Source: Spencer Platt / Getty
Do y’all remember when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the president of the United States in 2016, and because 3 million more Americans voted for Clinton to ascend to the White House, a lot of people were naturally really upset about it? Trump’s supporters had a name for what they perceived as hyperbolic hysteria regarding Trump’s haters on “the left.”
They called it “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS).
That’s right, MAGA conservatives couldn’t fathom why such a large percentage of the population was unaccepting of a commander-in-chief who was outwardly racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and every other kind of “ism” and “ick” imaginable. They didn’t get why so many people were unhappy that a beloved and charming president like Barack Obama—who wasn’t nearly the great socialist radical Tea Party conservatives tried so hard to paint him as—was succeeded by this boorish, obnoxious, perpetually inappropriate clown of a manchild who was sure to support very backward and oppressive policy the far-right GOP could muster up. All of those fears were well-founded, and the overwhelming majority of people who didn’t daydream about giving Trump a private lap dance knew it—but the MAGAts didn’t get it, so they just assumed everyone had gone delirious and decided to diagnose them all with a mental disorder they made up out of the thin air between their collective ears.
But, whatever. While we’re creating fictitious mental and cognitive disorders, how about I offer one that, unlike TDS, can easily be backed up with evidence provided by Trump, the GOP and all of their constituents, especially since President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection.
It’s called “Harris Derangement Syndrome” (HDS).
Let’s start with actor and known right-winger Jon Voight, who recently recorded and posted a video of himself describing Harris’ potential presidency as one where Obama is pulling Harris’ puppet strings to create a dystopian reality of doom, gloom and godlessness where everyone’s money vanishes into a socialist void and all of the kids are being systematically converted into trans people because MAGA minions think gender identity works the same way a virus outbreak works during a global pandemic. (I guarantee the bigots would line up for a COVID-LBTQ+ vaccine though.)
“It’s a war crime that Obama is directing and Kamala Harris will be the cackling hyena that just listens and repeats. If we don’t stop this horror, you, my friends, will have the biggest horror that you will not know how to end,” the villain from Anaconda said in the video. “We must all see this truth, become one with this understanding that God will guide us with words of wisdom that we may understand that Donald Trump will make any sacrifice to save America.
“We the people are in danger and we must vote for President Trump as he will save this nation and the left are all afraid of his strength because he is only for the people,” he continued. “He’s not for the power, the greed, the lies or wanting to destroy one’s hard-earned earnings. We must stop this madness now, our children are in danger.”
And why are “our children in danger?” Well, according to the old guy from that one Nick Cage movie, they’re in danger because the “left” wants to “turn them into non-binaries.” (This man really managed to make the politically correct term for non-gender conforming people still sound like a slur.)
Where to even start?
First of all, I just don’t understand why so many conservatives are wholly convinced that Obama is still controlling the Executive Branch of the U.S. government a full eight years after he left office. It’s almost as if “Obama Derangement Syndrome” (ODS) is so debilitating that the MAGA whites are still experiencing symptoms the better part of a decade later.
Secondly, only the paranoid bigots of the MAGA world can make the push for tolerance for non-binary people and other members of the LGBTQ+ community out to be an agenda to indoctrinate children into transness. It’s almost as if the very concept of tolerance and acceptance, and the normalization of various sexual and gender-related identities is so unfathomable to them that they perceive an agenda against bullying and queerphobia to be an agenda against children and their biologies. As for that actor I forgot was also in Zoolander, the way he makes Trump out to be the second coming of Orangey-White Jesus is simply a whole different kind of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” that has long spread in the world of white Republicans who once thought about having their mouths surgically replaced with buttholes so they could bear a closer resemblance to their MAGA messiah.
Anyway, let’s move on to Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who recently took time on her show to criticize Harris for—*double checks notes because this couldn’t possibly be right*—hugging people.
From Comic Sands:
Speaking on Friday’s episode of The Ingraham Angle, Ingraham questioned the presumptive Democratic nominee’s qualifications, dismissively minimizing Harris’s accomplishments as the elected DA of San Francisco, the Attorney General of California, a U.S. Senator, and Vice President.
Ingraham took aim at a speech Harris delivered at the 2022 Munich Security Conference, just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Her brilliance about topics like Ukraine — it’s just too much for most mortals to digest. It’s better for her [Harris] to stay in her sweet spot as the hugger-in-chief.”
At this point, a montage played showing Harris hugging numerous people including Morehouse College graduate Tyler Greene at an Atlanta rally on Tuesday, sorority head Rasheeda S. Liberty at Sigma Gamma Rho’s convention in Houston the following day, and Bill and Hillary Clinton at the eulogy for Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democratic Representative who died last month.
Yeah—when you find yourself being critical of the way your opponent has shown platonic physical affection to several people at places where it was completely appropriate to do so, such as a funeral, it really shouldn’t take too much introspection to realize you’re on the wrong side of things.
Of course, no one has shown the level of derangement towards Harris than her main opponent, Donald Trump himself.
After publicly wetting his star-spangled swastika drawers over the prospect of debating Harris in front of an ABC News moderator—as he had already agreed to do when Biden was going to be his opponent—Trump has been desperately trying to turn Harris’ ethnicity against her, even going as far as to whitesplain to Black journalists at NABJ that Harris isn’t really Black. Trump is also out here trying to resurrect the same racist “birther” attacks that failed twice to prevent Obama from being elected.
Now, Trump is taking to social media to play around with Harris’ name by weirdly changing it to “Kamabla” while spreading nonsense about her and Biden trying to take everyone’s food (or whatever TF he was talking about).
From calling Harris a “DEI Hire,” to insisting without evidence and against logic that she “slept her way to the top,” the attacks on Harris are only getting more petty, bigoted and far-fetched by the day. They’re desperately reaching for substantial issues to wield against her but only coming up with sexist and racist attacks that have gotten so prevalent Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson felt compelled to convene a closed-door meeting last week to warn his fellow GOP legislators to stop being racist and sexist.
Maybe they’re getting nervous now that multiple national polls are giving Harris the edge over Trump. Or maybe the mere thought of a Black woman ascending to the highest office in America is simply something they can’t abide by.
It’s definitely both, but y’all see where I’m going.
SEE ALSO:
Democratic Nominee Kamala Harris Picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz As VP Running Mate
The Kamala Effect: More Black People Plan To Vote Compared To When Biden Was Nominee, New Poll Finds
