Trump Derangement Syndrome: A Definition
Over at r/WayOfTheBern, where my reposting of a Caitlin Johnstone tweet has been uprated seventeen hundred times, one respondent basically called me a Trump supporter and said:
"Trump Derangement Syndrome" is made up bullshit to deflect from Trump's very real failings. The LARPing Trump supporters who run and manipulate this sub use it the same way because they don't know how to be subtle.
Here was my response:
Those of us who post on this subreddit know very well of Trump's failings. If we didn't think Trump was failing, we'd be arguing that "America is great because Trump is President." That is what ACTUAL FKN TRUMP SUPPORTERS say. Instead, we're arguing that there's a multiple and worsening crisis and that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump nor the current "Left" strategy is going to fix things.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is what causes people to say that people who argue the multiple and worsening crisis position are Trump supporters.
This is the problem, then. The 2020 election appears as a referendum on Trump. If I were a real Trump supporter, I would be cheering on Trump. But I am doing nothing of the sort. Rather, I am (in the Reddit post) pointing to a problem much bigger than Trump or Biden, a problem which neither of them have any interest in dealing with: the compound crisis. California is burning, people are being evicted, the economy is shrinking, and Donald Trump is destroying the Postal Service while Joe Biden associates plan austerity. But I know! Let's obsess over the Presidential election!
Thus you can see not two publics, one for Trump and the other for Biden, but three -- the third public seeing that neither Trump nor Biden is going to save us from the present dilemma, much less the grim future that's in store for us. The third public might say #NeverTrump #NeverBiden out of a sense of moral outrage at the situation, but it doesn't really have a big stake in America's loudly-proclaimed choice of grifters to lead the nation into doom. Moreover, if the election is a referendum on Trump, then the situation is more or less in Trump's hands, and not ours. Hell, it might not be in our hands at all. Do we have free and fair elections? And Trump is, at least for now, conceding the election through his idiotic behaviors.
Sufferers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, however, don't see it that way. For them, we are the enemy for even bringing up this topic. For them, this is the most consequential election ever, and it is our moral duty to vote for Biden even if we live in safe states. They are angrily out there looking to cancel their lifelong friends if said friends depart in the least from vote-for-Biden-orthodoxy. Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers believe that anything other than a vote for Biden amounts to a vote for Trump.
But, fundamentally, what defines a sufferer from Trump Derangement Syndrome is the loudly-proclaimed inability to distinguish between those who actively support Trump and those who want no part of either candidate in this year's Presidential contest. That's the bedrock definition.
Comments
since I question the value of voting...
I don't know if it matters what we think or who we vote for. They've got it sewn up. Like that well-known cartoon of a cow going to the abattoir with two entrances, one saying "D" and the other "R".
I do think it's odd to call hating Trump "TDS". I hate the dude. I think it's fine to hate him. I think it's fine to hate Biden. Is hating Biden "BDS"? Not really, it's just hating Biden, equivalent to hating Trump.
I see that you're especially calling out those who insist on voting for bad goods because they hate one guy more than the other. But it's possible to think that Trump *is* worse. Biden will be bad, no doubt. I don't think he'll be worse, though.
There is no Biden Derangement Syndrome
because the election is not about Biden. The election is a referendum on Trump. Biden is hiding in his basement, waiting to become President after Trump is finished destroying his own political career.
Nobody is out there equating #NeverTrump #NeverBiden people with Biden supporters.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Given that neither will do shit about the climate crisis,
I'm not sure how one determines "worse." We're talking about me and everybody I love dying--since I can't see any of us surviving in a Mad Max post-civilization world, which is what a failing climate will bring about. Certainly Kate, who is a transplant patient, can't survive without civilization and its technologies. Asking who's worse--Trump or Biden--is like asking if it's worse for me to be killed by Jeffrey Dahmer than Ted Bundy. Is it? I don't know. Is it worse for me to have my business burned down by Al Capone rather than getting it burned down by a saner gangster? I don't know. The latter are better at looking normal, I guess. Is that better or worse?
