People despised Nixon; they cheered or reviled Reagan, and they revered or dismissed Obama, but none of those responses comes close to the mania attached to Donald Trump. I mean the hate side, not the adoration. The former feeling and the cult it spawns dwarfs the latter. Liberals mock the idol worship they find among Trump's supporters, but while Trumpists smile and cheer and vote for the man, liberals abhor him with a passion three times as fierce. It's visceral, fanatical, knee-jerk. If nearly the entire psychology profession didn't suffer from the condition to greater or lesser degrees, it would be a likely subject for diagnosis, particularly given the unself-conscious way in which the victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome act out their animus. 

It doesn't occur to the diseased ones to ask why they can't get the Orange-Haired Man out of their heads. They hate him; they loathe him; they fear him . . . We get it nonstop; we hear them; they can't stop saying so. But the expression doesn't bring them any relief—not that we can see. Their exasperation only grows and sputters. Voicing what one feels deep inside is supposed to ease the feeling, to externalize it and let the anger, love, bitterness, joy, etc. flow, not be dammed up within. One of Freud's patients called it "the Talking Cure," when he asked her to speak, just speak of anything that pops into her mind, and she and other patients found that they did feel a little better once the session concluded.

But those with TDS don't. He lingers in their heads. Like a bad penny, he won't go away. Nothing that has happened has "disappeared" him. Jeb Bush couldn't beat him, nor could Hillary, the Mueller Team, Avenatti and Stormy, Vindman and House Democrats, or The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC. Not even the 2020 defeat, January 6th, and Liz Cheney's hearings have removed him from the body politic. If anything, the Mar-a-Lago raid will only ensure his continuance. Martyrs have sticking power. The prospect of Trump 2024 appears ever more likely, and if the inconceivable happened once (November 2016), it can happen again.