Trump Derangement Syndrome

It was always projection.

I’m thinking of those trump supporters who spent years insisting that the people warning about his irrationality were the irrational ones—dismissing critics with the pejorative “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The phrase has somewhat respectable origins. In 2003, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer coined “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” describing it as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people” in reaction to George W. Bush. Later, another commentator David Horowitz invoked “Obama Derangement Syndrome” to criticize what he saw as over-the-top hysteria from parts of the right.

But with trump, the phrase evolved into something else entirely. Not just a critique, but a reflex—a way to deflect criticism while shielding one’s own emotional investment.

It echoes a childhood defense: if someone calls you stupid, you fire back, “I know you are, but what am I?” Or, “I’m rubber and you’re glue—whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

Admittedly, I was a sensitive kid.

And here we are, back in the schoolyard.

Now some of the loudest voices who praised trump while hurling “derangement” at his critics, are suddenly changing their tune—Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Theo Von. Like the cowering kids who cheered on the bully, only to realize they might end up in the principal’s office along with him.

So what changed?

Was it the profanity-laced Easter message?

The image of the orange messiah as the healer Jesus?

His praising Allah after threatening to destroy an entire civilization?

Too much Epstein?

Who knows.

The explanation now offered is convenient: age, decline, something neurological—he’s not the same man he once was.

I’ve always rejected the idea that trump is suffering from dementia. That was never the issue.

What he has consistently displayed are traits associated with sociopathic, malignant narcissism: impulsiveness, grandiosity, extreme self-centeredness, and a profound lack of empathy. Those traits aren’t new.

What’s changed isn’t him—it’s the willingness, or ability, of some supporters to ignore them.

Now that those same traits are harder to overlook, and the stakes have increased with the US at war, the story shifts. Not “we misjudged him,” but “he has changed.”

It’s a more comfortable narrative. It preserves the past at the expense of the present.

Projection is a powerful thing.