Op-Ed: Trump Derangement Syndrome - The Symptoms and The Cure
From 1346 to 1353, and occasionally thereafter, the Bubonic Plague ravaged Europe, killing up to 50 million people. Spread through the air and likely through the bite of infected fleas, the so-called Black Death was the deadliest pandemic in human history.
But just as this “great pestilence” caused social and economic upheaval that profoundly shaped European history, a different blight — undermining friendships, fraying family bonds, and silencing civil discourse — is profoundly shaping American history. This modern contagion, Trump Estrangement Syndrome, began the year its namesake was first elected to the White House.
While the plague from nearly 700 years ago was thought to have resulted from divine punishment, the current pollutant is neither spiritual nor biological. Instead, evolving from the commonly mentioned Trump Derangement Syndrome, it is a divisive infection spread by mainstream media efforts to change the electoral map from a healthy mix of red and blue to the singular tint of the Democratic Party.
Clearly, only their most steadfast followers might fail to see how biased the establishment media’s political pundits have become. By masquerading as self-righteous defenders of truth, they no longer even try to report the news objectively.
Not realizing such hypocrisy, blind faith consumers of left-leaning commentary, portraying themselves as champions of inclusion and tolerance, practice neither by uncritically welcoming its anti-Trump focus. For as addicts needing a fix, progressive millions get their daily media dose of the “Trump is evil” progressive playbook, which implies his supporters are no better.
Resembling a state-controlled mouthpiece for a political party, the legacy media increasingly promotes woke exaggerations, context-free statements, and outright lies. To support such deception, they rarely issue retractions and criticize Trump as the centerpiece of their propaganda.
Among countless fabrications, after falsely claiming for over three years that Trump was “colluding” with the Kremlin, and more recently, acting as America’s Hitler, and Jeffrey Epstein’s partner-in-crime, how is it now possible that, after such biased reporting, the public is so easily duped into mindlessly believing the unbelievable?
After all, in repeatedly portraying Trump as a fascist, a criminal, and an existential threat to democracy, and then devaluing his obvious achievements as insignificant or even harmful, wouldn’t history suggest a pattern where the sources of those fictions should be viewed with skepticism?
In answering that question, it’s clear that, despite their widespread distortions of reality, the woke media and the Democratic Party have collaborated in successfully claiming the moral high ground by demonizing the president. All results from Trump Estrangement Syndrome stem from that source of contagion.
That is, because Trump is not originally a politician, he often speaks bluntly, is considered abrasive or even “unpresidential,” and says things that, when taken out of context, are weaponized by opponents.
So, when his innocuous statements are surgically parsed and repeatedly used as damaging soundbites by those seeking his downfall, a falsely negative impression is unfairly attached to him and his guilt-by-association supporters. Additionally, those opposing him use these defaming sentence fragments to feel morally superior and justified in viewing him and his followers as beneath contempt.
Clearly, by drinking the progressive media’s polarizing Kool-Aid, many are unwilling to abandon their good-versus-evil mindset, especially when feeling smugly self-righteous about Trump’s supposed depravity. Once adopted, such internalized feelings of moral superiority become difficult to introspectively challenge, because doing so undermines self-esteem.
Additionally, any gap between perceived truth and factual evidence causes emotional discomfort, remedied by dismissing information challenging one’s perceptions while embracing virtually any reassurance of existing beliefs. This fosters well-being by increasing predictability in an otherwise uncertain existence.
Therefore, the only way to reduce that unpredictability is to dismiss, distort, or ignore any irrefutable facts that oppose one’s assumptions and mindlessly cling to existing beliefs by inventing, accepting, or exaggerating additional “facts” supporting them.
And as a divisive force, the mainstream media is all too eager to manufacture such Trump-hating “facts,” leaving little room for nuanced perspectives or honest disagreement. This collective voice of hostility fuels the spread of Trump Estrangement Syndrome, dividing families, destroying friendships, and ensuring that irrefutable truth is sacrificed for undeniable ignorance.
In the end, while it took nearly 200 years for Europe’s population to recover from the Black Death, it remains unclear how long it will take for the divisiveness currently affecting America to heal after its current plague.
However, because the European pandemic finally waned as the infection nearly ran out of victims, it is hoped that when reason again prevails, our current pestilence, stifling discourse and prompting division, will end long before that.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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