Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to be real

[drumdude]

I'm starting to unfortunately believe this is a real thing. It's been a meme for a long time, but the evidence for it keeps piling up.

Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass has been dropped by his talent agent, Michael Greene of Greene Talent, following his joke about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Rolling Stone can confirm.

“We have parted ways after what happened in Sydney,” Greene said in an email when contacted by Rolling Stone. “Thank you.”

The decision came after Gass’ longtime friend and Tenacious D bandmate, Jack Black, announced that the band would cancel all of its remaining tour dates and pause future creative plans.

Black, in his statement, said, “I was blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday. I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form. After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 235061561/

He said “Don’t miss Trump next time."

Jack Black is blindsided because TDS is so insidious. I'm sure he would never have expected his friend to say something so stupid and ruin their successful venture. TDS causes normally smart, intelligent, thoughtful people to do and say the absolute dumbest crap when they're triggered by Trump.

[Res Ipsa]

I'm starting to unfortunately believe this is a real thing. It's been a meme for a long time, but the evidence for it keeps piling up.

Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass has been dropped by his talent agent, Michael Greene of Greene Talent, following his joke about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Rolling Stone can confirm.

“We have parted ways after what happened in Sydney,” Greene said in an email when contacted by Rolling Stone. “Thank you.”

The decision came after Gass’ longtime friend and Tenacious D bandmate, Jack Black, announced that the band would cancel all of its remaining tour dates and pause future creative plans.

Black, in his statement, said, “I was blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday. I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form. After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 235061561/

He said “Don’t miss Trump next time."

Jack Black is blindsided because TDS is so insidious. I'm sure he would never have expected his friend to say something so stupid and ruin their successful venture. TDS causes normally smart, intelligent, thoughtful people to do and say the absolute dumbest crap when they're triggered by Trump.

Of course extreme viewpoints and reactions are a thing. And that extreme rhetoric provokes more extreme rhetoric in an insane feedback loop is also a thing.

But I would suggest that responding to extreme statements by labeling a person as "deranged" is itself an escalation.

Kudos to both Jack Black and the agent for condemning the extreme comment without escalating conflict.

[Some Schmo]

derangement noun

the state of being completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way, especially because of mental illness

"Trump Derangement Syndrome" is the clearest case of projection in the political world today. It is laughable to describe anyone except a Trump supporter of being deranged over Trump.

The problem you have is that Trump is detestable to normal humans. It's rational to dislike him. It's deranged to like him.

[Kishkumen]

I guess Jack Black doesn’t have TDS, then?

[Kishkumen]

On the topic of Trump Derangement Syndrome, there is no such thing. Not everything is scientific because some yo-yo came up with a fake medical or fake scientific name for it. Those who go around saying they feel personally convinced of the reality of something someone made up and stuck a jargony term on need to reassess their epistemology pronto.

[drumdude]

I'm starting to unfortunately believe this is a real thing. It's been a meme for a long time, but the evidence for it keeps piling up.



https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 235061561/

He said “Don’t miss Trump next time."

Jack Black is blindsided because TDS is so insidious. I'm sure he would never have expected his friend to say something so stupid and ruin their successful venture. TDS causes normally smart, intelligent, thoughtful people to do and say the absolute dumbest crap when they're triggered by Trump.

Of course extreme viewpoints and reactions are a thing. And that extreme rhetoric provokes more extreme rhetoric in an insane feedback loop is also a thing.

But I would suggest that responding to extreme statements by labeling a person as "deranged" is itself an escalation.

Kudos to both Jack Black and the agent for condemning the extreme comment without escalating conflict.

Agreed as to their handling of the issue. What about the label for the problem? Something other than degangement? Is there even a problem at all?

The first part in fixing a problem is admitting there is a problem in the first place. While many Trump fans use this "TDS" meme as a weapon to mischaracterize every Trump critic, I think it's important to acknowledge a pattern when it appears. Glass wasn't the first to fall victim, and he won't be the last. Have there been enough of these incidents to establish something unique to Trump?

I can't imagine many Americans 20 years ago lamenting a failed assassination of Bush, even though a large part of the country disliked him politically.

[Kishkumen]

I can't imagine many Americans 20 years ago lamenting a failed assassination of Bush, even though a large part of the country disliked him politically.

If you have not read my post on the fall of the Roman Republic, it may be worth checking out.

What did John Wilkes Booth write in his diary after he shot Lincoln?



sic semper tyrannis means, "may it thus always be for tyrants."

This is because he believed Lincoln had behaved tyrannically in his role as president, just as Caesar had behaved tyrannically.

I think JWB was ultimately wrong, but this is where the idea is coming from. In Roman culture, slaying the tyrant was considered a noble act, which was best exemplified in the Athenian heroes Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who killed the last tyrant of the Peisistratid dynasty.