I know that
Biden[whoever's puppeting Biden] said he'll spend ten jillion dollars on the climate crisis, but since he didn't do shit when he was in the White House before, I doubt he'll do anything now. Obama was a lot more believable in '08 when he talked about stopping sea level rise. He hadn't been in the White House before; he'd only been in DC a few years, so I could believe that he might want to do something rational before we all die. Well, that wasn't true.In this case, we don't have the luxury of a candidate who hasn't been in DC for a long time. Biden's been there for forty years, and he's been about as much of an advocate for climate as he has for black people's civil rights [or, put another way, the faction that's puppeting Biden also puppeted Obama and Bill Clinton, and we've never gotten anything out of it that might help with the multiple crises facing us].
These days you get more rational politics from a wrestling promotion than from politicians:
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
agreed that they're both terrible
Biden is fortunate that he's half-senile. Watching clips of him from the olden days reminds us how bad he is and how Trump-like he is.
We can't make much impact on the 2020 election but we can start planning now for 2024.
I'd like an Orange Cassidy ticket
possibly with Pharoah the dog as a VP.
Sadly, I can no longer find the images for "PHAROAH 2020--`GOOD BOY'."
But this is Pharoah the dog...
I think Pharoah could really work a crowd.
Plus, Pharoah can't talk, and Orange Cassidy almost never does, so it would be the best campaign ever.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
To bring up the ugly
reality is to be negative and not give Biden a chance... I have told my two Dem friends in no uncertain terms I will not vote for Joe Biden. After even hearing about the pathetic show of Democrats at the DNC I am beyond disgust, and that's not really a very great description either. It really doesn't matter. As Shar said, they've got it sewn up. For some horrid reason I am beginning to think Biden just may "win" it. Either way, WE LOSE. And they're proud of showing us that. I am thinking I write in Cornel West, although I will fully admit I won't waste much time and may just not bother at all. As if Biden would change anything. I also admit I am personally horrified by another 4 years of Trump, but either way it is all downhill from here. They know this country is going down, they've known it for a while, a nice deep depression should give them total control over a hungry and desperate populace. By the time those who refuse to see it wake up, I do truly think it will be too late. Can't help what you feel, ya know?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Well, since they're putting Republicans on stage as
essentially keynote speakers--I believe they gave John Kasich an hour?--in addition to running two former Republicans as candidates--one of whom switched to Republican in 2001 and endorsed George W. Bush from the Republican Convention stage in 2004--I'm not sure what the point is of being a Democrat. Or, really, of pretending that partisan politics means anything.
I can see that they're trying, and to some extent succeeding, in merging Bush Republicans with Clinton Democrats and making that the new political faction of the day. Trump is the handy justification for moving ahead with that. But let's not pretend that we have a contest between right and left here. Quite apart from the fact that the Democrats aren't left anyway, there is no real contest. They're working together to get rid of Trump because he's a loose cannon and they want things under control, not because Trump is a bullying bigot with cruel policies who doesn't know what he's doing.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I agree with your definition wholeheartedly.
This is an email I sent a friend on Friday, 8/23, when he accused me of cynicism and exhorted me to vote for Biden because TRUMP! I think it is very explicit and backs you up all the way.
***
Let me talk about “cynicism” a little. Here is the dictionary definition:
"an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; scepticism: public cynicism about politics.
• an inclination to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile; pessimism: cynicism about the future.”
There is a point where cynicism is simply realization of reality. A point where skepticism has been confirmed as truth. I have seen no evidence that the Democratic Party intends to do anything for working class or poor people. I have been looking ever since Bill Clinton revealed his intentions. The DNC has successfully pulled every trick, dirty and otherwise, to keep good people out of politics for forty years. They have done nothing for us but an awful lot for their oligarch donors. Rather than give you a long diatribe let me refer you to two people who know more about it than I and who definitely put it better than I can:
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising
Just listen to the first segment of the Friday, August 23, broadcast "Krystal and Saagar: Kamala, Obama, Hillary, and the no good, vapid, identity obsessed DNC".
