Given the unwavering intensity of Trump Derangement Syndrome among Leftists, Trump’s greatest gift to his supporters would be to switch sides, changing positions on every important issue. Trump could save the USA by becoming a Democrat.
Declaring membership in the Democrat party, Trump would paralyze Leftists with despair.
A yellow & blue flag would appear in Trump’s X bio, and the US cash pipeline to Ukraine would run dry in days.
Trump would praise Hamas as “freedom fighters,” and Palestinian flags would protrude from garbage cans across college campuses. The most hawkish Republicans and Democrats would become such strict isolationists that they wouldn’t even talk of isolationism, never mentioning another nation by name.
Hollywood celebrities would stare at their phones, minds blank, tweetless.
Trump would tweet out socialist soundbites — pay their fair share, people above profits, an economy that works for everyone — and AOC would vote to abolish Minimum Wage, open new coal mines, and build a border wall.
Support for NATO would plummet. Military brinkmanship would cease. “Defense” contracts would end one after another.
Republicans would urge Democrats to calm down with their tax and spending cuts, flinching at every mention of balanced budgets.
Trump would call for immediate climate action, and Greta Thunberg would film her sailboat burning off the coast of Stockholm.
Asked about abortion, Trump would say, “Women choose, PERIOD.” Elizabeth Warren would claim to be a lifelong pro-lifer. Hillary Clinton would demand a Constitutional Amendment banning all abortion.
Comedians would joke without self-censorship or fear of demonetization, deplatforming, or cancellation.
Democrats would live out every RINO campaign promise.
Marriage and birth rates would spike, women fleeing offices in droves, at Trump’s first complaint of “gender pay gap.”
Public schools would wither, eventually collapsing, as activist teachers bailed, having entered the profession only to indoctrinate kids into the Woke worldview.
DEI trainers and other oppression hustlers would need to lie about their employment histories to find jobs. Race relations would instantly improve.
Inflation would fall, and no Democrat would ever speak of “job creation” or complain about CEO salaries.
“Toxic masculinity” would disappear from public discourse, and masculinity influencers like Andrew Tate would fade from memory. “Trad wives” would delete their social media accounts to spend more time being traditional wives instead of “influencers.”
When Trump called for CRT curricula mandates, Democrats would condemn all federal departments — Education, Transportation, etc. — as unconstitutional.
Calling for a carbon-free economy, Trump would tank the stocks of green energy companies that dependent exclusively on artificial incentives passed with Leftist votes.
Hanging Trans Progress Flags at all Trump properties, DJT would instantly halt every gender-affirming surgery scheduled in the US. “Trans kids” would vanish.
“Community activists” would find full-time employment, mostly in blue-collar fields.
With the first utterance of “No human is illegal” or “Love is Love” or other virtue-signaling slogan, rainbow-colored signs would disappear from yards across America.
Antifa thugs would throw down their black masks and hoodies, taking up gardening and hiking.
Democrat mayors would restore law and order to major cities.
“I’m Donald, and my pronouns are He/Him,” Trump would say, instantly eliminating all use of They/Them and the notion of gender.
Manufacturing plants would run full throttle. The economy would grow, all without government “stimulation.”
By becoming a Democrat — not just a DINO but a full-fledged Leftist, for whom political activism has become a religion — Trump would achieve more than all Republicans of the last 50 years combined. The USA would enjoy its best conditions since the end of WWII. By becoming a Leftist, Trump would strip Leftism of its purpose: narcissistic validation. Leftism would lose all sense of moral and intellectual superiority. If their most hated enemy switched sides, their sense of exclusivity would disappear. The symbol of everything they applauded themselves for transcending would become meaningless. If Trump kept his trademark personality traits while shifting his ideology, the Leftist cosmology would crumble.
Leftists need Trump to remain just the way he is. They need enemies more than allies. Enemies offer the convenience of distance, easily dehumanized and molded into caricatures that support simplified arguments. A caricaturized enemy can prove everything a narcissistic person wants to believe about herself. To be sure, this habit of distorting enemies for self-validation is universal, to varying degrees. From time to time, everyone feels better about themselves by disdaining an adversary. Yet, for Leftists, antagonistic relationships are not personal but rather theological. Leftists don’t conceptualize their adversaries based on actions or personality traits but rather their positions within a dualistic cosmology that dichotomizes all humanity into the enlightened versus the ignorant.
Like other religions that have masqueraded as political movements — Marxism, National Socialism, Maoism, and so on — today’s Leftism (or Wokeism) depends on this dichotomy. These religious ideologies apply different labels to their enemies, but the concept remains consistent. Marx called the enemy the Bourgeoisie, the oppressors of the Proletariat. Calling themselves Aryans, considering themselves the master race, the Nazis had the Untermensch (under-humans or sub-humans), which included Jews, Slavs, and other groups considered not only inferior but threatening. In an unscripted remark, speaking for the whole Democrat party, Hillary Clinton called their enemies “Deplorables.” Clinton did not call their views deplorable, nor say they were being deplorable in their present actions. They are Deplorables, now and always. The details vary; the goal for labeling the enemy stays unwavering: narcissistic validation, feeling special by believing yourself superior to an ignorant, loathsome class of people. That is the basis for Trump Derangement Syndrome. This need to feel superior is the foundation for Leftism.
