Is Trump as Bad as the Left Believes?
Some thoughts on TDS.
Donald J. Trump is a lot of unattractive things. He’s boastful. He’s egotistical. He’s narcissistic, bombastic, and pugnacious. He alternately objectifies and disrespects women. (At least he knows what those are?) But is he a violence-inciting, misinformation-spreading threat to democracy? The media sure wants you to think so.
Just for grins, I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of things that threaten a healthy democracy. It didn’t respond with a photo of our current administration per se, but it did provide a rather uncanny and undeniable description of it:
Much has been said about Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), an imaginary “diagnosis” the right uses to label liberals who despise The Donald to the point of near-insanity. Conservatives insist the left has been brainwashed to view DJT as a divisive, erratic, power-hungry, ladypart-grabbing felon who is guaranteed to destroy the country, thanks to a biased media that constantly downplays his charity, highlights his arrogance, and continually takes his comments wholly out of context.
If you buy MSM headlines, Trump will push tax cuts that exclusively serve his wealthy cronies (even though IRS data show his prior tax cuts benefitted middle, working-class Americans the most), defund Planned Parenthood (Do liberals actually think our tax dollars should be used to murder babies? I feel like if that’s something you support, you can foot the bill yourself), and outlaw abortion entirely (even though he’s repeatedly said the decision should be left to individual states).
As ex-KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov so hauntingly illustrated, propaganda is powerful stuff.
One of my fabulous followers, a self-described “moderate Republican who voted for Nikki Haley and is not brainwashed by leftwing media" dropped this comment on a recent stack:
She later added, “I will be voting not so much with the Dems but against Trump.” I tried to think of a single thing that Trump could do that would put him in the “even worse than Kamala” category, and I legit couldn’t. She prioritizes illegals over American citizens. She openly supports communism wealth distribution. She doesn’t believe in free speech, for God’s sake. She said so herself.
As Harris’s new head cheerleader Liz Cheney said just a few short years ago:
Of her about-face on Hahaharris, Cheney credited *you cannot make this up* Kamala’s DNC speech, in particular how joyfully it contrasted with the messaging heard from Donald Grump.
“It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place, a recognition that we all have to work together to ensure that,” she said. “You contrast that with what we hear from Donald Trump again on a daily basis, that America is a failing nation, that America is a laughingstock.”
Is this the actual democratic campaign tactic? Pretend everything’s peachy and nobody will notice the country is falling apart?
On this eve of the first presidential debate, I thought it might be interesting to look at some frequent claims from the TDS crowd versus WAT (What Actually Transpired). I know this is likely to anger at least a few folks, but I urge Never Trumpers to consider—just for a brief, fleeting moment—the possibility that maybe what you’ve been told about him isn’t 100% truth. Because it’s likely not [commences gathering proof]. Remember how shocked you were when you found out Milli Vanilli couldn’t even sing? Hang onto that thought.
*If this post is too long for your liking, feel free to skip straight to the last one, Mean Orange Man Bad; it’s the most important one.
TDS: Trump told people to inject bleach.
WAT: Trump did a lousy job describing a promising treatment for viruses (among other things).
Although he stumbled awkwardly through his explanation, Trump was referring to technology that allows UV light to be injected into parts of the body, where it acts as a “disinfectant” to kill viruses. In his own words:
"Supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?"
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful."
Bleach was never mentioned, despite Jen Psaki’s patently false claim to the contrary, as well as Nancy Pelosi’s blatant misrepresentation of the events. Just as when Trump was brutalized for suggesting hydroxychloroquine could be a COVID treatment (and about which he was proven right, BTW), rather than praise his efforts to explore any possible cure, he was instead branded a buffoon. How dare he be open to alternatives to vaccines and remdesivir! The shame.
TDS: Trump singlehandedly incited the January 6 riots.
WAT: Trump suggested marching “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol.
Speaking at a rally just before the Capitol riot, Trump’s exact words were these:
“And after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down… to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
TDS: Trump called white supremacists “very fine people.”
WAT: After a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, turned violent, Trump said that neo-Nazis should be condemned.
Here’s the sentence that landed him in political hot water: “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had some people who were very fine people on both sides.”
Even Snopes eventually called BS on this one.
TDS: Trump had peaceful protesters tear-gassed so he could get a photo.
WAT: Protesters were removed prior to Trump’s arrival so that a contractor could install fencing, a move that had nothing to do with his appearance, according to an official government investigation.
The NPR story which ran with nearly the above headline verbatim was later amended with the following note:
Editor's note: The Interior Department's inspector general released a report in June 2021 that concludes that the clearing of Lafayette Square of protesters on June 1, 2020, had been previously planned by the U.S. Park Police before President Trump made his public statement at a nearby church.
TDS: Trump referred to American soldiers killed in WWI as “suckers and losers.”
WAT: The Atlantic was the first to make this claim, citing “anonymous sources.” Countless media outlets jumped on it. Trump denies saying it.
Um, are we in seventh grade?
Madison: “Somebody said you were dumb and ugly.”
Kylie: “OMG who?”
Madison: “Sorry, can’t say. But they definitely said it.”
Ask yourself: Would a man who consistently enjoys the support of the military ever dream of making such a statement? It makes zero sense. The fact that an-unnamed-somebody-can-say-that-an-important-somebody-else-said-something-explosive and it is treated as fact should tell you everything you need to know about media integrity and reliability. Of course, the desperate left continues to trot out the “suckers and losers” line lie every chance they can get.
TDA: Trump hates women.
WAH: Yeah, sorry. That’s actually the other guy gal.