Kristal does a superb job of telling you why it makes very little difference who wins. The rest of the program reinforces the message. The little people still get screwed. Until we can form a decent third party or until we do what the people of Belarus are doing, nothing will change for the better for us. There is only one party in the U.S. but it goes by two names. If Trump is reelected and does what his handlers seem bent on doing, we may finally reach the point of rebellion and real change. Power does not concede anything willingly or peacefully. I hate that we have let it come to this, but few would listen. You aren’t the first of my friends who has chided me about my stand but I have voted for the lesser of two evils for the last time. Voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil. With catastrophic climate change, a pandemic, a depression, forest fires, and no political solution we can no longer afford to wait.
Please show this to Xxx and you guys can let me know why you think I’m wrong. I will listen. But it will take a good deal of convincing to move me.
***
I agree with your position,Cassiodorus; I just wish I didn’t have to do so.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
so, it is TDS against
Dem's Damn Arrangement Syndrome... ?
I predict the lowest ever recorded voter turnout for the 2020 presidentioal election. The only way to avoid it would be to legally demand an at least 99 percent voter turnout for the election to be valid and representative.
Enforce voting and the candidates inclduding write-in ones which also lists a candidate with the name of "nobody" would be counted. In that case you would need to legally enforce voting. The name, who get the relative majority is the "winner". I think that would amount to totalitarian democracy or some such.
Who ´will arrange the derangement syndrome into something that heals the syndroms? Does that look like it will be nobody? Where did I hear to vote for 'nobody' before ?
ok, I guess I am a little deranged by now. I am sorry, It is contagious.
Peace.
https://www.euronews.com/live
No. You aren't deranged, Mimi.
There was a movement to "Vote for Nobody" or "Nobody for President" some years ago. I think it may have been an Arthur Hoppe inspired campaign. Hoppe was a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote a column which sometimes featured a soldier named Corporal Partz. The father of a friend of mine wrote him asking when Partz had been promoted. Hoppe was delighted that someone got the joke.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Remember when...
The Onion used to parody Biden as the 'President of Vice', washing/working on his Trans Am, because he was essentially a political joke, given his past presidential campaign efforts.
And now he's the candidate.
Ye gods! How did we get here?
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Mass derangement
with a heaping helping of ignorance covered with "We're too stupid to think for ourselves" sauce.
Ahhhhh!!! Delicious enough to gag a maggot!!!
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
You know what’s really funny?
Around the time that Biden was starting to catch some flack for being Creepy Uncle Joe, some of the Onion writers quietly admitted feeling some guilt about the image of Biden they helped popularize. They seemed to get it, that they really trivialized the man’s shortcomings and now, this is what we get.
Hindsight and all that, but it is interesting to think about how the Onion’s version of Biden might have influenced how people think of him now.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
To both camps a warm and sincere
message from Jon Stewart.
[video:https://youtu.be/W2YK7pADmWU]
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
I for one will not be voting
I for one will not be voting this year. It is a waste of time and it matters little which of these two parasites wins. I can do nothing but roll my eyes at people who honestly believe otherwise.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
I unregistered.
I’m not playing in that playground until/unless a new leader emerges and/or we change our system of government.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Talking about the failings of Trump and the Republicans
Is like talking about the grass being green or the sky being blue. That’s the norm. It’s what we expect. What’s the point of wasting time on discussing it because it is what it is?
The Democrats are supposed to be better, which continues to be a lower and lower bar they still manage to fail to clear. That’s why I complain about them. If they want to hold themselves as being better then I will hold them to that. When they fall short, I will call them out.
