The "Annex Canada" Stuff Is A Test And You're Failing
It's Going To Be A Long Four Years
The first time I heard the term “TDS”, I had the same thought as many of you probably did: “hey, that’s the SuperStation!”. But it turns out that TDS stands for Trump Derangement Syndrome, and the SuperStation is actually TBS (is it though?). For those who haven’t encountered this phrase before, “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was and is a favorite of the online right, lobbed at anyone who objected to one of The Donald’s many, many batshit moves. And since this term originated from a group that is, generously speaking, an undulating hideous mass of human tumors - it’s understandable that many (myself included) rejected it out of hand. But with the reality of a second Trump term rearing its filthy head - and after Americans had a nice long break from DJT’s bullshit - people on the left are exhibiting behavior that I can only describe as Trump Derangement Syndrome.
[Obama Voice] Let me be clear, [back to normal voice] I think everything Trump is saying about his intentions for the next four years is ghastly. I vehemently oppose mass deportations, I think his plans to crash the economy are uhhhh…unwise, and I certainly think it is dumb as shit to attempt to annex Canada. All of these things (and many more he has proposed) suck immensely - but many of you are acting like you weren’t here last time Trump was president, and it’s giving you a mean case of TDS. Trump is a threat to our country, certainly, but his real talent is sucking all of the air out of the room with his absurd rambling promises and declarations (aka “flooding the zone”) while the senior leadership of the GOP does the really fucked up stuff. Trump’s wild plans rarely (if ever) come to fruition - but Mitch McConnell’s plans…that’s another question. Mitch’s stuff seems to work out a lot, especially when everyone is freaking out about some moronic Trump shit.
During his first term, Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a border wall (they didn’t), that he would purchase Greenland (he didn’t), that America would hold a grand military tank parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (never happened), and that we would declare the moon official US territory (definitely didn’t do that). He talked about invading Venezuela, using “heat rays” on immigrants, building a snake-filled border moat, and nuking hurricanes as they approach the coast of Florida. You are welcome to google any of these but I promise you that he said them all, and that none of them ever got off the ground (even a little bit). Trump is at his core a TV clown, and he knows instinctively just what sort of clown show will keep the audience fully engaged with the performance. But while he’s out there dancing and singing and keeping everyone in hysterics, the rest of the GOP is under the bleachers stealing your wallet and setting the benches on fire. None of the things I mentioned above ever got gained any traction during the first Trump term - but much of the standard GWB-style Republican agenda did. There were massive tax cuts for the wealthy. There was immense deregulation of the most destructive corporate industries. They appointed unapologetically right-wing Supreme Court justices to lifetime terms. They passed military spending increases of hundreds of billions of dollars. There is really no distinguishable difference between Trump’s White House and any of his conservative predecessors - this one just has more dumbshit clown stuff to keep you in your seats.
What’s really crazy to me is that this kind of bait-and-switch approach to politics works not only on Trump’s opposition, but on his base as well. While Trump tells his knuckle-dragging fans that he is going to conduct “the largest mass deportation in history”, the GOP (and Trump) have no real intentions of making that happen. Biden deported more people than Trump did during his first term. Trump has already sided with Silicon Valley on the H1B visa program. He has promised to end foreign wars while drastically increasing defense budgets. He promised a border wall that almost assuredly will never ever fully exist or work. The whole “Make America Healthy Again” stuff he promised the RFK wing will absolutely never, ever happen - that could cut into Big Ag’s profits, after all. Nothing he pledges can ever be taken seriously, even if you are his most ardent supporter. You will never be able to pin him down, never able to put baby in a corner.
In the end, it’s a fool’s errand to focus on Trump more than the GOP itself. Trump is an entertainer at heart, and America loves an entertainer. He is preternaturally talented at gauging the winds of public opinion and anger, and constantly shifting his own purported views to keep in line with those things. You will never be able to denounce him into being unfunny. You will never be able to pin him into a corner about something he said - because he will just claim he was joking, he was just throwing out some early ideas, or that you got your information from fake news. Trump is a singing, dancing distraction - keeping everyone’s attention trained on his hectically-improvised routine while the ghouls in the Republican party do the evil, unpopular things they have always endeavored to do. The next four years will be filled with tons of absurd Trump promises, from annexing Canada to invading Ireland on behalf Israel to Seal Team 6 assassinating Greta Thunberg. They will also be filled with (trifecta-holding) GOP attempts to pass all the most evil conservative policies imaginable. I hope we are able to recognize which of these two are the more dangerous, and apportion our attention accordingly.