The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” has become one of the most effective political conversation-stoppers of the modern era. Any criticism of Donald Trump, whether grounded in data, policy analysis, or lived experience, can be dismissed with three words that imply irrationality, hysteria, or mental instability. The brilliance of the phrase, at least politically, is that it ends debate without engaging substance. The problem is that it does so by replacing argument with accusation.
Despite how often it is invoked, Trump Derangement Syndrome is not real in any clinical sense. It is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, does not appear in any version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and is not a diagnosis in any U.S. jurisdiction. It is a rhetorical weapon, not a medical condition.
The term itself is not new. It evolved from “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” coined by conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer to describe what he viewed as reflexive hysteria toward George W. Bush. Krauthammer later applied the idea to Trump, defining it as an “inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology.” Ironically, that nuance has largely been stripped away. Today, “TDS” is less a description of excess than a catch-all used to invalidate dissent.
That shift matters because the term now functions as an informal logical fallacy. Rather than responding to a claim about immigration, inflation, crime, or executive power, the speaker reframes the critic as incapable of perceiving reality. If disagreement is framed as mental illness, there is no need to provide evidence. The conversation is effectively over.
I recently saw this play out in a painfully ordinary way: a family disagreement over one of Trump’s immigration statements. A son cited data showing that the majority of crime in the United States is committed by U.S.-born citizens, not undocumented immigrants or naturalized residents. Instead of engaging with the data, his father dismissed him with the label “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The term wasn’t explanatory; it was provocative. It shut down dialogue, escalated emotions, and left a holiday gathering tense and unresolved.
This dynamic is not unique. The MAGA movement has coincided with a noticeable rise in political estrangement within families and communities. For supporters, loyalty to Trump often appears to override independent evaluation of facts. For critics, frustration hardens into hostility. Both sides accuse the other of blindness, but only one side has popularized a term that pathologizes disagreement itself.
The irony is that “TDS” has also been used against Trump supporters, describing their unwavering defense of him regardless of conduct or contradiction. Some supporters argue Trump operates on a level of “multi-dimensional chess” his critics cannot understand. Others openly describe him as a “troll,” someone who deliberately provokes outrage for sport. Fox News anchor Bret Baier and former Speaker Paul Ryan have both characterized Trump this way. If provoking emotional reactions is intentional, then labeling those reactions as “derangement” becomes circular, and cynical.
Journalists and scholars have warned that the term may ultimately backfire. John Harris of Politico has compared its use to gaslighting: redefining reality so that critics are portrayed as unstable. Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center has noted that some audiences may interpret the phrase to mean Trump himself is deranged, not his opponents.
The deeper issue is not Trump alone. It is the erosion of good-faith arguments. Why is it easier to deploy a pejorative than to admit uncertainty or error? Why does the right struggle to acknowledge Trump’s failures, while the left often refuses to concede that any policy success is possible under his administration? What happened to evidence-based disagreement?
Politics once centered on persuasion. Today, it is about identity and allegiance. Questioning the leader becomes betrayal; questioning the narrative becomes pathology. And so, families fracture, conversations stall, and slogans replace thought.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” may be rhetorically convenient, but it comes at a real cost. When disagreement is treated as illness, democracy itself is diminished. And until we abandon that premise, the argument will no longer be about Trump, it will be about whether we are still capable of thinking independently at all.
Follow these steps to easily submit a letter to the editor or guest opinion to the Arizona Daily Star.
