FORSETH – Trump Derangement Syndrome, yes or no? I say no

I RECEIVED a text message from a musician friend of mine that we’ll identify as D., who while not out and out saying so, questioned my negativity of U.S. President Donald Trump. This, is his message:

With Trump you have to ignore all legacy and social media reports – all of it is distorted by Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), a variant of the brain disease that afflicts most progressives rendering them impervious to logic, reason and empirical data.

You have to read his tweets; listen to him speak directly and listen to his press secretary. What you then find is policy positions that are quite reasonable, and which are simply his campaign platform being executed based on the strong mandate he received from the American people 10 months ago.

I challenge you Alan, a conservative, to provide one single Trump policy you disagree with and why?

To that I responded:

You won’t like what I have to say, but here goes.

Let’s start with his initial encouragement of thugs to storm the U.S. capitol in Washington after he lost the 2020 election; he was encouraging the overthrowing of a democratically elected government …

In the middle we have all the individuals (all Kool-Aid drinkers to Trump’s ego) who have little to no experience in their portfolios (including numerous Fox News talking heads)

He rambles inanely most days spewing out and out lies and falsehoods — and as for his press secretary — my name for her is Bimbo Barbie, and it is well earned

He has unfairly hit our country with punitive tariffs — especially on our resources … and once again illegally hit our softwood lumber with duties that are likely to finish the job of driving B.C. forestry into the ground

 

His thugs in ICE have literally kidnapped U.S. citizens … ripped individuals from their families … thrown the agriculture industry into chaos … never mind his inhuman Alligator Alcatraz.

Then there’s the latest — encouraging the State of Texas to gerrymander boundaries to favour the Republicans.

His ego knows no bounds, which is why he has surrounded himself with people who will not, under any circumstances, question what he does or says.

You will, I am certain, disagree with everything I have said, however, I remain firm in my belief he is tearing democracy apart in the USA.

It didn’t take long for D. to respond, saying:

A strong majority of Americans backed him as the best person for the job – it’s his prerogative to appoint his team. They have a mandate to execute his policy which they are doing, including rooting out and cutting govt waste, deregulation, ending DEI, and deporting illegals involved in criminal activity and securing the border.

His tariff policy is principled; if you want access to the biggest and most affluent market in the world you can have it, but he wants the U.S. to have full access to yours as well.

Bimbo Barbie is misogynistic and offensive – gross – surprised you’d go there Alan.

We could have continued to have this back and forth go on, but there really wasn’t going to be any changing the mind of either of us, so I let be and ended by simply saying we’d have to agree to disagree.

One thing, however, that I will never back down from is my belief that he is a vile and despicable individual … and despite the Americans electing him, I believe they had no idea how far he was prepared to go in stoking his own ego and ramming through his agenda.

For that, I feel sorry for them.

Alan Forseth is a Kamloops resident. For 40 years he has been active, in a number of capacities, in local, provincial and federal politics, including running as a candidate for the BC Reform Party in the 1996 provincial election. He is secretary of the Conservative Party of B.C. He blogs at Thoughts on BC Politics and More.