Trump derangement syndrome

There's another disease going around. It's called “Trump de-rangement syndrome.” It is probably more deadly than the corona virus. It causes people to lose their minds when critical thinking is required and turns the world into a popularity contest.

Many people, like me, vot-ed for Trump based on his many comments about the in-sanity of our interventionist Middle East policy. Some of us think domestic policy and for-eign policy are connected by a general philosophy of life. So out goes this vote for Trump and I thought we were getting somewhere. Haha. He just ve-toed a bill that would return war powers to Congress like it says in their job description.

I didn't have adoration for the guy like I see with the hats and so forth. I find people ignoring his drawbacks and mistakes as a matter of blind faith. It reminds me of the Donner Party. You might re-member them as the settlers who followed advice from an idiot and ended up being a symbol for cannibalism when they got stranded in the snowy Sierras.

I was talking to a Trump supporter recently and he was going on about God's gift to the United States. Then the discussion turned to the gov-ernment's reaction to “the vi-rus.” He then started complain-ing about the incredible amount of debt we are incurring with the $2.2 trillion Cares Act that Trump, himself begged for.

I had heard the word “de-ranged” used in horror movie titles. I had to look it up when it was used to bash supposed-ly left-leaning Trump critics. Basically, it means insane. Well, that's not very nice. So I hope nobody gets offended (another emerging disease) when this column has a familiar ring.

To heap lavish adoration on a man and then criticize what he's done doesn't sound sane. I realize that the popular way to look at TDS is as an afflic-tion of the anti-Trump crowd. But we are talking insanity, and there's plenty of that to go around on both sides. I can talk, because I admit, I was insane to think he would im-poverish the arms makers and close antiquated military bases just because the taxpayers deserved better.

To be fair, the critics of Trump, the ones who hate him and then look like they are in a trance if asked for a specific reason for their hatred, certain-ly deserve the derangement label.

As I was discussing the lockdowns attributed to the virus but demanded by the government, a friend said he opposed setting us free be-cause the protesters were most-ly Trump supporters. Sane? I doubt it.

There's plenty of derange-ment to go around. The most deranged thing of all is this focus on personalities while totally ignoring issues or poli-cies and understanding them and the consequences. Look around. Listen. Do you really want to be ruled by people voting in a “democracy,” or would it be better to follow rules made by cooler heads in times of stability?

Any responses to The Alternative may be sent as a letter to the editor or to Fritz’s email address 4selfgovernment@gmail.com. His blog, www.alternativebyfritz.com, is now being updated regularly. It's diverse, like the universities claim to be.