Political columnist Michelle Goldberg has flipped Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) full tilt by applying it to the MAGA crowd. In her New York Times op-ed today, this smart cookie, who I believe reports fairly and often astutely, has penned the piece “The Right’s Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I’m writing about this since I wrote a book entitled Bible Predicts Trump Fall. And because I blog negatively about Donald Trump sometimes as U.S. president, I can get accused in Comments as having TDS.
What Is Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)?
Goldberg explains in her article, “The [political] right invented the term Trump derangement syndrome to dismiss analysis of Trump’s autocratic tendencies, compulsive lying and generally detestable character as liberal hysteria. For [political] conservatives who don’t want to engage with substantive criticism of their leader, it functions as a thought-terminating cliché, a term often used by people who study cults to describe ideological formulations that short-circuit critical thinking. ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ implies that if someone tells you something about Trump that you don’t want to hear, that person must be crazy.”
Jesus Taught Critical Thinking
I believe Jesus taught critical thinking. It is that when seeking to know the truth about something, we consider the relevant evidence objectively as much as possible and not suppress that evidence that leads to learning the truth. For instance, in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount he said, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8 NRSV).
Thus, we should not pass judgment without considering the relevant, factual evidence. For instance, it was the Sanhedrin, the religious court in Jerusalem that consisted of 70 men and its leader, the high priest, who condemned Jesus of blasphemy worthy of death. But one of its members earlier had come to Jesus at night, obviously secretly, to inquire of him. For we read, “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher, who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God” (John 3:1-2).
Most of Nicodemus’ Sanhedrin colleagues obviously didn’t know about this. For we later read about the Pharisees denouncing the crowd’s enthusiasm about Jesus, “Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law—they are accursed.’ Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?'” (John 8:48-51). Thus, Nicodemus called for considering the evidence before passing judgment.
Goldberg Reverses TDS, Applying It to MAGA
Goldberg then reverses the application of this term, Trump derangement syndrome, by alleging that it is Trump’s MAGA crowd who have TDS. She says of Trump’s present, second term in the White House, “Now the adults are gone, but Trump’s defenders are still pretending—perhaps to themselves as well as to the rest of us—that there’s order amid the chaos.” She means they ignore the negatives about their hero, thus being deranged themselves about him.
Jeff Bezos as an Example of Reversible TDS
Goldberg finishes this op-ed piece by citing Jeff Bezos as an example of her portrayal of reverse TDS. This owner of The Washington Post recently jumped on the Trump train resulting in him making major changes to the editorial section of his newspaper so it will not be critical of Trump. Goldberg claims, “Speaking at The New York Times DealBook summit in December, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Trump had grown over the past eight years. ‘What I’ve seen so far is he’s calmer than he was the first time [in his first presidential term]—more confident, more settled,’ Bezos said. Sounds like Trump derangement syndrome to me.”
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