“Trump Derangement Syndrome” and the Tragedy of the MAGA Apologists

Trump Derangement Syndrome: or TDS for short, has been around since the late political commentator Charles Krauthammer coined the term. It is not an actual medical condition but it is a shorthand descriptor adopted by the right wing to describe the repulsion that opponents of MAGA and Trump feel about him and them.

Trump Derangement Syndrome — The Reality (look in the mirror)

Many of the MAGA supporters, including sympathetic and sycophant media like Fox News, repeatedly trot out “TDS” as a tired talking point used against anyone reporting on the failed and failing policies and actions of Trump and his supporters. In so doing, these supporters only demonstrate their blindness for what most Americans and the rest of the world now see — Trump is a powerless, ill and extremely corrupt autocrat having his 15 minutes of fame and who is a destroyer of America and the post-WWII system it built.

Using another term from the field of mental illness, what these MAGA supporters demonstrate from the continued support of Trump and MAGA is what is called “lack of insight” into the nature of the real or actual problem.

In mental illness, this condition originates from a brain frontal lobe dysfunction which prevents the mentally ill from recognizing their condition (typically delusional thinking). For the Trump MAGA supporter, it appears to be a cultural willfulness or a severe honest mistake of having been conned into the support causing difficulty in admitting the failure of one’s worldview and severe political choices. It is similar to an unrepentant sinner that continues to sin.

War in Iran as potential fulcrum point to cause a MAGA awakening

Trump’s and Israel’s war of choice in Iran might just be the event that brings into focus just how unfit Trump and the MAGA regime are for governing in America and may now cause many to rethink this crazy continued willful support for Trump and MAGA. MAGA supporters themselves are divided by Trump’s war of choice.

Among the many stated reasons for initiating this war of choice by America and Israel vs Iran, the primary reason was to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The fundamental strategic decision is whether to negotiate with Iran as President Obama did to prevent nuclear weapons or to engage militarily, as Israel has and finally convinced an American President to do, after unsuccessfully trying through multiple American Administrations to gain agreement to militarily attack Iran.

Iran is stronger now than before the war, it has in fact won this war. Their control of the flow of oil and other goods is more powerful than their having nuclear weapons and they are not going to give up this power. Why would they? Trump and Israel have made Iran stronger, not weaker and in the process have become pariahs in the world. The mullahs of Iran are praying five times daily giving thanks to Allah for this gift!

The Chinese are the winners from all of this, thanks to Trump.

The MAGA Rubio crowd can illegally starve Cubans for revenge, but they haven’t a clue about this American POTUS and regime which is an abject failure that is destroying the America that the Boomers like me, Gen X, and Millennials have grown up in. Sadly, Gen Z has mostly known Trump and Biden, no wonder they have issues with this world.

Anyone paying attention in 2015, even aging GOP-Reagan speech writers like Peggy Noonan, could see or should have seen that the sentiment driving support for him was a self-destructive implosion and a failed choice that must never be made by the GOP. The chickens coming home to roost for that failed choice are reverberating now and will continue to bring down the country until all MAGA is removed from power and influence, and the rest of us will have to try to put humpty dumpty back together again once MAGA is gone.

Supporting a cheap con-man Destroyer without a plan for what gets rebuilt, enabling a cultural viewpoint from the Middle Ages to be the philosophy behind the throne is not a winning hand but some MAGA supporters continue to play this while “losing bigly” with their loser POTUS and his very confused and retro VP.

It has been suggested that “one good leader” can come along to clean up the Trump mess that America now finds itself in. Do not look anywhere within the MAGA-GOP orbit to find such a leader, there is nothing but failure there and they will go down in history as the worst political movement in US history (I would say western history but the Nazis win that one).

MAGA voters that are waking up to their mistake at least have the honesty and courage to publicly admit what a terrible mistake and unmitigated disaster this has been and continues to be for them, the country and the rest of the world.

What gives me hope? This MAGA movement of “Moral injury” — recognizing they are good people and that they supported an extremely bad and unfit person and they regret it now gives me hope that redemption for this cohort is possible. It means that like the Catholic sacrament of confession, it is possible to confess one’s sin, admit the error, and this is the important part — to repent for the sin, do the penance and make it up to the many people — fellow American citizens as well as former American allies, that one has sinned against with the sinful action of having supported this corrupt criminal rapist real-estate, nepo-son, reality TV con-man.

If Hungary can do it, America can too.

“The families separated, neighbors deported, people abused and killed, governing institutions gutted, democracy degraded — these harms were not accidental. They must be named explicitly before anything that deserves to be called “national healing” and reunion can take place.

Moral reckoning and reconciliation are not opposites. They work in tandem. What Leaving MAGA are modeling is that acknowledging that you were wrong, deceived or — for the most honest — enthusiastically endorsed Trump’s political sadism and American carnage is not weakness. It is a foundation for doing better in the future.

The work ahead demands something much more difficult than one of America’s empty national conversations. It will demand rebuilding civic trust between people who have been on the opposite side of a deep moral and political chasm. This will be raw and uncomfortable because it will involve trying to build relationships between people who were hurt and who, in many cases, actively supported that pain. But in the end, these acts of maturity and vulnerability will be necessary if American democracy is to heal and be made stronger.”

Trump and his MAGA movement are the sin that keeps on taking. Repent MAGA! Give up on this destructive and “demonic force” that has been unleashed on the world.

References

The Paradox of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, 9/5/2024, Alex Pattakos, Psychology Today.

Psychotherapist says ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is real pathology, plaguing 75 percent of his patients, 11/14/2025, Gabiel Hays, Fox News.

Donald Trump in New Health Crisis: President Returns to Hospital for the Third time in 13 Months Amid Bruised Hands’ Concern, 5/25/2026, Mike Boyce, AOL.

There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This, 5/20/2026, Editorial Board, The New York Times.

Is “Trump Derangement Syndrome” a Real Mental Condition?, 1/4/2019, Ron Whitley, Psychology Today.

America vs. the World, 1/18/2026, Robert Kagan, The Atlantic Magazine.

Lack of Insight Into One’s Mental Illness or Anosognosia, 8/14/2021, Bethany Yeiser, Psychology Today.

“I Can’t Prove It, It’s Just What I Believe” — Decoding Delusions and other Beliefs Through Effective Communication. A Journey Through Life, Suffering, and Its Traumas, An Integrated Model of Care is Needed, 4/21/2024, Jim Loving, Medium.

How right-wing and right-leaning media are split on the Iran war, 5/5/2026, Jack Winstanley & Noah Dowe, Media Matters.

Six Days of War, 10 Rationales, 3/6/2026, Marie-Rose Sheinerman and Isabel Ruehl, The Atlantic Magazine.

Checkmate in Iran, 5/10/2026, Robert Kagan, The Atlantic Magazine.

Xi Jinping Was Only Humoring Trump, 5/16/2026, Franklin Foer, The Atlantic Magazine.

Report from Havana: Cubans Starving & Dying Because of Intensified U.S. Blockade, 5/20/2026, Democracy Now!

Gen Z feels alone in their struggles — here’s what they ‘most need to hear’ from adults, says Harvard psychologist, 3/15/2026, Alexis Redding, CNBC.

Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, 12.20.24, Peggy Noonan, PBS, YouTube.

They voted for MAGA. Now they want out, 4/28/2026, Chauncey Devega, Salon.

Hungary election 2026 results: Péter Magyar wins, Trump ally Viktor Orbán concedes landmark defeat, 4/13/2026, CNN.