Essay: Trump derangement syndrome

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In his American Thinker article Mainstream Media’s Trump Derangement Syndrome Epidemic Steve McCann wrote:

Donald Trump concluded his second week as President of the United States last Friday. Prompted by virtually every utterance and action of the current President, the never-ending demonstrations and delirium of the professional activist Left as well as the Democratic Party hierarchy and much of the mainstream media and entertainment cabal has produced perhaps the most memorable and entertaining fortnight in recent American political history. Judging by their permanent state of hysteria it appears that this assemblage of left-wing factions is unaware that there are, at a minimum, 206 weeks remaining in the Trump presidency. Maintaining the current level of frenzy will be a formidable task.[1]

Trump degarangement syndrome: Why do the heathens rage?

The website Marketwatch reported concerning the aftermath of the 2016 presidential race: Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services[2]

See also: Secular leftists and psychogenic illness

A psychogenic illness is one that originates in the mind or in a mental condition. Psychosomatic disorders and mental illness that is not caused by an underlying physical condition are examples of psychogenic illnesses.

There is a considerable amount of scientific evidence that suggests that theism is more conducive to mental and physical health than atheism (See:Atheism and health).[3] In addition, atheists have higher suicide rates (see: Atheism and suicide and Atheism and depression).

Politically, most atheists fall on the left side of the political spectrum (see: Atheism and politics and Secular left).

The atheist Gordon Stein wrote:

Atheism has long ceased to be a rare and oft-ignored philosophical outlook...It has transformed itself into an active political programme with clear objectives which, though they vary from state to state, unequivocally include the elimination of state religion, religious education, and the enshrinement of scientism."[4]

Atheists commonly use the political realm to advance their atheistic ideology (see: Political activities of atheists).

The Religion News Service reported:

For the last decade, atheists, humanists and others secularists have worked hard to organize a “secular vote” that would counter the political clout of the religious right.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory dealt that movement a body blow when he garnered 81 percent of the white evangelical vote and 60 percent of the white Catholic vote. Mormons, too, voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

Despite Trump’s not being a particularly religious person, his platform was seen as anti-secular in many atheist and humanist circles. He said he would appoint religiously conservative Supreme Court justices, ban Muslim immigrants, favor Christianity and repeal the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits certain tax-exempt organizations from endorsing political candidates — issues antithetical to organized atheism and humanism.[5]

Trump's presidential victory, upset secular leftists/liberals and mental illness

See also: Donald Trump and American atheists and American atheism

Many leftists/liberals were extremely upset/angry that Donald Trump won the 2106 U.S presidential race and that anger has lingered.[6][7]

In January of 2017, the atheist and secular leftist PZ Myers said about Donald Trump's presidential victory:

This span of time representing the agonizing death of American idealism, decline of liberalism, and collapse into corruption has played out as the background of my life.

That’s depressing. History is not going to remember me, but I managed to live through a terrible period that will be remembered, unpleasantly. It would be nice to go out on a note of optimism, but that’s probably not going to happen.[8]

The website Marketwatch reported concerning the aftermath of the 2016 presidential race: Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services[9]

Greta Christina, depression and Donald Trump's presidential victory

See also: Atheism and depression

The atheist activist Greta Christina wrote in January of 2017:

I don’t know how to do this.

A lot of my strategies don’t work anymore. This round of depression isn’t just worse than my previous episodes: it’s different. My symptoms, the things that help, the things that make it worse — they’re different. I’ve spent the last four years learning how to manage depression, and now, at least to some extent, I need to start all over again.

It’s different because the world is genuinely terrible. That’s not the depression talking: that’s a reasonable, evidence-based assessment of reality. You know the joke, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you?” Well, just because you’re depressed doesn’t mean the world’s not terrible. And just because you’re anxious doesn’t mean the world’s not terrifying. I keep thinking about Reviving the Tribe, Eric Rofes’s book about gay men’s lives in the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, and I keep thinking about the question he kept asking: How do you treat PTSD when the trauma is still ongoing?

Yes, the world was terrible and terrifying and traumatic before the election. I don’t want to ignore that. But it’s a whole lot worse now...

And it’s harder to even want to fight my depression. It’s harder to want to peel back the numbing layers of cotton and fog, and really engage with the world.[10]

Christina also wrote:

I do not consent to this.

