Is Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) real? Does it represent a totally emotional, reactive and visceral attitude against President Trump?
I wasn’t convinced until I had seen examples of this crop up in unexpected locations: in an audio CD by a former U.S. Secretary of State and in a recent book by a Pulitzer Prize winning author.
The audio CD was authored by Madeleine Albright, and titled “Fascism.” Within the first 10 minutes of the first of eight discs, she is talking about flawed presidents, and says about President Trump: “The United States has had flawed presidents before, but putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab.”
Albright served as President Clinton’s Secretary of State, and I can understand her antipathy toward President Trump, but “ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab?” Really?
Joseph J. Ellis is a Pulitzer Prize historian. I have read four of his other books: “His Excellency,” “Revolutionary Summer,” “The Quartet” and “American Creation,” and I have enjoyed them all. I wasn’t prepared for his latest book, “American Dialogue” when, surprisingly, he launches into criticism of the president with a comment about “Trump’s obvious mental, emotional and moral limitations.”
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and all too pervasive, and corrosive of civil discourse.
Bob Casimiro
Bridgton
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