When I come up against someone hyperventilating over the latest Trump outrage, I always ask “and what are the Democrats doing about it?” That usually at least stops them, and sometime they even get the point. I think I’m going to start telling people I’m only trying to push Biden to the left when they start calling me a Trump supporter and garbage like that.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
If that's the definition, it's a superfluous term
What you are describing already has a name:
“The Bush Doctrine.“
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
national pride
is why moi landlord hates the president and must vote biden. same with mr martin. they both feel as if the world is laughing at us when it should be admiring us for our great bigliness or something like that. trump has harmed it and biden will unharm it that is what they are voting for. national pride.
meanwhile i cannot open the windows for air tonight because the stench of sulfur in the smokey air is so thick it makes me feel like throwing up. my god the democrats have destroyed california how can anyone argue for that i dont know. as california goes so goes the nation. giant flushing sounds
wtf freedom aint so fun when its bowls of shit every day down here in the ditch. electing another demented rapist is definitely going to return the national pride because reasons. half the planet will become somewhat happier the other will become sicker and dead. dont drink the water and dont breath the air and every thing will be just great. dumbfuckistan rules
good luck
Any criticism of Democrats
is automatically called out as being a Trump supporter.
Let's see...
Any criticism of Obama made you a racist, any criticism of Hillary made you a misogynist...
What's new?
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
What is this?
US president's sister says Trump 'has no principles': Report
I want another movie now.
https://www.euronews.com/live
just more mud slinging garbage
exactly as expected from google news msdnc et al bless their hearts. might as well let the modern stasi entertain you as the world burns. it could be worse.
what kind of people pile on harder right after a guys brother dies. cant even take a bereavement break. no empathy. trumps dysfunctional family feud yet another distraction from the wealth sucking vampires bent on world domination. fuck those guys.
ps on another note i did acquire 3 cheeseburgers. twice. once for breakfast yesterday and once for breakfast this morning. had to ask the grocer if they sold ground beef i couldnt find it. after a funny look they handed over a package of pink slimy grass fed something. 15 bucks for one pound woo hoo. made six burgers on the panini grill outside. love the smell of toxic smoke mixed with burning ground meat in the morning. ah california.
cowsay hell yeah
beef filled aggression
lol no joy
What? 15 bucks for one pound of ground beef?
that is outrageously expensive. USA is beef country, right? Is there such an inflation already over at your side of the pond? oh, what a shame. One pound of ground beef would be around 3-4 euros (around five dollars) here. Actually per kilo.
Can you raise some rabbits and chicken on a piece of land? I don't remember anymore if I ate rabbit in Germany when I was young or was I already in the US. Rabbit meat tastes delicate, if you cook it like the French do. I had an easy but delicate recipe. It's good with rice in a white wine, whipping cream sauce.
Hugs. my mother never forgot that Americans sent care packages after WWII to German families in Berlin. I never forgot that my mom sent care packages from our location in West Germany over to family member who were left in East Germany in the fifties and early sixties. There are some islands near Greece and Turkey, who fear they won't have enough food on ther islands pretty sonn, if a second lock-down is ordered, because of the corona virus. Tourism is dying out, everywhere. And it is just mind boggling how many small businesses on these vacation islands and coast did depend on tourism for their survival.
Santa Claus wants to send you a box of chocolates, some angels told me, so watch out for it.
Hang in there. Be well. Very happy you keep on talking and reading.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Price gouging due to fires in Cali
I'm thinking it's price gouging due to the fires. Plus, it's "grass fed" instead of gmo corn fed. That's more expensive because most meat in the US is gmo corn fed.
And yes, rabbit is quite good. So is squirrel, but most folks don't eat either. Can't buy either that I know of, that's already butchered. Most people aren't prepared to kill and butcher their own. I accidentally happened upon a place once, that had smaller livestock in pens and cages that you could choose and they'd butcher for you; though, I couldn't find that place again, somewhere in Houston, if my life depended on it lol.
yes, same here, I could buy a whole rabbit frozen, already
it.
skinned, so that one could just sautee (roast in a pan) them with bacen bits in oil/butter/margerine, add a little white wine and cream and voila, bon appetit. Later on they stopped selling rabbits and I never understood why. Apparently too few people knew they taste delicate.
