Post by the Scribe on Jun 29, 2022 11:45:39 GMT
Darren Richardson
Jan 15, 2021·
5 min read·
Listen
‘Trump Defender Syndrome’ Clouds Judgment of President’s Supporters
medium.com/politically-speaking/trump-defender-syndrome-clouds-judgment-of-president-s-supporters-75661b7b0983
‘TDS’ now an acronym for more than just ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’
Newspaper in rack with headline ‘Pro-Trump Mob Storms US Capitol’
Photo by little plant on Unsplash
In the summer of 2018, before the Democrats decisively regained control of the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump used the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!” — Donald Trump on Twitter, July 18, 2018
Trump sycophants had, of course, been using the term prior to the tweet. In a story about the president’s use of the phrase, Associated Press reported that the term is intended to describe “voters who are so angry and opposed to the U.S. president that they are incapable of seeing any good in what he does.” apnews.com/article/48225d1360864dcb861b12e5cda12a32
I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, but I did see some truth in the TDS concept — not because I believed Trump was doing much good, but because I told myself and others at the outset of his presidency I would watch for things he did that I could support. They were few and far between, but they did occur. That set me apart from some who opposed Trump’s agenda.
For example, when I tried to discuss Trump’s tax package, I encountered fierce resistance in some quarters when I opined that the Qualified Business Income deduction would be helpful to small businesses.
www.irs.gov/newsroom/qualified-business-income-deduction
Many people had no idea what the QBI does — it reduces the amount of taxable business income by up to 20% — but they were certain that if Trump had a hand in it, it could not be good. On a few occasions, when I attempted to explain why I supported the QBI provision, it was like talking to someone who had their head encased in a soundproof booth.
But that’s how politics goes sometimes. If a contrary opinion challenges someone’s preconceived ideas, they don’t even want to hear it. I saw this mindset in people who despised Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and other past presidents. In Trump’s case, though, many of his supporters acted as if this kind of irrational behavior had never existed in American politics prior to the Trump era — even though some of them behaved exactly the same way toward Obama.
‘Trump Defender Syndrome’ prevents objective assessments
Flash forward to the recent mob violence at the Capitol. While it is arguable whether Trump directly encouraged the insurrection, it should be obvious to anyone possessing the capacity for objective analysis that the president did not do a damn thing to discourage the rioters until hours after the violence and destruction of government property were well under way.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but Trump dawdled while the Capitol was vandalized, disrespected and desecrated by people he sent there to “fight like hell.”
TDS is no-longer just a syndrome that afflicts Trump’s detractors. Trump loyalists who embrace their own version of TDS — Trump Defender Syndrome — exhibit a persistent inability to even consider the idea that Trump may have done something wrong.
On Thursday, Trump defender and ordained Christian minister Franklin Graham went so far as to compare the 10 Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump to Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. www.newsweek.com/franklin-graham-compares-10-republicans-who-voted-impeach-trump-betrayal-christ-1561809
That is a prime example of Trump Defender Syndrome, and Graham should know better. After all, he’s surely read in the Bible that one shall not bear false witness against a neighbor. But that’s exactly what Trump is doing by pushing his untrue claim that the election was stolen.
Image by gfk DSGN from Pixabay
Insisting the election was stolen is the root of the problem
In Trump’s speech to the adoring crowd at the “Save America” rally Jan. 6 in Washington, he urged them to give “weak” Republicans in the Capitol the kind of “pride and boldness” they need to “take back our country.” He did not explicitly say people should force their way into the Capitol, break windows and steal a laptop from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, but he did say the election was stolen. Repeatedly, while mouthing a litany of lies and debunked allegations. www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/transcript-of-trumps-speech-at-rally-before-us-capitol-riot
Therein lies the the problem:
The cause Trump rallied his supporters for was and is a fraudulent one.
Rather than accept the reality that Biden won a fair election, Trump opted for conning his most gullible followers into joining him in his grand delusion.
The truth is in plain sight for all to see:
Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
Biden won more than 81 million popular votes and exceeded Trump’s popular vote total by more than 7 million votes.
Numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, reviewed Trump’s claims of election fraud and found them lacking.
The election was not stolen.
Finally, and most importantly, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 as a legitimately elected president, no matter what Trump wants you to believe.
But because Trump did not get the result he had hoped for in the courts, he urged anyone who was willing to act on his words to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into doing something the VP does not have the legal authority to do — send the certified results back to enough states in the hopes they will “find” enough votes for Trump until he prevails.
In effect, Trump was urging the crowd to do all they could to overturn the will of the American electorate.
How can anyone, left or right, Democrat or Republican or independent, defend such behavior?
Perhaps rather than — or in addition to — impeaching Trump for inciting an insurrection, the House should have impeached him for what he so obviously and did: engaged in a seditious conspiracy. As Clark Cunningham, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University wrote in Politico, “(T)hose who attacked the Capitol did so with the explicit purpose of preventing Congress from carrying out its legal duty to certify the election.” www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/10/trump-impeachment-articles-incite-insurrection-seditious-conspiracy-456937
That Trump tried to get his supporters to prevent the results of a fair election from congressional certification is both indefensible and indisputable, yet those who suffer from Trump Defender Syndrome continue to defend the outgoing president’s baseless claims and dispute the fact that Biden won.
