The opinions of this writer do not align with the opinions of the Ridgeview News.
One place Rare Old Bird’s column is published is on a local on-line site, The Ridgeview News. It is always prefaced with a disclaimer that the Bird’s opinions are not those of the publisher, but still, admirably I believe, they do publish it, although almost all of Calhoun County, WV is Trump-Republican, and I am that rare thing – a rural WV Democrat.
The Bird regularly draws local responses and replies, mostly negative and with one constant refrain: the Bird suffers from TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“TDS” is shorthand for Trump’s supporters to describe his detractors (me), calling us obsessed with maligning the former president.
One who is obsessed is preoccupied with a subject. Checking my files, though, I find the Rare Bird has written about many subjects – and also Trump – his promise to be a dictator and his dangerous plans for a second term.
So, the Bird is not obsessed, but she is consistent in criticizing Trump and has no good word to say for the man. Trump is dangerous because the presidency is his ultimate grift and he is a man without character or principles.
There is an opposite form of Trump Derangement Syndrome,suffered by his followers who are obsessed, deranged and disoriented by Trump himself.
Derangement is a state of mental disturbance and disorientation, madness, mania, or insanity.
Something is off-kilter and unbalanced about their adulation of a criminal, an adulterer, a rapist, a con man – naming just the obvious flaws that would have destroyed any candidate for president ever in US history. Off-kilter, unbalanced, a bit deranged.
He tells them “I don’t care about you. I only want your votes” and they say “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
This positive derangement is why the Trump base is often described as a cult. A cult leader must always be praised and can never be doubted.
The most serious variety of Trump Derangement Syndrome is Trump’s Own Derangement Syndrome. “Derangement” is an old-fashioned word for various kinds of mental disturbance and mental illness. The words we use now include “dementia.”
Trump shows types of cognitive impairment seen in dementialike ‘word salad’ (incoherence), ‘loose associations’ (a lack of connection between ideas), impairments of memory, and language problems (mis-pronouncing words or making up words that don’t exist).
Disordered speech, typically seen in organically impaired dementia patients, is regularly heard at Trump rallies. What the press nicely calls “rambling,” mental health professionals call “tangential thinking” – drifting from one unrelated thought fragment to another – incoherence.
“I could tell you about aircraft carriers, where they use electric catapults. They couldn’t go to the steam, which works better for about 1/100th the price, you know? The electric catapult, you know that story? I could tell you about the elevators on a tremendous carrier, the Gerald Ford, and they decided not to use hydraulic like the John Deere tractor, they decided to use magnets, ‘we’re gonna use magnets!’ to lift up the elevators with seven planes.”
“I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No, we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record.”
Recently we all heard about the (imaginary) electric boat that sinks because its (imaginary, non-marine) battery is too heavy and there’s a shark ten feet away: “But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that, we’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for trucks.”
Confusions about reality are a critical sign of dementia.
“Biden beat Barack Hussein Obama. Ever heard of him?”
Migrants are coming into the country “speaking languages nobody in this country has ever heard of. Nobody speaks them.”
“We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania.”
“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all ofthe information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down.” (Confusing Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and lying about Nancy Pelosi and January 6th.)
Verbal abuse, cursing, and insults are common aggressive behaviors seen in dementia patients.
Trump’s speeches and his plans grow progressively darker, more abusive andaggressive. He will round up 15 million immigrants and use the justice department to go after his political opponents. He will wreak vengeance and retribution on the Americans he sees as enemies: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. “
Meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill this week, Trump delivered a stream-of-consciousness rant one listener said was “like talking to your drunk uncle at the family reunion.”
As with all demented rambling, an occasional bit of truth shines forth as when Trump bragged, “We’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy.”
There is a cure for TDS: Vote Biden/Harris and give them a Democratic Congress.
Thank GOD for TRUMP !
You forgot to mention the part about how Trump promises to invoke the Insurrection Act and suspend the Constitution on day one.
Also, before any of you cast your ballot to send a convicted felon to the White House, I implore you to do four things, first:
1) Read the Project 2025 manifesto which outlines the Heritage Foundation’s plan to completely dismantle our democracy and replace it with a perverse combination of theocracy, autocracy, kleptocracy and oligarchy.
2) Be sure to watch the debate on June 27th and know that Joe Biden is not on performance enhancing drugs.
3) Commit to watching one hour of non-right-wing news every day. I suggest Morning Joe because, as a former Republican Congressman, he should be more palatable to your senses.
4) Make your way to Arlington Cemetery, get on your knees and beg the forgiveness of every resident there for throwing away the democratic republic for which they fought and died.
None of this would be so concerning except for the fact that, thanks to Trump, we now have a Supreme Court, apparently, poised to let them do whatever they want, how ever they want to do it.
No one cares. Biden has not fulfilled an endless amount of promises. He’s funding the genocide in Israel while simultaneously ignoring the call to push a ceasefire. He’s increased the police budget. He failed to fulfill his abortions promises. He signed a bill to block railroad strikes. He continues to fund a conflict that the US instigated in Ukraine.
An argument could obviously be made that he’s the lesser of two evils but regardless he ignores the ones who put him in office and again has not fulfilled promises that he ran on in 2020 while simultaneously using the same excuses to not vote trump. “Democracy is at stake.” “It’s the election of a lifetime”. Unfortunately the argument of “vote for me because the other guy is so bad” is not reasonable anymore.