Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerard Baker "diagnosed" himself on Monday with a severe case of "TDS" — or "Trump Derangement Syndrome," a derogatory term MAGA supporters use for anyone they believe just hates Trump for the sake of hating him.
This wasn't always the case, Baker said. For most of Trump's political career, "I’ve found much that is repellent in the man’s character and rhetoric. But whatever his shortcomings, it seemed clear to me by 2016 that the country had, through years of bipartisan failure and the transformative effects of a malign cultural revolution, reached a point where radical change was needed." Even January 6 didn't change this, he said, since he believed American institutions had survived and rejected his worst impulses.
Now, however, wrote Baker, I have "not one malady but three: as my condition has steadily progressed over the last year from Trump disappointment syndrome through Trump disillusionment syndrome to a full-blown case of Trump dismay syndrome."
When Trump won another term, wrote Baker, he had a simple mandate: just control the border, bring down prices, get "wokeness" out of the government, and avoid foreign wars. That's not what happened.
"Thanks to a self-indulgent tariff fixation based on a profound misunderstanding of international economics, an insouciance about public finances that has widened the deficit, and a reckless military adventure that has choked off global energy supplies, inflation and interest rates are higher than they were in November 2024," he wrote. As a result, "we now have gasoline prices 30% higher than they were two years ago, diesel 60% higher, and the average mortgage rate nearly a percentage point higher, adding more than $2,000 a year to a typical home buyer’s interest cost."
Even Trump's efforts at the border went wrong, wrote Baker: "The unnecessarily cruel and indiscriminate approach has caught many in its dragnet who shouldn’t be treated that way and is fundamentally un-American," and it resulted in the GOP seeing their improvements among Hispanic voters wiped out in time for the midterms.
Now, he wrote, Trump has engaged in reckless "caesarism," trying to stamp his name and sensibilities on every monument in D.C., while renaming bodies of water and trying to bully foreign powers into U.S. annexation.
"Instead of seizing an unrivaled opportunity to shift America off the path of progressive endangerment, the GOP risks handing it back to the Democrats and their own obsessions," Baker concluded. "It’s enough to give anyone a case of Trump derangement syndrome."