THE PATRIOT POST 08/01/2018 ALEXANDER'S COLUMN

Therapists Rebrand 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'

Trump's election and his subsequent bombardment of the status quo resulted in an epidemic of cognitive dissonance on the Left.

Mark Alexander

"To restore ... harmony ... to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot." —Thomas Jefferson (1801) It's official! Psychotherapists have adopted a diagnostic name for what we in the real world refer to as "Trump Derangement Syndrome" (TDR). They have now rebranded TDR version 2.0 as "Trump Anxiety Disorder" (TAD). While that may be a nicer diagnostic tag for a new counseling revenue stream, the word "derangement" is a much more accurate description of the extreme cognitive dissonance TAD references. The pop culture Urban Dictionary defines Trump Derangement Syndrome as "a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason. Symptoms for this condition can be very diverse, ranging from hysterical outbursts to a complete mental break." Given the benefit (or detriment) of holding several graduate degrees, including one in psychology, I would suggest that the increasing frequency and intensity of hysterics associated with TDR is greatly exacerbated by the unmitigated, constant consumption of hateful Demo/MSM propaganda, 24/7/365. The result is a mass movement of those so intent on undermining Trump that they are now far off the reality reservation and utterly obsessed with defeating peace and prosperity. Punctuating all the rhetoric spewed by MSM prognosticators are the endless pharmaceutical advertisements claiming to alleviate every muscle twitch or rash, all of which now have a diagnosis. Add to that growing list the official Trump Anxiety Disorder and there are plenty of anti-anxiety and anti-depressants sold as "treatment." As for the new "kinder, gentler" TAD diagnosis, therapist Elisabeth LaMotte of the Washington, DC-based Counseling and Psychotherapy Center, says that among her clients there is a "collective anxiety" that has been elevating since the election of Donald Trump. According to LaMotte, "There is a fear of the world ending. It's very disorienting and constantly unsettling." This is the direct consequence of dwelling in the Leftmedia echo chambers mentioned above. Recognition of the newly redefined TAD pathology was first described in a report last year from psychiatrists at Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine, in which Jennifer Panning distinguished between general anxiety disorders and TAD because "symptoms were specific to the election of Trump and the resultant unpredictable sociopolitical climate." But the underlying TAD symptoms long predate the election of Trump, as I described in "The Pathology of the Left" more than a decade ago. In that assessment I noted what, in the broadest of terms, constitutes the difference between contemporary liberals and conservatives: "Liberals tend to be dependents while conservatives tend to be self-reliant. This is a reflection of their respective emotional constitutions." In other words, leftists tend to be far more insecure than conservatives, and thus, when constantly infused with Leftmedia negatives, act out the resulting anxiety in an array of dissociative behaviors. By all objective measures, most Americans, and our nation in general, are better off under Trump administration policies than they were before Trump's election. For example, this week brings the latest good news that wages and benefits are growing at the fastest rate in a decade. Since you are an advocate for Liberty versus a proponent of leftist statism, you already recognize this trend toward making America great again. But for those unfortunate souls who bought into the altered political reality of Barack Obama, his assumed successor Hillary Clinton, and all the recycled MSM talkinghead chatter that followed her defeat, most of them are deeply afflicted with TAD manifestations. In the last two years, the Socialist Democrats have radicalized the once-noble Democrat Party and weaponized their rhetoric — the result being that many of their "triggered" constituents have become increasingly unhinged. A few years ago I characterized the difference between liberals and conservatives with two contrasting columns: "You Might Be a Liberal If..." and "You Might Be A Conservative If..." But so far to the left have Democrat protagonists gone that the word "liberal" must now be replaced with "leftist." Dennis Prager described the Democrat devolution, noting that in the last year he has watched "my fellow Americans and virtually all of the mainstream media descend further and further into irrational and immoral hysteria — regularly calling the president of the United States and all of his supporters Nazis, white supremacists and the like; harassing Republicans where they eat, shop and live; ending family ties and lifelong friendships with people who support the president; declaring their opposition to Trump and the Republican Party the 'Resistance,' as if they were American reincarnations of the French who fought real Nazis in World War II; and so on..." So radicalized have leftist Democrats become that political observer Dan Greenfield notes the future of the Democrat Party isn't just socialist; it's crazy: "Tweak a normal person's sense of outrage and they're moved. Keep doing it a bunch of times and you can enlist them in a movement. Do it every 5 seconds and you drive them as crazy as rats in a Skinner Box." Evidence of that slide into the crazy abyss is the recent election of socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now the darling of Bernie Sanders's nescient adolescent neophytes. Among many regrettable results from this systemic radicalization is that many Demo constituents have become disenfranchised from the notion of American exceptionalism. Fewer Democrats report that they are proud to be America. Driving the craziness, in part, is Trump's protuberant communication style — his confrontational and often putative remarks. Fact is, the day Trump arrived in DC, he dropped a bomb on the status quo in Congress and its special interests. He dropped a bomb on the regulatory behemoths and their bureaucratic bottlenecks. He dropped a bomb on the trade and national security institutions and alliances that failed miserably over the previous eight years. And he dropped a bomb on all the pundits and mainstream media outlets. After 30 years of institutional negligence and political neglect of grassroots Americans, Trump, despite his sometimes offensive style (or lack thereof), stepped in to make Obama's "hope and change" mantra a reality. But Trump's election and his subsequent bombardment of the status quo has resulted in a lot of social and cultural post-traumatic stress for leftists, which is constantly antagonized by mainstream and social media outlets. To be fair, last year I strongly condemned Donald Trump's propensity to "say stupid s—t" and to be careless, if not outright reckless, with his unscripted comments and social media feeds. While the frequency of his absurd remarks has somewhat abated, he still tends to completely overshadow his agenda successes with such remarks, which causes me and many other conservatives considerable heartburn. Recall that political observer Salena Zito advised of his blustering comments that Americans should "take him seriously, but not literally." However, some of his remarks are so literally absurd that it is too much to ask that even his most ardent supporters take him seriously in those instances. Fortunately, the Trump administration record demonstrates much more accurately Trump's many successes, though, unfortunately, they are often overshadowed by his careless words. The net result is a lot of heartburn for even his closest allies, particularly in a political year when the Senate and House have major obstacles to maintaining majorities. A Pew Research report defines the current divide between Left and Right. The longevity comparison study asked Americans if they perceived that things are better for the current generation than past generations. The study found that 41% of respondents indicated that life is worse today, while 37% say better. Those results, predictably, fall very much along partisan lines, with Republicans more optimistic than Democrats. All of this belies a very real derangement disorder epidemic on the Left, and it will take so much more than happy pills to bring its sufferers back to reality. Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776