Jan 15, 2021·
5 min read·
Listen
‘Trump Defender Syndrome’ Clouds Judgment of President’s Supporters
medium.com/politically-speaking/trump-defender-syndrome-clouds-judgment-of-president-s-supporters-75661b7b0983
‘TDS’ now an acronym for more than just ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’
Newspaper in rack with headline ‘Pro-Trump Mob Storms US Capitol’
Photo by little plant on Unsplash
In the summer of 2018, before the Democrats decisively regained control of the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump used the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!” — Donald Trump on Twitter, July 18, 2018
Trump sycophants had, of course, been using the term prior to the tweet. In a story about the president’s use of the phrase, Associated Press reported that the term is intended to describe “voters who are so angry and opposed to the U.S. president that they are incapable of seeing any good in what he does.” apnews.com/article/48225d1360864dcb861b12e5cda12a32
I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, but I did see some truth in the TDS concept — not because I believed Trump was doing much good, but because I told myself and others at the outset of his presidency I would watch for things he did that I could support. They were few and far between, but they did occur. That set me apart from some who opposed Trump’s agenda.
For example, when I tried to discuss Trump’s tax package, I encountered fierce resistance in some quarters when I opined that the Qualified Business Income deduction would be helpful to small businesses.
www.irs.gov/newsroom/qualified-business-income-deduction
Many people had no idea what the QBI does — it reduces the amount of taxable business income by up to 20% — but they were certain that if Trump had a hand in it, it could not be good. On a few occasions, when I attempted to explain why I supported the QBI provision, it was like talking to someone who had their head encased in a soundproof booth.
But that’s how politics goes sometimes. If a contrary opinion challenges someone’s preconceived ideas, they don’t even want to hear it. I saw this mindset in people who despised Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and other past presidents. In Trump’s case, though, many of his supporters acted as if this kind of irrational behavior had never existed in American politics prior to the Trump era — even though some of them behaved exactly the same way toward Obama.
‘Trump Defender Syndrome’ prevents objective assessments
Flash forward to the recent mob violence at the Capitol. While it is arguable whether Trump directly encouraged the insurrection, it should be obvious to anyone possessing the capacity for objective analysis that the president did not do a damn thing to discourage the rioters until hours after the violence and destruction of government property were well under way.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but Trump dawdled while the Capitol was vandalized, disrespected and desecrated by people he sent there to “fight like hell.”
TDS is no-longer just a syndrome that afflicts Trump’s detractors. Trump loyalists who embrace their own version of TDS — Trump Defender Syndrome — exhibit a persistent inability to even consider the idea that Trump may have done something wrong.
On Thursday, Trump defender and ordained Christian minister Franklin Graham went so far as to compare the 10 Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump to Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. www.newsweek.com/franklin-graham-compares-10-republicans-who-voted-impeach-trump-betrayal-christ-1561809
That is a prime example of Trump Defender Syndrome, and Graham should know better. After all, he’s surely read in the Bible that one shall not bear false witness against a neighbor. But that’s exactly what Trump is doing by pushing his untrue claim that the election was stolen.
Image by gfk DSGN from Pixabay
Insisting the election was stolen is the root of the problem
In Trump’s speech to the adoring crowd at the “Save America” rally Jan. 6 in Washington, he urged them to give “weak” Republicans in the Capitol the kind of “pride and boldness” they need to “take back our country.” He did not explicitly say people should force their way into the Capitol, break windows and steal a laptop from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, but he did say the election was stolen. Repeatedly, while mouthing a litany of lies and debunked allegations. www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/transcript-of-trumps-speech-at-rally-before-us-capitol-riot
Therein lies the the problem:
The cause Trump rallied his supporters for was and is a fraudulent one.
Rather than accept the reality that Biden won a fair election, Trump opted for conning his most gullible followers into joining him in his grand delusion.
The truth is in plain sight for all to see:
Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
Biden won more than 81 million popular votes and exceeded Trump’s popular vote total by more than 7 million votes.
Numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, reviewed Trump’s claims of election fraud and found them lacking.
The election was not stolen.
Finally, and most importantly, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 as a legitimately elected president, no matter what Trump wants you to believe.
But because Trump did not get the result he had hoped for in the courts, he urged anyone who was willing to act on his words to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into doing something the VP does not have the legal authority to do — send the certified results back to enough states in the hopes they will “find” enough votes for Trump until he prevails.
In effect, Trump was urging the crowd to do all they could to overturn the will of the American electorate.
How can anyone, left or right, Democrat or Republican or independent, defend such behavior?
Perhaps rather than — or in addition to — impeaching Trump for inciting an insurrection, the House should have impeached him for what he so obviously and did: engaged in a seditious conspiracy. As Clark Cunningham, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University wrote in Politico, “(T)hose who attacked the Capitol did so with the explicit purpose of preventing Congress from carrying out its legal duty to certify the election.” www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/10/trump-impeachment-articles-incite-insurrection-seditious-conspiracy-456937
That Trump tried to get his supporters to prevent the results of a fair election from congressional certification is both indefensible and indisputable, yet those who suffer from Trump Defender Syndrome continue to defend the outgoing president’s baseless claims and dispute the fact that Biden won.