I think people just bring up TDS as a way to completely disregard anything that someone says. Or maybe that's just me projecting, because anytime I see a person claim that someone has TDS I immediately discount anything that they say as intelligent or worthy of engagement. They've already shown that they aren't willing to engage in good faith.
So do I, which is why I put this explanation here. It is especially odd given that Sam Harris is in most respects such a serious person who you'd think would be resistant to this but it might actually be the case that it is his seriousness which made him more susceptible.
Of course I understand that this is not what you meant but I'd suggest giving it a thought nonetheless.
I don’t know or care what your point is because I don’t take any argument that includes mention of or reference to “<something> Derangement Syndrome” seriously.
Psychologists do take it seriously even though they have as of yet not added it to the DSM. Here's a discussion on Psychology Today from 2019 [1] on the subject of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'. The conclusion was that:
The wider public may be unaware that psychiatrists and social scientists spend considerable time and energy behind closed doors pondering over the existence and reality of mental conditions. This has led the APA to revise the DSM five times since 1952, considerably expanding the list of official mental disorders with each revision. As far as I am aware, few psychiatrists are currently arguing that DSM-6 should contain TDS as a mental disorder.
That said, in its official definition of mental disorder, the DSM-5 states that "a mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior…mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities."
Many have argued that some people have been seriously disturbed and distressed by the policies, speech, behavior, and tweets of President Trump, so much so that it has affected their cognitive, affective, and behavioral functioning. Such people may need mental health support. As such, further research is necessary to investigate the extreme reactions toward President Trump, in the same way that researchers investigate other extreme social phenomena, such as Beatlemania or the like. This will shed light on the reality of this emerging folk category that has been labelled by many as "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Just to show where NPR stands it is enlightening to search for:
site:npr.org trump plurality
site:npr.org trump majority
versus
site:npr.org obama plurality
site:npr.org obama majority
Another good one is:
site:npr.org did trump win popular majority
versus
site:npr.org did obama win popular majority
If you don't feel like doing these searches I can summarise the results: when Obama won the popular majority that is what NPR proclaimed in virtual large print with embellishments. When Trump won the popular majority he received a plurality, not a majority vote. When the "democrat" wins NPR is euphoric, when the republican wins they are choleric. They are not a good source for political information due to their strong bias. This seems to be par for the course for 'public service' sources since the same is true for:
- Sveriges Radio (SR) and Sveriges Television (SVT) in Sweden, the national (tax-financed) public service broadcaster
- Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) in the Netherlands, a national (tax-financed) public service broadcaster
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the UK, a national (licensing-fee financed) public service broadcaster
In all cases these organisations have written into their statues that they need to be politically neutral. In all mentioned cases these statues are violated, in some cases (Sweden) they tend to be ignored. This has eroded trust in public service broadcasters and, by implication, the concept of public service.
Yeah he's a prime example of intellectual TDS. Funny that he just kind of transitioned from complaining about christianity to complaining about Trump. It's like it's some feature of his personality.
He sounds so tired all the time. I just opened up his most recent podcast, less than two minutes in Trump comes up.
