Ever since Donald Trump’s second term began, his policies have sparked wave after wave of backlash! And now, it seems things have taken the weirdest turn possible!
How so? Well, if you dislike Trump too much, Republicans in Minnesota want to make it a diagnosable mental disorder! Yes, you read that right. In what might be the most ironic (read bizarre) bill ever, GOP lawmakers are pushing to classify Trump Derangement Syndrome as an official illness! Because apparently, opposing the President with a little too much enthusiasm now counts as a medical condition.
The bill was submitted by five GOP senators on Monday. It proposes to add “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) to Minnesota’s official list of recognized mental health disorders. The legislation defines the condition as an “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.” Symptoms include “Trump-induced general hysteria, due to which there is an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s behavior.”
The proposal has sparked outrage from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), which strongly condemned the bill. In a statement, the DFL argued, “This is why Minnesota Republicans have lost every statewide election in recent memory – every time they get an opportunity to try to improve Minnesotans’ lives, they instead double down on an agenda that caters to their party’s most extreme right-wing activists.”
What were the origins of ‘Derangement Syndrome’? The concept of “Derangement Syndrome” in politics dates back to 2003. Then, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer, a trained psychiatrist, coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome” to describe extreme paranoia directed at then-President George W. Bush. Krauthammer defined it as an “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay, the very existence—of George W. Bush.”
Since then, Trump supporters have widely adopted the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to mock the haters of the 45th and now 47th president. The Minnesota Republican proposal directly borrows Krauthammer’s wording and that he later expanded on in a 2017 column for The Oregonian. In the piece, Krauthammer dealt with the difference between legitimate policy disagreements and an irrational obsession with Trump. He Predicted if Trump continued his erratic behavior, “Trump Derangement Syndrome will only become epidemic.”
🚨JUST ANNOUNCED: Minnesota Senate Republicans just introduced a bill classifying “TDS Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness.
Beautiful🤣🤣🤣 I believe far more than 68% of Americans want more of this… pic.twitter.com/QMtpSCAr1N
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) March 15, 2025
Krauthammer acknowledged that some of Trump’s policies, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, were politically necessary. But, he didn’t step back from criticizing Trump’s unfiltered Twitter rants either. He described them as the “unfiltered id”, a psychological term that refers to the brain’s impulsive pleasure-seeking mechanism, and warned that Trump’s social media outbursts could “only fuel the hysteria.”
The bill’s chances of passing in Minnesota’s divided legislature is uncertain. However the introduction speaks for the increasing politicization of mental health language. Republicans argue that TDS is about the irrational hatred and paranoia that surrounds Trump. On the other hand, Democrats see it as a dismissive tactic used to silence legitimate dissent and criticism!
BREAKING: Minnesota Senate Republicans just introduced a bill to classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness. More than 68% of Americans want more of this. LFG🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/AFoIZ72pjD
— Ape𝕏 (@CubanOnlyTrump) March 15, 2025
Right after the announcement, discussions heated up on the internet. One comment on X read, ‘Crazies!!’ while another one read, “It is always a mistake to let legislators define medical diagnosis and therapy Always They know nothing about mental illness.” A third comment read, “Trump’s mental state is indeed different from that of normal people, and I am also surprised.”
With the bill now in public debate, it has to be unwrapped soon whether this political flashpoint will gain momentum in other conservative states or only stay as a legislative stunt designed to rally Trump’s base.
Either way, the battle over “Trump Derangement Syndrome” has only just begun!
