Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Been a Term for a Decade, but What Does It Mean?

Donald Trump has been the central figure in American politics for a decade, and in that time, he has also become deeply divisive. In the time that Trump has been at the center of American life, his fans have come up with a term that they often lob at people who are worried that he might be an autocrat who cares more about his own ego than American democracy.

That term is Trump Derangement Syndrome, and now, senators in Minnesota have introduced a bill to make it into an actual diagnosable condition. Here's what we know about what it is.

Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a term that those on the right (and sometimes in the center) typically hurl at those who are alarmed by Trump's lack of interest in democratic norms. The phrase is used to suggest that there is something about Trump that makes liberals lose their heads and think that he's doing things that are far worse than what he actually does.

It's a phrase that is explicitly designed to dismiss these fears about Trump as alarmist or paranoid, and helpfully, it also means that those who support him don't have to really engage with them.

Because Republicans in Minnesota want to use their time in office responsibility, they have introduced a bill to make TDS an actual condition. The bill defines TDS as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of (Trump)."

Symptoms might include "verbal expressions of intense hostility" toward Trump or his supporters.

"I am proud to be one of the co-authors on this bill which calls attention to the oftentimes outrageous, violent and unreasonable reactions we’ve seen towards a President who loves America and wants us to be prosperous, strong, safe and great again," Senator Glenn Gruenhagen said of the bill in a statement on Facebook.

“This is why Minnesota Republicans have lost every statewide election in recent memory − every time they get an opportunity to try to improve Minnesotans' lives, they instead double down on an agenda that caters to their party’s most extreme right-wing activists,” A Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party spokesperson said of the bill.

TDS is certainly a fun dig at liberals, who are often accused of some version of hysteria. It's not a real medical condition, though, and it's strange that Minnesota senators have decided to spend their time on this purely symbolic bill that really just pays tribute to one man. President Trump's hold on the Republican Party is strong, and this bill is a signifier of that more than anything else.