By Selwyn Duke

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,” goes the paraphrase of G.K. Chesterton, “but because he loves what is behind him.” This comes to mind when pondering the Democrats’ now long-standing electoral strategy: Hate President Donald Trump.

Then hate him some more.

Then keep hating him — with the passion of a thousand burning suns — until, hopefully, most other Americans join your hate-fest.

But as the Democrats try turning Trump into our Emmanuel Goldstein (from 1984), they’re left “without a plan of their own,” writes one commentator. It “often makes them look like hypocrites,” too.

What? I Said That?!

Conservative CNN pundit Scott Jennings noted last year that Trump has a superpower. He can get Democrats to oppose anything just by coming out for it. The aforementioned commentator, Ingrid Jacques, provides a fresh example of this, too: The capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Oh, she acknowledges, writing at USA Today, that opinions on the wisdom and rectitude of the arrest vary — among individuals. Yet with the Democrats they vary within the same individual. As Jacques writes, what

shouldn’t be hard to acknowledge is that Maduro terrorized his citizens and made a mockery of democracy by rigging his country’s elections. Venezuelans in the United States and around the world are celebrating what Trump did.

It wasn’t long ago that many top Democrats criticized Trump for not taking strong enough action against Maduro.

In 2020, for example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, chastised Trump for not ending the Maduro regime: “The president brags about his Venezuela policy? Give us a break. He hasn’t brought an end to the Maduro regime.”

In October 2020, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy from Connecticut quipped on social media: “The best thing that ever happened to Nicolas Maduro was Donald Trump. Trump’s Venezuela policy has been a total disaster, strengthening Maduro’s grip on power and frittering away any chance at a democratic transition.”

And then, not to be left out, then-candidate Joe Biden posted this to social media in June 2020: “Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro. As President, I will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy.”

Now that Trump has taken decisive action, Democratic politicians seem to have forgotten how horrible they once thought Maduro was.

Note, too, that the Biden administration itself increased the bounty on Maduro’s head to $25 million.

TDS for Me and, Please, for Thee

Of course, not all this office-holder opposition is true Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Much of it is just politics. As Jacques also informs, some “moderate” Democrats admit privately that the reflexive anti-Trump stance “looks weak.” But that they won’t say this publicly tells the tale:

The politics of it itself is driven by a deeper reality.

That is, millions of TDS-stricken, left-wing-constituent carnivores are demanding that politicians deliver a steady diet of anti-Trump red meat. (Ironically, too, many of these people are vegans.)

And what we call TDS is a fascinating phenomenon, one I’ve now experienced up close and personal.

Someone I know, who not long ago was a seemingly rational individual, has developed an acute case of TDS. Everything with him now is all Trump all the time; the president lives, as is said, rent-free inside his head. Amusingly, too, he will project and accuse those taking a rational view of being “obsessed” with Trump, of making him their “king.” As someone close to him has put it, it’s as if he’s “in a cult.” And what explains such behavior?

Etiology of a Pathology

We should first realize here that, in reality, TDS is neither new nor limited to Trump and his supporters. It is instead a very human phenomenon with a psychological basis.

Writing at American Thinker last week, commentator Rajan Laad provides a bit of relevant history. The “TDS” formulation was essentially originated in 2003 by late columnist and psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer. He spoke of Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), which, Laad writes, describes

opponents’ intense, often irrational reactions to George W. Bush’s presidency, defining it as an acute paranoia in normal people towards the President.

TDS is an intensification of it, of course, and it was apparent long before Bush. Why, the hatred the Left spewed at President Ronald Reagan in the ’80s was most striking.

Now, Laad had earlier stated (in 2019) that the anti-Trump cult comprised “hateful individuals.…” Trump is merely “the latest target suitable to vent out against with impunity,” he explained. Also realize that this hate’s intensification over time tacks along with our increasing moral decay. Simply put, Love is a virtue. And as virtue dies in the citizenry, hatred — and the number of hateful people — grows.

(Trump does fuel the haters’ fires, too. Pundit Bill O’Reilly, who regularly speaks with the president, referenced this habit in an amusing way recently. As he put it, Trump’s hobby, aside from golf, is annoying people he doesn’t like.)

Yet as Laad points out in his latest piece, not all TDS sufferers are perceptibly hateful. (You can read his theory if you’re interested.) Quite true. The one I know, for example, never previously showed any signs of hatefulness. So there is more to it.

How Love Trumps Hate

Now, it’s obvious that TDS cultists are clearly not what Chesterton would call a “true soldier.” They don’t fight for love of what’s behind them. Some may say this is because the Left has nothing to love. They’ve been conditioned to hate or be indifferent to America, the West, Christianity and, if they’re white, perhaps even their own race. Yet there’s more to it still.

One thing TDS cultists often share is actual or de facto godlessness. (My TDSer certainly qualifies.) This makes a difference.

Consider a person of faith’s ideal perspective (not everyone lives up to it). He believes in God and His Truth. And his love of Truth inspires him to defend it against what contradicts it: lies.

Now, it’s not just that this happy warrior fights for what he loves. It’s that his main focus isn’t on other people at all. It’s on Truth — which transcends man — and on lies. And the latter, if you believe in dark angels, you know can also exist apart from man.

Moreover, sound theology teaches that man is good by nature because he was made by God and for God. But his nature is fallen. He thus can’t be evil, but can do evil. Add to this that proper faith instructs you to love thy neighbor, and the picture is clear. You’ll strive to hate the sin (evil) but love the sinner. And, theoretically, were you to direct anger at other beings, it would be at the one who birthed the evil. Who would this be?

Well, in the theistic view, this would not be any corporeal entity.

(In practice, though, people of faith don’t usually hate the Devil, either. They just reject him and his works.)

The Other Worldview

In contrast, the godless will logically operate by Greek philosopher Protagoras’ formulation: “Man is the measure of all things.” Man creates “good” under their worldview — and “evil.” In fact, they fancifully conceive of “morality,” which they call “values,” as being determined by consensus preference. (My TDSer acknowledged this as his perspective.)

So in this thinking, the “sinner” (i.e., the conservative) hasn’t just fallen victim to what TDS cultists hate (pseudo-evil). As part of the family of man — which, again, determines “morality” — he plays the part of a demon.

He is responsible for the evil’s perpetuation.

If all these MAGA types ceased believing these things, the reasoning goes, evil would not exist. (Or, in the least, it would be highly mitigated.)

To conclude, it has been noted that when people don’t believe in God, they generally make something worldly their god. Rarely mentioned is that when they don’t believe in the Devil, they may make something worldly their Devil.

Under TDS-cultist thinking, Donald Trump is a purveyor of evil and their Devil. All those supporting him are his demons and, together, they’re responsible for our loss of Eden and movement toward perdition.

This article was originally published at The New American.