Tyranny and avoiding it were very much key concerns of our founders. So much so, that the seal that became the Seal of Virginia, which shows Virtue, spear in hand, with her foot on the body of Tyranny, represented by a recumbent male figure with a crown lying next to him, was originally proposed as the seal of the United States of America.

Trump has a tyrannical personality. Indeed, if you were to read ancient accounts of the lives of tyrants and philosophical discussions of tyranny, you would find that the bad tyrant is closely similar to the character, personality, and methods of Donald J. Trump. So, this idea that it would be a good thing for the tyrant to be slain, just as Caesar was slain, is kinda baked into the culture.

It may have less to do with not liking Trump than you think. It may have more to do with a cultural aversion to tyranny. Obviously, that aversion has waned to the point that a big chunk of Americans are thirsting to put a tyrant in charge of this country, which is what an informed person would naturally see in the personality, methods, and movement of Trump.

[Kishkumen]

Why was the seal used for the state of Virginia? And why is the figure of virtue apt for the victor over tyranny? See the story of Verginia in Livy's history. I supply the abbreviated version from Wikipedia:

In 451 BC, the decemvir Appius Claudius began to lust after Verginia, a beautiful plebeian girl who was the daughter of Lucius Verginius, a respected centurion. Verginia was betrothed to Lucius Icilius, a former tribune of the plebs. When Verginia rejected Claudius' advances, he had one of his clients, Marcus Claudius, claim that she was not the daughter of Verginius but instead the daughter of his slave, and therefore a slave herself. Marcus Claudius then abducted her while she was on her way to school in the Forum, taking advantage of her father's absence from Rome. The crowd in the Forum objected to this, as both Verginius and Icilius were well-respected men, and they forced Marcus Claudius to bring the case before the decemvirs, led by Appius Claudius himself. Verginius was recalled from the field to defend his daughter, and Icilius, after threats of violence, succeeded in having Verginia returned to her house while the court waited for her father to appear. Claudius tried to have his own supporters intercept the messengers sent to summon Verginius, but they arrived too late to delay Verginius' arrival

When Verginius arrived two days later, he gathered his supporters in the Forum. Claudius, however, unmoved by Verginius' widespread support, would not let him speak or defend himself, and declared that Verginia was indeed Marcus Claudius' slave. Appius Claudius had brought an armed escort with him and accused the citizens of sedition. The supporters of Verginius left the Forum rather than cause any violence, and Verginius begged to question his daughter himself. Claudius agreed to this, but Verginius grabbed a knife and, at the Shrine of Venus Cloacina, he stabbed Verginia, the only way he felt he could uphold her freedom and virtue. Upon killing her, Livy claims that Verginius spoke to Claudius directly, yelling: "By this blood, Appius, I devote thy head to the infernal gods." Verginius and Icilius were arrested, and their supporters, incensed by the injustice of Claudius, returned to attack the lictors and destroy their fasces. Claudius was eventually jailed but he committed suicide before his trial. Marcus Claudius was tried, found guilty, and exiled to Tibur. This controversy led to the overthrow of the decemviri and the re-establishment of the Roman Republic.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verginia

[Dwight]

Can’t have TDS without talking about the original, Bush Derangement Syndrome. It was a way to label people who seemed to irrationally think that George W. Bush and his administration would do something crazy like make up a lie about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and so we needed to invade Iraq. I think I agreed at the time that there were folks irrational in how Bush made them think or feel. I still do think there were people, but maybe far too many people were unable to raise legitimate questions.

[Kishkumen]

One of the important distinctions between the legend of Verginia and the history of Caesar's assassination is that in the legend a legal process led to the exile of the tyrant Claudius. In Caesar's historical case, there was no hope of legal redress. This is the danger of flouting and corrupting the legal process. If the people perceive that someone is above the law, they may take it upon themselves to be the justice that has eluded everyone.

On June 30th, Supreme Court issued an unconstitutional decision granting immunity to the president for all official acts. It took only two weeks for the first (and hopefully only) assassination attempt on Trump. It may be that the quiet, unassuming loner Thomas Matthew Crooks was a better student of history than most people, and he saw the Supreme Court decision as the tyrant's corrupt evasion of legal consequences for his crimes. An older, soberer person probably would have waited longer to act or never done anything at all, but he, being a young person who felt he had little to lose, tragically took matters into his own hands in a hasty way.

But he could have concluded that Supreme Court' act of placing the president ABOVE the law, made Trump a tyrant, who could be justifiably slain to protect the Republic. I don't know this for a fact, but it is certainly possible, and I would imagine it to be more of a possibility for a young, intelligent conservative with a deep belief in rights, especially gun rights. As for me, I thought his act was reprehensible and indefensible. Once we introduce violence into our politics and condone it, it will never leave, and we will be headed for an endless nightmare of more of the same.