It’s ‘Trump Deprivation Syndrome’
Trump Derangement Syndrome — the overwrought, persistent belief that everything Donald Trump did was corrupt, evil or both — has dominated political discussion for four years. You might have thought the condition would fade now that he is out of office. Instead, we're seeing one type of TDS replaced by another: Trump Deprivation Syndrome.
Politicians and journalists of all stripes have become so addicted to dissecting Trump's every move that they can't seem to give him up. Trump die-hards within the Republican Party are making their unswerving loyalty to him a regular feature of their online commentary. The political media is driving the story of a riven GOP, irrevocably broken into proand anti-trump factions, on an almost daily basis. Democrats are pushing for a Jan. 6 commission to look into the Capitol riot, a move that will keep Trump in the news for months to come. He's out of sight, but he's not out of mind.
Money is surely a motive for some afflicted by the new TDS. Ratings for political news shows, especially on some cable networks, rose dramatically during the Trump years. Producers and hosts know that obsessively covering the former president attracts eyeballs, even if it's just the political version of the lookie-loos who can't avert their gaze from a roadside crash. Print journalists also know that many people just can't get enough of Trump. Chasing clicks with more stories on America's best-known political villain is, for some, simply good business. For these folks, “Never Trump” really means “Ever Trump.”
Politicians on both sides have similar motives. Many minor Republican politicians became small-time celebrities on Fox News by their reliable support of whatever Trump said or did. If Trump fades from view, they may fade from view, too.
But TDS is likelier to infect the Democratic side. Their narrow coalition ranges across the ideological aisle, from staunch democratic socialists such as the members of “the Squad” to former Republicans who still pine for the GOP of their youth. This diverse collection is united by only one thing: hatred or dislike of Trump. The more Trump's misdeeds or potential return to power is kept front and center, the likelier it is that Democrats can retain control of both chambers of Congress in next year's midterms.
There's one important figure, however, for whom Trump Deprivation Syndrome is a bad idea: President Joe Biden. He has an ambitious agenda, and he will need to marshal public support for it now and in the future. He can't do that unless people are talking about him, not his predecessor. There's also a simple
matter of ego. Politicians are known to have an outsized sense of self, and it surely rankles Biden that he vanquished Trump in the election and still can't dominate the nightly news. Perhaps both reasons are why he told the audience for his nationally televised town hall last week that he is “tired of talking about Donald Trump.”
If only. Trump retains our attention because he is a compelling personality, and purveyors of popular entertainment have long known that people want to follow interesting people. It's not enough just to be a great actor, an amazing entrepreneur or a sports legend. If public attention and the lucre it can bring are your goal, you have to create controversy or build a larger-than-life persona that makes people look up with wonder.
Trump spent his entire life building that persona, whether in New York's tabloids or via reality television, and he knows how to make people watch. Now that he's gone, or at least not making daily appearances or comments, he has left a gaping void that many had become dependent upon. They just can't let him go.
Trump will probably feed this hunger like the public relations master that he is. He'll peek out over the parapets of Mar-a-lago just enough to keep his name and mug in our minds, giving TDS addicts enough of a fix to keep them going. When election season starts in earnest next year, he'll ramp up his appearances and launch his comeback. The political story for much of 2022 won't be whether Democrats and Biden retain control of Congress; it will be whether Trump can oust his Republican opponents and retain control of the GOP.
None of this is good for a badly broken country. Right and left should move on from Trump and let our democracy heal from his narcissism. But there's no vaccine that protects us from TDS. The fact we can't seem to break his habit means the body politic will continue to suffer from this infection for years to come.