Trump Derangement Syndrome could cause people to do strange and frightening things. It could lead state prosecutors to try to jail someone for making perfectly legal “hush payments” to a suspect mistress. It could lead law enforcement to charge individuals with violating Sarbanes-Oxley.
This could lead US Department of Justice officials to spread disinformation to the public and the lawmakers who oversee them that Joe Biden's son's real laptop is actually part of a Russian plot, and it could also lead the media to blindly and fervently believe this government-sponsored hoax.
Trump Derangement Syndrome could give politicians, pundits and media figures an excuse to ignore for months the clearly diminished mental faculties of the most powerful man in the world, and it could also cause them to relentlessly attack as charlatans those who try to warn of the obvious.
And this is precisely the effect that Trump Madness Syndrome has on Democrats, liberals, progressives, and all those in the media who cling to the fiction that they are impartial journalists.
Trump Derangement Syndrome can affect Republicans, conservatives, and populists. Some of them would defend Trump if he actually shot someone on camera on Fifth Avenue. Others would stick their heads in the sand and stay silent while the party that once championed small government and fiscal discipline advocates a spending plan that would bring tears to the eyes of a drunken sailor.
But the most interesting victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome are people who were once popular or powerful within the Republican Party, as they struggle to remain relevant in a world that no longer cares about them. Trump Derangement Syndrome causes these people to say and do some really stupid things.
For example, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has decided that “it's important that I actually vote for Vice President Harris this time around,” and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, has said he “intends to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.” Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said at the Democratic National Convention: “I ask you, make the right choice. Vote. Vote for our fundamental values. And vote for Kamala Harris.”
I know there are Republicans who will not vote for Trump in November, and I understand, though I disagree with them. But taking the additional step of actually voting for Harris must be a product of the Trump Derangement Syndrome that is warping the minds of Republicans who have wholeheartedly adopted the Democratic Party's ends justify the means approach to removing Trump from office again, even if they must destroy democracy in the process.
Protesting against Trump is one thing. But Republicans voting for Harris is effectively All the values we have advocated so farWe must ask the Cheneys, Mr. Kinzinger, and others currently walking this path whether they have ever been true to what they have believed.
To vote for Harris is to support a ban on fracking, an electric vehicle mandate that goes against not only consumer demand but the physical principles of electricity supply, reparations for slavery, decriminalization of illegal border crossings, a Green New Deal guaranteed federal job for anyone who wants one, Medicare for All, and a mandatory gun buyback program that is essentially gun confiscation.
Do they reflect “our fundamental values,” as Kinzinger put it in Chicago?
Harris has been trying to backtrack on some of her recent positions, but she has been so vague that “Even some of her own staff are unsure where she stands on various issues.”
The sad thing here is that many of the “Harris Republicans” are among those who have been lamenting for years that American politics isn't focusing enough on these issues, and now they're backing a candidate who can't even accurately say where he stands on these issues.
If your Trump Derangement Syndrome is severe enough, you might vote for Che Guevara instead of Trump, with the added incentive that if Trump loses, the next administration will make meaningless appointments.
I count myself among the many Americans (including Republicans) who mourn January 6, 2021. I quit my job on that day, and I think it will remain a stain on our history for generations to come. But there is a big gap between this and the belief that Trump will end American democracy.
One reason Trump is doing so well in the 2024 race may be that, all things considered, many fear that the policies Harris has supported, and the kind of federal government that Trump Derangement Syndrome encourages, are a far greater threat to the country than anything Donald Trump might do.
Mick Mulvaney A former congressman from South Carolina and NewsNation contributor, he served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.
