What Is Trump Derangement Syndrome?

It may sound like a new psychological diagnosis for someone who is out of touch with reality, but it’s not – “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a term Donald Trump and his allies are using to deride his opponents.

The term finds its roots in the presidency of George W. Bush, when conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer claimed in 2003 that Bush’s opponents were repelled by him not for rational reasons – such as the enormous loss of life in his administration’s deadly, wrong-headed war on Iraq – but because of “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” which Krauthammer defined 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.”

In a similar vein, Trump’s use of the term asserts that people who oppose his policies – from ICE secret police and mass deportation to tearing down the West Wing of the White House – have been driven insane by his presidency.

But critics say that however repellent Trump’s policies are, it is the president himself who is suffering from immense cognitive decline, amounting to derangement. This came up most recently when Trump commented on the death of beloved Hollywood director Rob Reiner, accusing him of having had Trump Derangement Syndrome, as if that somehow made him responsible for his own brutal killing – comments condemned on both sides of the aisle.

Trump’s abnormal, hateful language and behavior is grave cause for concern, according to psychologist and former Johns Hopkins professor John Gartner, whom we interviewed this April.

“We really have reason to be utterly terrified,” Gartner told BTL Online, a weekly radio newsmagazine, commenting on Trump’s Reiner comments, his racist attacks on Somalians and other actions. “This really is kind of the worst case scenario. We have a mad king, but a mad king with dementia, the absolute power to destroy the world and kind of the temperament to do it. We’re seeing now because of the dementia and because he has so much power, the combination of the two is he’s acting out in all of these incredibly destructive ways.”

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