In a controversial move, Republican legislators in Minnesota are pushing to officially classify extreme negative reactions to President Donald Trump as a mental illness known as “Trump derangement syndrome.”
On Monday, five GOP senators introduced a bill aiming to add “Trump derangement syndrome” to the list of recognized mental health disorders in Minnesota.
The bill defines the syndrome as an “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s behavior.”
It further identifies symptoms such as “verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump” and “overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump.”
Despite skepticism about its chances of success in the split legislature, the proposal has already sparked intense backlash from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, reports The Mirror US.
The DFL condemned the bill, stating: “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.”
The term “Derangement syndrome” was coined by the esteemed Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and psychiatrist, in 2003 to describe the extreme reactions of critics towards President George W. Bush.
He defined “Bush derangement syndrome” as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency-nay-the very existence of George W. Bush.”
Supporters of Donald Trump have since appropriated the phrase, using it pejoratively against his detractors.
Minnesota legislators took inspiration from Krauthammer’s exact phrasing when they crafted a bill. Krauthammer, despite being a vocal critic of Trump, introduced “Trump derangement syndrome” in a 2017 column for The Oregonian, just a year before he passed away.
Krauthammer wrote, “Having coined Bush Derangement Syndrome more than a decade ago, I feel authorised to weigh in on its most recent offshoot. What distinguishes Trump Derangement Syndrome is not just general hysteria about the subject, but additionally the inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences on the one hand and signs of psychic pathology on the other.”
In that same article, while Krauthammer supported certain Trump policies like the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords, he also condemned Trump’s erratic tweeting habits, referring to them as the expression of Trump’s “unfiltered id,” which denotes the instinct-driven part of the psyche that seeks immediate gratification.
Krauthammer characterised Trump’s tweets as “vainglorious and self-injurious”, stating that “Trump was elected to do politically incorrect — and needed — things like withdrawing from Paris. He was not elected to do crazy things, starting with his tweets. If he cannot distinguish between the two, Trump Derangement Syndrome will only become epidemic.”