Squirrels I have not seen in stores. All I remember is that squirrels in Maryland are greyish, and squirrels in Germany are a little larger and have red-brownish fur. I wonder how one would catch a squirrel. We have lots of them in our garden, they are cute.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Shawn Woods knows how! But can one obtain such traps in Germany?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuWkMkaUxV8]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-DNvpINn7w]
Squirrelinators will catch ground squirrels.
They do it most effectively in the spring when the squirrels are young and dumb. Sometimes the squirrelinator will catch an opossum, and you want opossums around, so you have to let it go and reset the trap. Squirrelinators are not as effective against tree squirrels.
Last I knew, squirrelinators were $42 through Amazon. I suppose there's a way around Amazon. Getting them in Germany I don't know.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Shawn Woods’ on-screen persona is so soft-spoken & mild-mannered
I find his videos are sort of like watching a rural Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood with rodents (and opossums, skunks, turkey vultures, and what-have-you).
lol, I can't imagine Germans ever eating
a squirrel, aside from myself I didn't see people, who ate rabbit meat. I just happened to try it out because I had a little french cookbook when I was a student in Berlin and was curious and tried it out.
Now oppossums ...? In Maryland they came in front of my kitchen doors and watched me. I always wondered what kind of animal that was (didn't know the name for it back then), they are funny, but I wouldn't have dared to think of eating one. I was a little scared of them.
I will never eat rats, nor dogs. No way. Even if I had a loved one, who would want to eat them. oh well, this is a deranged rat sysndrome I have ... ;-).
Good night from Germany.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Around these parts --
opossums eat ticks which spread Lyme disease. DO NOT kill them or reduce their habitat.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
awesome ...
may be cooked squirrels could be used as dog food. You and cassidorus rock. Thanks for the videos.
https://www.euronews.com/live
wine country cows
lol remember last years six dollar tomatoes. well this year they are free out of the dirt patch aka little eden. plus that burger binge was from the socialist trump free money pile. sunfed ranch natural grass fed grass finished 20 percent fat.
which reminds me i looked up what medicare might cover and it is still a mystery after the 198 deductible. they cover 80 percent me 20. 20 percent of what i dont know thats the problem. there is nothing in the budget for unknown. i already drove mindlessly in to the debt pool believing in medicare doctors for ten years straight. fuck those guys they ruined my guts and my thyroid. prozac nation
dr internet said protein diet heals bone fractures better so i was chomping down clif bars and nuts but i still craved something. then i woke up with john belushi yelling cheeseburger x3 and knew what i had to do. my shoulder does feel better and i didnt get sick so yay progress. and herbs are good for everything.
there are cops and neighbors and debris all over out front right now. somebody hit and run my new house neighbors honda as i was typing. smashed it right in to the back of his pickup. sounded like a big explosion. his name is riley. what a revoltin development this is. just met his mom who is evacuated from south of here. said she just moved her car from behind rileys else it would have been hers.
think good thoughts
what else is there
If The Lord of the Rings is a guide, a *Trump* win might be best
People like us = Sam, humbly walking the Way of the Bern, now dedicatedly trudging up the slopes of Mount Dem after Frodo, picked by party leaders months before, back in
the Hamptons and Silicon ValleyRivendell …Now, we already saw this movie back in 2008 (or even read the book as far back as the 1960s), so we know that upon reaching the pinnacle with our help, Frodo, being a Democrat, can be counted on to say, “I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will neither do peace, nor a New Deal. The Ring is mine!” (Goes on to appoint Saruman his chief of staff, rule with a cabinet full of finance orcs and Sauron holdovers, and later retire to a 30-acre beachfront estate on Mordor’s Vineyard.)
Trump, on the other hand = Gollum, despised, clumsy, stumbling, bumbling —
But who, after Frodo’s betrayal, ends up being the one who, if inadvertently, really saves the world, destroying the Ring of Power and the entire evil system based on it by accident.
Trump Derangement Syndrome
Is when a long time neighbor friend watching 2nd night of the Dem convention texts “you’re voting for Biden aren’t you?” And when told no because his record is horrible, stops speaking to you, even though you live in a safe blue state. These people are truly deranged.