This is motivated by running on in the econoblogosphere to Trump supporters who when confronted with hard facts they cannot refute revert to name calling that those stating actual facts are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS). I have recently seen it thrown out “liberally.” What is going on here?
The beginning of this odd label dates to the George W. Bush era, specifically 2003 when the late Charles Krauthammer, a supporter of W. upset by widespread criticism apparently coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome” (BDS). to describe persistent W. critics, apparently especially Barbra Streisand. As it was, while the term was out there it was not that frequently used during Bush’s presidency as later, although it was used enough to become established as a legit term.
When Obama came in its obvious successor, Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) became a serious phenomenom. The first version of it was the infamous “birtherism,” led by non other than Donald J. Trump, now POTUS. This was a total lie, which at an obscure moment in 2016 that got no notice, Trump admitted officially was a lie. But reportedly now his most supremely fave adviser is Lou Dobbs of the CNBC network, who was also long a hard core birtherist.
We were subjected to a later stream of less obviously false accusations against Obama that the ODS crowd accepted without question, even as their factual underpinnings were undermined. So we had a string of supposed scandals that to this day anyone living in the Fox News etc bubble believes without doubt. So there was there “Fast and Furious,” a complicated matter of US guns being sent across the Mexican border that later ended up killing US people. This is a complicated matter with arguably some Obama admin input, but ultimately it was a W. Bush program that went sour.
Another hot deal for the ODS crowd, still showing up was the supposedly great IRS scandal that in the end also turned out to be a big nothing, although this fact has probably had less reporting. So after the big Tea Party win in 2010 a bunch of their groups showed up at the IRS claiming to be “general welfare” groups but not “political” groups. Of course they were all political groups, and it was a low level IRS employee, reportedly a Republican, who initiated the obviously completely appropriate investigation of a bunch of groups claiming tax exempt status for not being political who were blatantly political. In the end they all got their undeserved tax breaks after the ODS gang got going with their false stories that this was all due to Obama plotting.
Watching the last 20 years of bipartisan bailouts, ineffectual health care “reform”, accelerating AGW, Theranos, GOOG, FB, AMZN, TSLA/UBER/LYFT scams has left me with CDS.
Yes friends I’m afflicted with Capitalism Derangement Syndrome. It’s been clear for awhile that capitalism as currently constituted (mostly unregulated in this country) is not compatible with existing norms of democracy. It’s not difficult to articulate the case that it’s also a significant threat to human survival.
without arguing the merits of any of these politicians, I think that the phenomenon of people being unwilling to acknowledge that any of their political villains are capable of being anything other than villainous is real. Hence, anything and everything that Bush, Obama, Clinton, or Trump did or did not do will be seen by such folks as more evidence of just how bad people they are, even if a reasonable observer would find it innocuous.