Trump has never encouraged biological men to compete in women’s sports. He did not destroy Title IX by pushing to allow men into women’s locker rooms, bathrooms, activities, and other should-be-sacred spaces. Trump does not want to draft your daughters. He prioritized the fight against human and sex trafficking, which disproportionately affects women and girls. Under Trump, the unemployment rate for women reached a 65-year low.
Trump might not be fond of certain women (whose names rhyme with killary, for example), but the majority of assigned-female-at-birth-persons on the planet are better off under him than they would ever be under Harris (unless you want the government to pay for your abortion, I will concede).
TDS: Trump hates the LGBTQ+ community.
WAH: I’ll let this guy tell you:
When the glittering LGBTQ grandmaster himself doesn’t have an ugly thing to say about DJT, how anti-rainbow can Trump possibly be?
TDS: Everything Trump does is for the photo op. (See: the Arlington wreath ceremony.)
WAH: Trump was invited to honor fallen soldiers.
When Trump shamed the current administration by appearing at a service honoring the 13 US service members who were killed during Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the media jumped on Kamala’s claims that it was purely political posturing on Trump’s part.
A statement released jointly by the families of the fallen soldiers said, in part:
“President Trump was invited by us, the Gold Star families, to attend the solemn ceremonies commemorating the three-year anniversary of our children's deaths. He was there to honor their sacrifice, yet Vice President Harris has disgracefully twisted this sacred moment into a political ploy.”
(Don’t expect Harris or Rolling Stone to issue any corrections to their hit pieces stories.)
TDS: Mean Orange Man Bad.
WAH: Trump is a threat to The NWO Agenda. (They say so themselves.)
Trump is light years away from perfect. Daily I wait/pray for him to admit that Operation Warp Speed was a tragic mistake and to quit calling “that beautiful shot” anything but the death-and-destruction vector that it is. (Some insist his stance is strategic. IDK about that, but at least he’s acknowledged COVID vaccine injury exists. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s a start.) And while TDS is arguably real—we all know at least one leftist who literally loses it at the mere whisper of his name—it’s worth wondering why the one-sided media is so desperate to destroy him.
That fact alone—along with RFK Jr.’s endorsement and Harari literally saying that Trump’s reelection would be “the death blow to what remains of the Global Order”—makes me think he’s a candidate worth supporting. Love him or loathe him, Trump threatens their agenda, which clearly is to divide, infiltrate, impoverish, and control the entire planet. (But no taxes on tips!) It’s something to consider.
On a lighter note, RFK Jr.’s running mate Nicole Shanahan recently lampooned the left with a satirical ad skewering TDS sufferers. It’s pretty glorious. Enjoy.
Is Trump treated unfairly by the media? Is TDS a real thing? If the media isn’t to blame, who is? LMK what you think in the comments. ;)
P.S. Hearty, enthusiastic thanks to Beth an anonymous subscriber who suggested today’s topic.
TDS is totally real. I am slowly recovering. I have been thinking a lot about an old friend that I cut off a few years ago when I found out he had become a Trump supporter. He, like me, had been liberal, and I thought he had been brainwashed somehow - I remember thinking how sad it was, because I LIKED him, and I wondered what on earth had happened to him - but if he was no longer a Trump-hater like the rest of us, then clearly he had lost all ability to think rationally, and the friendship wasn't worth continuing. Looking back at it, it's fascinating to see who the stuck person was - and it wasn't him. I wasn't curious about what he had discovered - he offered to share info with me at the time, and I didn't want it because I assumed he'd been sucked into conspiracies somehow. I feel ashamed remembering that I actually felt sorry for him. Yet here I am, a few years later, in the same place that he was - going through the process of de-programming myself, having to re-examine my political belief system entirely, and knowing if I told friends/family, I'd be cut off the way I did to him.
I've come to understand that I had TDS because I consumed only MSM and was spoon-fed everything I needed to seethe in hatred for Trump. I mean - there are things about Trump that I found off-putting before reading anything about him, but boy did the media hammer it home, constantly telling me all the reasons he was worthy of my derision and rage. Then the pandemic happened - I didn't want to get the shot, lost my job because of it, and wow did the news coverage/propaganda/censorship open my eyes to the realities of the MSM. It changed everything for me. Although I still didn't like Trump, my TDS was tempered by the realization that it's hard not to feel that way if all you hear is about how awful he is, and I understood that I needed to start actually paying attention to what happens vs what I'm told. I was already realizing how I could never ever support Dems again, but even so I didn't think there was any way I could pull the lever for Trump - RFK finally brought me all the way over.
I've also come to realize that I don't *need* to like everything about Trump to come over here. It's just a weird place for me to be - as mentioned, almost everyone I know and love is very liberal and I would lose almost everyone immediately if I said this out loud to any of them. And not so long ago I was one of them.
I think I'm starting to post more like this just to make it real to myself, that I've gone over to the "dark side" - and it makes it really seem like I in fact CAME from the dark side...it's a journey, what can I say. I will say that I have felt welcomed with open arms over here - and that it feels like even if I disagree with you about some things, you're not going to cast me out - the way I would be on the other side.
(PS - I reached out and apologized to my friend, who accepted my apology, and we'll have a lot to talk about moving forward.)
I have a very intelligent friend in London who constantly loses his mind over Trump, and I think he is on the verge of de-friending me (like, in the real world...not just on the internet) and his main attack line is the bleach thing. I have politely asked him a few times now to show me the evidence that Trump said we should inject bleach into ourselves, and he can't (because it never happened, obvs) but rather than see the error of his ways, he just gets madder and madder and his TDS spirals. I mean, we are talking about a wealthy, very well qualified financier who went to Oxford. It is baffling.