I must confess that the absurdities that are the product of the left’s Trump Derangement Syndrome continue to astound and amuse me. Neither response is probably good or helpful, though. At this point, I shouldn’t be astounded at the depths of stupidity to which leftists afraid of Donald Trump will descend. In a similar vein, I shouldn’t be amused by TDS because it has real-world consequences, but more on that in a bit. In a recent article, the Washingtonian laid bare, albeit unintentionally, the troubling levels of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The article, titled “DC Types Have Been Flocking to Shrinks Ever Since Trump Won. And a Lot of the Therapists Are Miserable,” can be summed up with this frightening pull-quote:
The National Association of Social Workers’ code of ethics describes “social justice” as a primary core value of the profession, and all the social workers I spoke to (as well as many of the psychologists) viewed this work as fundamental: How can you heal an individual without also seeking to heal the culture?
In a nutshell, many of this country’s mental health providers believe that President Trump, and by extension conservatives, are an illness infecting our nation.
The article begins with a creepy retelling of a group of leftists coming undone during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.
One afternoon last fall, Gail Guttman, a therapist who works in Northwest DC and Montgomery County, was teaching a workshop on couples and sex therapy that took a highly unusual turn. During a break, her students—all licensed therapists themselves, in the class to hone their skills—went into the hallway and checked their phones for the first time since lunch. Some came back crying.
It was September 28, the day after Christine Blasey Ford testified in Congress that Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her in high school, and the media was now reporting that his Supreme Court nomination would advance to the full Senate for a vote. Many of the therapists in Guttman’s class worked with sexual-assault survivors. Some had past traumas of their own. The news was crushing. Suddenly, no one could concentrate on the lessons at hand.
A group of mental health professionals couldn’t handle the news that a capable judge who has not been convicted of a crime (nor charged, for that matter) was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. Be bothered by Kavanaugh’s politics and ideological positions, if you must. Cling to the stubborn and refuted belief that he did bad things when he was a kid, if you insist. But to be reduced to the inability to concentrate reveals a childish level of narcissism that is dangerous. Unfortunately, as the meat of the Washingtonian article points out, the problem is that those blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome are leading others blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome. To be fair, the article wouldn’t put it in those terms, but that’s exactly what’s happening. As the Washingtonian laments:
Two and a half years into the Trump administration, it’s news to no one that the 45th President has generated angst in many people, regardless of party. The American Psychological Association has even documented the phenomenon. According to its 2018 Stress in America survey, 62 percent of Americans say the current political climate is “a significant stressor” for them; more than two-thirds say the nation’s future is stressing them out—a “significant increase” from 2017, the report says. “Trump May Not Be Crazy,” read a headline from Politico Magazine just before the survey came out, “But the Rest of Us Are Getting There Fast.”
Buried deeply in the long-form article, is the crux of what should worry conservatives – the “real-world consequences” I alluded to in the opening paragraph. The article asserts that “Trump-related anxieties originate from something more serious than mere differences about policy.”
Let that sink in. According to many in the mental health field, the angst felt by leftists isn’t merely a product of political disagreements. It’s an ideological battle rooted in identity. Considering the powerful ways that the mental health field shapes society, that’s troubling. As the article states:
The American Psychological Association, meanwhile, has traditionally been less willing to wade into politics, but even that stance has changed over the past two years. The organization has issued condemnatory public letters about things like the repeal of the DACA immigration policy and the detention of children at the border, among other issues. “Where we have science that speaks to the damages that occur when you strip people of their rights, that is absolutely the APA’s responsibility to speak on that,” says Vaile Wright, the organization’s director of research and special projects.
All this raises the question, how long before the APA classifies supporting Donald Trump, or even conservativism, as a mental health disorder?
And to any leftists wagging their fingers and calling me a hypocrite over my use of the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” I’m not a mental health professional. My use of the term is simply pejorative, intended to mockingly point out the growing phenomenon of leftists throwing public hissy fits over President Trump. In no shape or form am I qualified to label anyone as actually deranged. I’m not the APA. But you know who is the APA? The APA, that’s who.
At some point in the future, it’s not out of the question that the APA will label conservatives as having a mental health disorder. The next order of business, of course, will be “fixing” conservatives. I once wrote how Orwell’s 1984 has become a leftist how-to book. Along those same lines, I’m not convinced that re-education camps to correct the mental disorder of conservatism aren’t part of the leftist’s game-plan.
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