Trump Derangement Syndrome

The Washington Blade, the LGBT paper in the nation’s capital, is so distraught over the election of Donald Trump that it just declared 2016 to be the “worst year ever” on its cover. Worse for the gay community, mind you, than the deadliest year(s) of the AIDS epidemic; worse than when the Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick; and worse than when Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

More. What is it with those on the left declaring things are the “worst” ever—whenever they lose power. David Boaz on Worst Congress Ever? You Must Be Kidding.

17 Comments for “Trump Derangement Syndrome”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    The Washington Blade, the LGBT paper in the nation’s capital, is so distraught over the election of Donald Trump that it just declared 2016 to be the “worst year ever” on its cover.

    Snort. So the Washington Blade proves itself, yet again, to be part and parcel of media hyperventilation over this, that and the other.

    Worse for the gay community, mind you, than the deadliest year(s) of the AIDS epidemic; worse than when the Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick; and worse than when Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

    I notice that you don’t include the Bush/Rove/Mehlman anti-marriage amendments in your list. Odd. The Bush/Rove/Mehlman amendments forced us to focus on marriage equality, diverted resources from other battlers for over a decade, and drained many millions of dollars from our coffers before the amendments were declared unconstitutional.

    Offhand, I would have thought them worthy of mention, but I guess not.

    I came of age before Stonewall and I’ve participated in and/or been witness to the whole damned parade since.

    It was a long, hard fight, and the fight continues. We have much to focus on going forward.

    • posted by TJ on

      Politically, we have a possible case of the KGB rigging a Presidential election to help elect a man who moved the party of Lincoln towrades the party of Duke.

      In terms of popular culture. Well we certainly lost some celebrities this year, including some gay or allied ones.

  2. posted by TJ on

    Trump ran a campaign that wasnt just “politicall

    • posted by TJ on

      …”politically incorrect”.. It was David Duke-style pandering to hatred of immigrants, Jews and Muslims. It involved some of the meanest and viliest insults (a major party candidate) has said against veterans, women and the disabled.

      Trump turned the party of Lincoln into the party of Duke. That has gotta be depressing for lots of Democrats, Independents and R

  3. posted by Mark on

    Did you possibly consider the fact that the Blade might have been thinking beyond gay/lesbian issues and be concerned about the fate of the entire fucking planet? Because the elevation of Trump to the White House is the Worst Fucking Thing Ever in my lifetime.

    • posted by Robert H. on

      Worse than the holocaust and WWII?

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        Perhaps both those things happened before Mark’s lifetime? They were before mine.

        • posted by TJ on

          It was probably “worst year” for Americans – as it was an American publication.

          • posted by Robert H. on

            Worse than the Kennedy assassination? Worse than the Vietnam War overlapping the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.? Okay, worse than 9-11?

            So sorry your candidate lost. Boo hoo. Go to your safe space with your puppies, finger paint and play dough.

    • posted by Throbert McGee on

      Did you possibly consider the fact that the Blade might have been thinking beyond gay/lesbian issues and be concerned about the fate of the entire fucking planet?

      Okay, Mark, are you:

      (a) Some species of Christian millennialist who believes that Trump is the prophesied antichrist?

      (2) A puckish atheist doing a parody of Christian millennialists who believe that the Number of the Beast shall be six hundred threescore and six (but doesn’t believe this yourself)?

      (3) Someone who is secular but nonetheless subscribes to God vs. Satan and Messiah vs. Antimessiah?

  4. posted by Jorge on

    According to the article, the top 10 local (well, local) stories of 2016 include the opening of an African American history museum that includes several LGBT-related exhibits, diminishing support from the local police, and the Trump campaign courting gay delegates.

    Of national stories, Oregon became the first state to elect a bisexual governor (she was already in office after the previous governor resigned), legislatures drafted religious freedom restoration bills, the Pentagon allowed transgender people to serve in the military, Antonin Scalia died, North Carolina passed HB2, the Pulse nightclub massacre, and Trump won the election and nominated cabinet members, alarming many LGBT people.

    The only article that is explicit about how unrelentingly horrible 2016 was is its secondary opinion piece, written from the perspective someone who was part of the losing Clinton campaign. The tertiary opinion piece opens with the massacre in Orlando. However all three opinion pieces are explicit about there being a large amount of uncertainty for the LGBT community.

    I believe that to celebrate the election of Trump in these circumstances is to celebrate this chaos and uncertainty. Or as Charles Krauthammer put it in his column, “An Awful Choice, But He’s Worse”, “It took seven decades to build this open, free international order. It could be brought down in a single presidential term. That would be a high price to pay for the catharsis of kicking over a table.” (I happened to think Krauthammer rejected those Americans who were in danger of being “brought down” by the current political trends.)

    The same thing could be said about 2016 up to and including the election of Donald Trump in a way you can’t really say about the presidency of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.

    So I think the cover is justified. This has been a year of tragedy, opposition, and above all upheaval to a community that was winning the slow and steady game.

    • posted by Jorge on

      The same thing could be said about 2016…

      Obviously I mean from the perspective of gay rights, the LGBT community’s social clout, et cetera.

  5. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Out with the old (“Happy New Year. From the Obama family to yours, have a happy and blessed 2017“) and on with the new (“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!“). May your hopes for the new year be realized.

  6. posted by Houndentenor on

    Things are indeed pretty bad and Trump is terrible and so are his cabinet appointments. And after 8 years of birtherism (often led by Trump himself) and other efforts at delegitimizing Obama’s presidency, any complaints about how liberals talk about Trump is hilarious and hypocritical. Yes, it was a horrible year. Neither party has anything to be proud of after all that plus a lot of people I like a lot died. Horrible it was.

  7. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    “Trump Derangement Syndrome”?

    I took a look at the linked Washington Blade edition. The edition was a “Top 10” review of local, state, national, international, cultural, entertainment and other news affecting the LGBT community, and a few op-eds summing up various aspects of the year just ended.

    The President-Elect was prominently mentioned, of course (for example, “Trump Wins Election” was cited as the top national news story of the year) but certainly was not the focus of the edition, not by a long shot.

    So I wonder how that headline morphed in Stephen’s mind from relatively routine journalistic hype into “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

    Has Stephen fallen prey to the narcissism and self-absorption of the President-Elect, a narcissism and self-absorption that seems to posit “It is all about me …”, no matter what the subject? Did Stephen even read the Washington Blade edition he linked, or has he fallen prey to the hyper-sensitive reactiveness of the President-Elect, in which every possible slight must be beaten down immediately?

    I wonder, in fact, who has fallen victim to “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, the left/liberals or Stephen.

    I don’t know, but this post is odd, indeed, largely disconnected from reality, and I hope that it is not a harbinger of what we can expect from IGF in 2017.

  8. posted by Jorge on

    No I think Mr. Miller’s post is fair, too.

    There’s a difference between a healthy trepidation that leads to a certain marshaling of resolve and the foot stamping that has continued to characterize much of the reaction to the Trump presidency. It is a matter of character.

  9. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    What is it with those on the left declaring things are the “worst” ever—whenever they lose power.

    It’s not a “those on the left” versus “those on the right” issue, Stephen. It’s media hype. The media does it year after year after year.

    Try this as an experiment: Do an internet search on “NNNN Worst Year Ever”, inserting any year from 2000 to 2016 into the formula. Do it for any three or more years and you’ll quickly see the pattern.

    As an ad in the University of Chicago Maroon used to say back in the 1960’s, “Judith Types and Has a Memory”. The latter helps when assessing the present.

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