Advice from an American on the treatment of TDS - Trump Derangement Syndrome
Take everything he says with a pinch of salt and, if it becomes too much, have a calming wee dram.
Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, is dangerous. It attacks judgement, and replaces it with the disease of prejudices, some strains favouring, others opposing America’s President, Donald J. Trump. Fevers run high. There is no cure. But there are steps that can be taken to ameliorate the symptoms.
Order a supply of salt, in packets the size of what are called “pinches”. Since you will need these for the next four years, order by the tonne, rather than the ounce. Remember that, for Trump, strict fidelity to the facts is what Ira Gershwin in a different context called “a sometime thing.” Reserve a goodly portion of your stash of pinches for statements by hysterical opponents who see the second coming of Hitler in much of what Trump does.
Distinguish between threat and execution. Trump suffers from what we might call King Learism. “I will do such things – What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth.” Unless he doesn’t do them. The terrible threats that would be the terrors of the world trading system have evolved into an opening of negotiations with individual countries, rather than an end to the international exchange of goods and services. The terms of trade that emerge will be different, and probably more favourable to the US as harassing of its high-tech companies, subsidies and currency manipulations are reined in. Supply chains will change, incentives to locate on the US side of a tariff wall will be increased. But the world has survived worse.
Trump uses threats as the first offer in what he sees as a negotiation. At times this is a way of taking two steps towards his goal and one step back, a process that leaves him closer to his goal. Threaten a takeover of the Panama Canal, the President of Panama cancels his membership in China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, and an American consortium led by BlackRock emerges to buy out Chinese interests in the ports on either side of the Canal.
Threaten to take over the Gaza Strip and force Egypt and others to abandon support of the status quo and develop an alternative to Trump’s proposal, including a system of governance that prevents the return of Hamas.
Threaten to abandon allies behind in dues. Trump, owner of a famous exclusive club in Florida, reminded Europeans who want to be a member of the international club known as NATO, and have a seat at the table at which the future of Ukraine is being hammered out, that they must finally begin to pay their dues, even if that requires borrowing.
As Churchill noted almost exactly 100 years ago, “… the threat of adversity is a necessary factor in stimulating self-reliance.” Dues are being paid.
Unfortunately, nothing I can prescribe can relieve buyers’ remorse, which is a new strain of TDS. Causes include the pain some feel watching Trump and his thuggish vice president prove they can mistreat a harried Zelensky for an undiplomatic performance. Or observing the master of the art of negotiation give Putin everything he wants, in advance of formal negotiations. Or at his willingness to put in charge of the nation’s health a man who believes that vaccinations cause autism, and that raw milk is a health drink.
The symptoms of this variant of TDS are obvious, its cause difficult to diagnose. The best known approach to its amelioration is to take a calming wee dram, branded or generic.
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