It’s January 20, 2017. It’s inauguration day. And I do not accept it.

That’s an odd phrase: “I do not accept this.” It can mean denial, refusal to acknowledge reality. Or it can mean resistance. I’ve been doing a bit of both: I’ve been sinking into work and organizing, and I’ve been sinking into escapist distractions. I’ll probably keep doing both. I can’t work all the time, I’ll exhaust myself. And I can’t let myself think too much, or for too long, about the world we’re in now. Especially not when I’m alone. I need my escapes into other worlds: worlds where people mostly treat each other decently, worlds where wrongs are righted.

I think I’ve read too much science fiction. There’s a part of me that keeps looking for the key to the alternate reality.[11]

American millennials, secular leftism, Trump's victory and therapy

See also: American millennials, irreligion, therapy and pseudoscience

In 2010, the Pew Research Forum reported concerning the millennial generation:

By some key measures, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans...

Compared with their elders today, young people are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition or to identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination. Fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular.” This compares with less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%), 15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older. About two-thirds of young people (68%) say they are members of a Christian denomination and 43% describe themselves as Protestants, compared with 81% of adults ages 30 and older who associate with Christian faiths and 53% who are Protestants.[12]

Peter Burfeind's article Millennials Are In Election Hell Because Politics Has Become Their God published in The Federalist indicates:

According to progressive faith, the “arc of history” always bends Left. Well, history just spawned Donald Trump, and if European political trends are indicative, this is not an isolated incident. For leftists, this is akin to if Christians woke up to find Jesus’ bones had been discovered. It shattered their faith.

The freak-out is especially acute among millennials. These are the “nones” and the “spiritual but not religious” bunch we’ve heard about the past decade. Millennials, we were told, didn’t abandon faith per se—can the human spirit truly live without faith?—they simply redirected it away from “organized religion” toward other things, chief among which was politics. I wonder how that’s working out for them.

As ridiculous and ubiquitous as the pathetically referenced “stages of grief” has become to explain how they feel about losing an election (!), the depth of leftist grief does magnify the essential religiosity they place on politics. Some reflection is in order.[13]

Thomas D. Willliams PH.D. wrote in his article Report: Atheist Millennials Trade Faith for Therapy:

In the absence of God or religious faith, many millennials are seeking meaning for their lives and an explanation of existence through psychological therapy, a new essay suggests.

Writing for Quartz, self-described atheist millennial Elizabeth King argues that for herself and countless colleagues, “therapy is our new church,” while noting that “many millennials grappling with the big questions in life want to work them out on a psychologist’s couch instead of a church pew.”

“Most of the people I know are in therapy,” she states.

The idea of psychology used as a substitute for religion is nothing new. Already in his groundbreaking 1977 book, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of self-Worship, Dr. Paul C. Vitz offered a stinging critique of the selfism that is central to the most popular psychological schools. The narcissism described by Vitz has reached its apex in the millennial generation, and thoughtful observers will find it unsurprising that many millennials would find psychological therapy to be a natural surrogate for religious faith.[14]

See also

External links

Notes

  1. Mainstream Media’s Trump Derangement Syndrome Epidemic by Steve McCann, American Thinker
  2. Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services, Marketwatch 2016
  3. Multiple references:
  4. Gordon Stein, Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, 74.
  5. Dealt a body blow, atheists and humanists regroup by Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service, November 9, 2016
  6. The Shocking Intolerance of Anti-Trump Liberals by Katrina Trinko, November 10, 2016, The Daily Signal
  7. The Crazy Left’s 4-Step Strategy To Ensure Trump’s Re-Election In 2020, By Daniel Payne JANUARY 20, 2017, The Federalist
  8. [Stop tolerating the intolerable] by PZ Myers, January 2017
  9. Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services, Marketwatch 2016
  10. Depression in a Fascist Regime by Greta Christina
  11. January 20, 2017: Refusing My Consent, and Grieving the World by Greta Christina
  12. Religion among the millenials, Pew Research Center
  13. Millennials Are In Election Hell Because Politics Has Become Their God by Peter Burfeind, The Federalist
  14. Report: Atheist Millennials Trade Faith for Therapy by Thomas D. Willliams PH.D. Breitbart News, 1 Oct 2016