Although Trump unified the “Deplorables” in the 2016 election, he much more effectively galvanized Leftists. When Donald Trump transitioned from business mogul/reality TV star to politician, he came to symbolize everything Leftists had always believed about their enemies — and thereby everything they believed about themselves. He epitomized the crass ignorance they attributed to all Right-wingers. Only Trump was outsized enough to carry every cliché at once. He can be a sexist pig, a white supremacist, whatever the moment required, never mind the evidence. He can symbolize Christian fascism or Christian hypocrisy, whichever fits the present argument. Trump, Leftists warn, wants to return us to the dark ages in which women were commodified like cattle, guided by the oppressive values of the Bible (which he has never read, they stress). Nobody fulfills Leftists like Trump. They love to hate Trump more than they care about political positions. Trump validates their narcissistic senses of selfhood better than any amount of virtue signaling ever could.
Leftism is a cult that rests upon narcissism, sustaining a sense of specialness through moral and intellectual superiority. Leftism is not for everyone, because only the elect may see through the illusions everyone else takes for reality. Leftists alone can see with the critical perspectives to pierce through the carceral social constructs — patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, etc. — which enslave the oppressed to serve the privileged. But if Trump were to suddenly go Woke, without changing his personality, it would destroy this sense of exclusivity. Once this exclusivity disappears, the religion loses its raison d’etre. Leftists could no longer be Leftists, if they couldn’t feel superior to MAGA Republicans, Trumpers, or whatever group label best validates their self-conceptualizations. Trump becoming a Leftist would destroy Leftism.
***
I say all this as someone who has always found Donald Trump distasteful. I still dislike the thought of Trump with political power. But, even though I have always recoiled from his crassness and egotism, my disdain for his actions saved me from the delusions of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which I assumed to be an exaggerated concept until I forced myself to listen to what Leftists said about DJT, over and over, without any critical reflection. Once I listened to Leftists, I understood that Trump Derangement Syndrome was very real and easy to understand. I noticed that Leftists often ignored plain arguments against Trump’s actions, circumventing conspicuous evidence to call him a racist, a Russian plant, a sexist, or whatever fit the present narrative. Frequently, they passed over opportunities to appeal to wider audiences, choosing the old canards instead of plain facts with broader appeal. They seemed to neglect the normal rules of rhetoric, disregarding considerations of audience and effective messaging. Rather than changing anyone’s opinions, their vitriol for Trump only strengthened his supporters’ resolve and even swayed some voters toward the nasty Orange Man. Quite often, they seemed uninterested in changing anyone’s mind about Trump, sticking to the same tired lines. I came to understand that it wasn’t about Trump. It was about themselves — the way they envisioned themselves in conflict with a brutish enemy. Rather than rhetorical appeal for change, the discourse on their favorite topic existed for self-congratulation. They didn’t talk about Trump to change anyone’s opinions but to validate their opinions of themselves.
***
Although a Democrat Trump would not be the first famous donkey convert, he would be the most incongruous. He is their antithesis not only in policy but also personality. Trump joining the Democrats would be the record scratch that stops the party. By contrast, Elizabeth Warren, another well-known turncoat, bears a countenance made for Leftist outrage memes. Trump, though, would never fit in. He is too good an enemy to ever be an ally, regardless of ideology.
Of course, not all cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome may be blamed on Leftism. Some people are simply guilty of trusting the Leftist media and repeating the cult’s nonsense without adopting its core dogmas. Many cults proceed in this manner, impacting the world through the naivety of well-intentioned outsiders. Within Communist traditions, such people are “useful idiots.”
Of course, not all Democrats are Leftists. Many are not even very “left leaning.” They stick with the party out of misguided loyalty or opportunism, in the case of certain politicians who don’t believe in the party’s positions but never lose faith in its rich donors. Some who vote for Democrats (or, more accurately, against Republicans) simply commit the naive mistake of believing that mainstream media reporting corresponds to reality in some meaningful way, preferring willful ignorance to critical thinking. These milquetoast Democrats, however, are merely dependable votes for those party leaders who claim to occupy the “right side of history,” whatever the cause du jour might be. Unchallenged from within, Leftists dominate the Democrat party.
Trump would ruin their main supply of self-congratulation by joining them. Though Trump insists that he would broker a ceasefire in Ukraine as POTUS, he could instantly reroute the world from its path toward global conflict without elections or even campaigning. Trump could fix innumerable problems with a simple sentence: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that I am joining the Democrat party.”
