In the previous issue of Uncommon Sense (Issue 349), I offered a few observations about what has come to be known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. I suggested that TDS is not the same thing as reasoned disagreement over policy or character. It is something else entirely—less analysis, more emotional convulsion.
In this issue (Issue 350), I’ll revisit the subject briefly. And briefly means briefly. I have no desire to develop a cottage industry around the topic and then be accused of harboring my own fixation. It’s interesting. It’s just not that interesting.
Recently I thought of an acquaintance—a “Facebook friend,” which is to say someone I don’t actually know but who reliably appears in my digital living room with strong opinions. I recalled that Daryl Acumen posts with impressive frequency about Donald Trump. So I conducted a modest experiment. I reviewed his last thirteen consecutive posts to see how often Trump appeared and what Daryl had to say.
Below is a baker’s dozen of those posts, listed from most recent to oldest. My only edits were minor grammar corrections and light censorship of profanity.
Post #1 (dated February 21, 2026): “Mike Lee is a fraud! His reaction to Donald J. Trump’s irrational and unconstitutional tariffs proved it. I regret ever having voted for him. I will never make that mistake again. Beware of Republicans claiming to be ‘constitutional conservatives.’”
Post #2 (dated February 21, 2026): “In his press conference today, Donald J. Trump said he wants to use the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 to help make America great again! Damn this man is stupid! You can’t make this sh*t up.”
Post #3 (dated February 20, 2026): “FACT: Donald J. Trump never took economics, yet thinks he is smarter than every economist since Adam Smith.” [NOTE: the statement that Donald Trump never took any courses in economics is patently absurd – and false. Mr. Trump studied at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where both economics and finance were staples; while I don’t have access to Trump’s transcripts, it would have been impossible for him to graduate from Wharton without taking economics or economics-related courses while studying there.]
Post #4 (dated February 20, 2026): [Quoting Donald Trump] “’…there were a lot of questions about tariffs because no president was smart enough to use them to protect our country from those countries and businesses that were ripping us off.’ Is it just me or did this brainless jackass really just say he’s smarter than Ronald Reagan?”
Post #5 (dated February 20, 2026): “I just finished reading the transcript of Donald J. Trump’s incoherent, rambling press conference today after the SCOTUS ruling killing his idiotic tariffs and something hit me. I was trying to figure out who the President sounded like. It was so familiar and I couldn’t place it for the longest time…then it I realized who it was and it struck me like a bolt of lightening! Donald Trump sounds just like Howard Hughes did in his rambling instructions to the Mormon Mafia just before he died. If you’ve read the book Hughes, which includes extended excerpts from his diaries, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Hughes was in a drug-induced haze and was descending deeper into madness when the diary entries were made. They sound exactly the way Donald Trump did on the podium today.”
Post #6 (dated February 20, 2026): “I promise you that not a single MAGA nutball read this in today’s SCOTUS opinion…but every conservative in this country who claims to love ‘liberty’ should have!”
Post #7 (dated February 20, 2026): “OOPS!!! Donald J. Trump is guilty of the exact same kind of ‘mortgage fraud’ his justice department accused Tish James of committing!”
Post #8 (dated February 20, 2026): [After posting an article titled Utah Supreme Court declines Legislature’s request to block new congressional map]: “The State Supreme Court rules as well.”
Post #9 (dated February 20, 2026): [Quoting Donald Trump] “’[United States Supreme Court Justices Barrett, Kagan, Roberts, Jackson, Gorsuch, and Sotomayor] are just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats…they’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.’”
Post #10 (dated February 20, 2026): “If you think Donald J. Trump is competent to be President, I can’t take you seriously anymore.”
Post #11 (dated February 20, 2026): “FACT: I have never in my life seen a politician, Democrat or Republican, in fiction or reality, as completely incompetent as Donald J. Trump.”
Post #12 (dated February 20, 2026): [Statement in reference to a Press Conference with President Trump and reporters after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the matter of tariffs]: “This press conference was an embarrassment!”
Post #13 (dated February 20, 2026): “I just finished watching the President’s press conference. I can’t believe that ANYBODY could support this man. I’m dead serious: if you still think this country is in good hands under Donald J. Trump, you are either insane or you are not paying attention. Something is seriously wrong with this guy. We were better off under Biden, and Biden had dementia! I’m not sure what Donald Trump has, but he’s clearly not mentally competent.”
After reviewing these thirteen posts across two days, one conclusion becomes unavoidable: I am sure what Daryl has: It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome.
To summarize, Daryl Acumen believes the following about President Trump:
Out of thirteen posts over a two-day span, twelve—92 percent—were anti-Trump broadsides. According to Daryl, the President possesses precisely zero redeeming qualities. None. Zilch.
When someone can produce thirteen consecutive condemnations without a single acknowledgment—however begrudging—of anything positive, we are no longer in the realm of policy disagreement. We have crossed into fixation.
And here is the part that makes it sociologically fascinating: Daryl considers himself a staunch Republican.
TDS does not check party registration. It is bipartisan. It spares no ideology. It turns political opposition into monomania. When nearly every public utterance reduces to the same target, over and over, day after day, we are not witnessing civic engagement. We are witnessing obsession dressed up as virtue.
Trump may be many things to many people. But if he occupies 92 percent of your mental real estate, the diagnosis writes itself.
And that, my friends, is the latest elephant in the room.
