healthy for the body politic. And it’s evidently incurable. In this case, an effective vaccine would require Billgatesian, brain-altering microchips.

Example: my online conversation with a lady who insisted Trump had lowered the US budget deficit when, in fact, his unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy exploded it. Inflation was lower under Trump, she said, correctly, but was unable to process that it was due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, made even worse by his mishandling of it. She blamed Biden for the subsequent rise in inflation even though it coincided with economic recovery and was and remains higher everywhere else in the Western world. Our lower rates of inflation may be attributed, at least in part, to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, of which she’d not heard.

Many Republican politicians who once forcefully criticized Trump, describing what a disaster his “presidency” was or would be, have shed their evanescent flicker of integrity and kissed the ring. Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum, among others, all endorsing him, derangedly. True, many people who worked directly with him in or near the White House are warning of the danger Trump represents; they’re enduring his and his supporters’ wrath and death threats because of it. But those temporary, timid truth-tellers tumbled when tested by Trump. Fear of those afflicted by the real TDS sent their honesty to the exits like the latest of Trump’s lawyers.

When asked why they support Trump, MAGAcal thinkers point to “the direction” this country is headed. Asked for specifics, it’s always the border. Wide open, so the undocumented will vote Democratic, they say, deluded and deranged. Some mention the economy, but are unable to elucidate, which is unsurprising, given its red-hotness and unprecedented job creation. Having no accomplishments on which to run, it’s understandable that “the border” is the MAGA rallying cry.

To the surprise of no one, Trump won Iowa. To the disappointment of no one, Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out. So did decent-guy but unnoticed Asa Hutchinson. 81% of Iowa voters agree with Trump that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. 68% believe the 2020 election was “stolen.” This is who they and virtually all Trump voters are: TDS sufferers, worshippers at the feet of a xenophobic, demagogic liar, welcomers of dictatorship coming to America. People very much at home on derange.

It’s worth noting, with bridled optimism, that nearly half of Iowa Republicans who voted (only about eight percent of the registered did) chose not-Trump. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that, unlike previous winners of Iowa caucuses who weren’t -- Cruz, Huckabee, Santorum, Dole, and others -- Trump will be the nominee of the party that once produced people of honor. And elected them. Though it’s been sounding since Trump first dragged it down that Trump Tower escalator, the death knell of that long-ago party was completed in Iowa. Only non-MAGA Republicans can resurrect it. They could do it, just this once, by voting for Biden.